Edison & Ford Winter Estates: Part I

Southwest Florida has a long history of harboring people from cold northern winters. Thomas Edison, the famed inventor, found his way to Fort Myers where he bought property along the bank of the Caloosahatchee River in 1885, the same year the city was incorporated. Edison and his wife Mina built a home together to share with family and friends.

This statue of Edison stands in front of a ficus bhengalensis ‘banyan tree’.

Harvey Firestone gave Edison the tree in 1925 when it was only four feet tall. Today the banyan tree covers about an acre of land. At the time, Edison along with Firestone and Henry Ford were researching various botanicals for a domestic source of rubber.

The banyan tree is known as an epiphyte, a plant that grows on other plants or structures, sending roots down to the ground where the roots then grow  into multiple trunks.

Crinum asiaticum - ‘Tree Crinum’

Behind this beautiful perennial with its gorgeous flowers is Edison’s Seminole Lodge Guesthouse.

Another shot of the guesthouse behind royal palm trunks with the main house behind it. Deep porches surround both dwellings creating a cool environment for a time before modern air conditioning.

This petrea volubilis ‘Queen’s Wreath’ vine grows on the pergola that connects the two dwellings.

These two very old podocarpus, covered in Spanish moss, frame the walkway up to the back of the main house.

Mina created the Moonlight Garden in 1929. Designed by Ellen Biddle-Shipman, a renowned landscape architect of the time, the bright flowers and pool were intended to reflect moonlight.

Edison’s Little Office sits next to the garden on the original location of his laboratory. The laboratory was moved north to Ford’s museum in Dearborn, MI in 1928.

On the property is a cycad garden. Cycads are often confused with palms or ferns due to their evergreen pinnate leaves. They tend to be male or female, were prevalent during the Jurassic period and can live for hundreds of years.

Dioon edule (male) with old cone.

Encephalartos bubalinus with new cones.

Dioon spinulosom - ‘Giant Dioon’ (female)

Dioon spinulosom - ‘Giant Dioon’ (male)

Encephalartos horridus xlongifolius - ‘Ferocious Blue Cycad’

Join me next time as I tour more of the estate grounds and see the Florida State tree-a cabbage palm, a Mysore fig, a 1929 Ford Model A, and get a glimpse of Henry Ford's winter retreat The Mangoes. You can find out more about the Edison & Ford Winter Estates here.