\u201cWhat I love about that story is that Bonnet House is a museum. I think, in general, people tend to think of it as a place for adults, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s a place for kids. It\u2019s a place for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why the 35-acre subtropical estate and historic house museum, at 900 N, Birch Road<\/a>, commissioned the documentary \u2014 to get the word out about this \u201chidden\u201d treasure nestled between Fort Lauderdale beach and the Intracoastal Waterway.<\/p>\n Frederic Clay Bartlett, an artist and self-taught architect, created\u00a0Bonnet House in 1920<\/a> on land given to him and his wife, Helen Louise Birch, by her father, Hugh Taylor Birch. It is one of the last remaining examples of South Florida\u2019s early 20th-century waterfront estates and, over the decades, has become a mansion-mix of art, nature and architecture \u2014 thanks in large part to Bartlett\u2019s next wife, Evelyn Fortune Lilly. (Pop culture note: The estate served as the finish line for Season 7 of CBS-TV\u2019s \u201cThe Amazing Race\u201d in 2005 and the site of a cocktail party on Season 22 of \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d in 2018.)<\/p>\n Back in June, the historical documentary short aired on South Florida PBS<\/a> stations. Then in late September, there was a private-party premiere at the AutoNation IMAX 3D Theater in Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Museum of Discovery and Science.<\/p>\n Now, after a special showing on Oct. 31 during Bonnet House\u2019s Halloween Fest<\/a>, the 27-minute film will \u2014 for a limited time \u2014 become part of the regular visitor experience, serving as the final stop on both self-guided and guided tours.<\/p>\n Filming for \u201cHidden in Plain Sight\u201d started in April 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started discovering more and more little links in the whole chain of historical events,\u201d Linero said. \u201cAnd it really started telling itself. This is one of these magical stories; it\u2019s there to be told. You just have to have the right circumstances and the right cooperation and collaboration. It\u2019s a story of human drama, of several generations of people that had marriages and widowed and had children, but were artistic. And there were ups and downs, but through it all, the Bonnet House survived, and it\u2019s an incredible story.\u201d<\/p>\n The South Florida Sun Sentinel had the opportunity to learn more about \u201cIn Plain Sight\u201d and Bonnet House\u2019s plans during a Q&A session with:<\/p>\n \u2022 Frank Linero (director, editor and producer)<\/p>\n \u2022 Neil Goldberg (producer, Bonnet House board member and former Cirque Dreams<\/a> owner\/producer)<\/p>\n \u2022 Patrick Shavloske (Bonnet House CEO)<\/p>\n \u2022 Jim LaBate (Bonnet House board co-chair and one of the film producers)<\/p>\n Sandy Dolan<\/p>\n The courtyard of Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, which is nestled between Fort Lauderdale beach and the Intracoastal Waterway. (Sandy Dolan\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n Q: What\u2019s the significance of that title?<\/p>\n Linero: As we went deeper and deeper into the production process and pre-production, and then as we started filming and capturing the content and discovering all this wealth of historical assets that existed, the story just kept coming up on its own. It was this incredible jewel that is hidden here and most of our community doesn\u2019t even know about it, let alone people from outside the community. \u2026 It\u2019s hidden in plain sight. You know, once anyone goes there for the first time, they all say, \u201cHow could this have been here and I never knew about it?\u201d That\u2019s where that came from.<\/p>\n Shavloske: It\u2019s kind of a paradox too because \u2026 when the Bartletts lived here and it was a private home, being hidden like that was a wonderful thing. They had this little Shangri-la that they could enjoy every winter. But as a public museum, that\u2019s a sticking point for us. More people need to know we\u2019re here, more people need to know what a resource we have and what\u2019s behind the walls.<\/p>\n Bonnet House Museum & Gardens<\/p>\n Bonnet House mascot ambassador Bonnie Gator and Neil Goldberg, one of the filmmakers, at the premiere at the AutoNation IMAX 3D Theater in Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Museum of Discovery and Science. (Bonnet House Museum & Gardens\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n Q: How did the idea of a documentary come about?<\/p>\n Goldberg: It was almost two years ago, and we\u2019re talking about the beginnings of a capital campaign because we want to expand, grow in popularity and attendance. And there was an architectural firm that was making a presentation. Part of their presentation was a really rich, in-depth history of the house and the family, and even one of the architects spoke of when he was in college, he did a thesis and some work about the architecture and the evolution. [There] was so much that I had not known that I went to Jim right afterwards and I said, \u201cThere\u2019s a bigger story here. It needs to be told, and I\u2019d like to tell it.\u201d<\/p>\n Q: Was there a through line that you felt should be in the film?<\/p>\n Goldberg: We wanted the house to be the star of this film. We wanted to give it a voice. We wanted it to tell a story in the beginning of what people were going to see, and we wanted the house to leave its lasting thoughts as to what Bonnet House is to South Florida and can become in the future as people support it.<\/p>\n Q: What makes Bonnet House so unique?<\/p>\n Linero: To me, the logistics of building that structure in a time where there were no bridges to the beach, to the barrier island. I can only imagine in the early 1900s how much more difficult everything was. Imagine building a mansion like that on the beach now, let alone back then. It was just a huge undertaking, yet it ended up being a very understated, subtle, beautiful place. It wasn\u2019t anything gaudy. That fascinated me. They couldn\u2019t get all this cement and bricks over. So most of the bricks that the structure\u2019s made out of are from the sand and the brackish water from the swamp there. So it\u2019s really cool stuff like that.<\/p>\n Shavloske: You can really say the Bonnet House grew directly out of the barrier island. It\u2019s built with the materials that were available on-site. Something else that I think I would add is the people\u2019s story behind Bonnet House and the Bartletts. You know Frederic Bartlett was a collector of art as well as an artist in his own right, and there are pieces of artwork that are in the United States today that even someone who isn\u2019t particularly an aficionado of art, they would recognize the paintings. They\u2019re that iconic. So like \u201cA Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte\u2019<\/a> by [Georges] Seurat, that\u2019s in the United States because of Frederic Bartlett. So he was pivotal in bringing some incredible works of art to the United States and spent time here in Fort Lauderdale. I would venture to guess that 99% of the people who live in Broward County have no idea that this person \u2014 who had such an impact on art in the United States and the growth of art museums in the United States \u2014 lived right here in Fort Lauderdale for at least part of the year.<\/p>\n Q: We\u2019ve talked about Bonnet House\u2019s past, what about its future?<\/p>\n Shavloske: As a historic house museum, sometimes you can fall into the trap of being static. Even Mrs. Bartlett said in her oral histories, \u201cI don\u2019t want it to change.\u201d And there\u2019s a lot of that we always will have to honor and be true to. We need to, and there\u2019s value in preserving historic structures. But we have to be more to the community than just a static structure. We believe there are opportunities out there that can bring locals to Bonnet House on a more regular basis for education purposes, for entertainment purposes, recreation purposes. The idea was that Bonnet House would be a cultural center \u2014 and culture is more than just history and a static art display. It\u2019s really embracing a variety of entertainment, art forms, and integrating into the community so that we\u2019re no longer hidden in plain sight. We\u2019re, in fact, front of mind for people.<\/p>\n LaBate: More than 50% of our annual attendance comes from visitors to Broward County. We\u2019re right at the top of the visitor experiences in Broward County. So when we look at where we need to go in the future, as Patrick mentioned \u2014 cultural, education, all of these things \u2014 we\u2019re going to be looking at this with an eye to bring the locals back to the Bonnet House again and again and again.<\/p>\n Bonnet House Museum & Gardens<\/p>\n Lynn and Jim LaBate, one of the film producers, during the documentary short’s premiere at the AutoNation IMAX 3D Theater in Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Museum of Discovery and Science. (Bonnet House Museum & Gardens\/Courtesy) David Warren<\/p>\n The eastern facade of Fort Lauderdale’s Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. (David Warren\/Courtesy) Bonnet House Museum & Gardens<\/p>\n The audience at the IMAX premiere of \u201cBonnet House Museum & Gardens: Hidden in Plain Sight” in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, Sept. 29. (Bonnet House Museum & Gardens\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one is 100% sure, but Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Bonnet House may have gotten its \u201cbonnet\u201d because alligators used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,104,28,249,251,250,114,109,106],"class_list":["post-420395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-social","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/TFL-L-Bonnet-House-Courtyard-by-Sandy-Dolan-01.jpg\")
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Filmmakers Frank Linero and Neil Goldberg with images from the documentary short, \u201cBonnet House Museum & Gardens: Hidden in Plain Sight.” (Kayla Linero\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n![\"Lynn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/TFL-L-Bonnet-House-In-Plain-Sight-IMAX-premiere-P2-Lynn-and-Jim-LaBate-01.jpg\")
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