Audubon House and Tropical Gardens

Audubon House & Tropical Gardens


Location	205 Whitehead Street Key West, Florida
Coordinates	24°33′30″N 81°48′22″W / 24.558316°N 81.806117°W / 24.558316; -81.806117
Type	History
Website	www.audubonhouse.com

The Audubon House & Tropical Gardens is located at 205 Whitehead Street, Key West, Florida.

Brick-pathed gardens offer a lush 1-acre (4,000 m) view of orchids, bromeliads, and other tropical foliage, an herb garden and 1840-style nursery.

The house has many antique furnishings purchased from estate sales and auctions in Europe.

The house contains 28 first-edition works of the famous ornithologist John James Audubon. Audubon visited the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas in 1832 and left Key West having sighted and drawn 18 new birds for his "Birds of America" folio. It is believed that many of those drawings were conceived in the Audubon House garden. Also, Audubon's painting of the white-crowned pigeon features the Geiger tree found in the front yard of the house.

The Audubon House Gallery, separate from the main house features a unique collection of 19th century original Audubon art and a comprehensive selection of John James Audubon's images.

History

History of Key West
Part of a series on the
The Seal of Key West represents the Conch Republic in the island's culture
Landmarks African Cemetery at Higgs Beach USS Amesbury Key West Aquarium The Armory (Key West) Audubon House and Tropical Gardens Captain Tony's Saloon Key West Cemetery U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, Key West Station Ernest Hemingway House Fogarty Mansion (Fogarty House) Eduardo H. Gato House Key West Heritage House Museum and Robert Frost Cottage Key West Historic District Key West Bight Key West Lighthouse Mallory Square Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum U.S. Naval Station (Key West, Florida) Pan Am Dr. Joseph Y. Porter House Old Post Office and Customshouse (Key West, Florida) Sloppy Joe's Southernmost House Thompson Fish House, Turtle Cannery and Kraals Truman Annex Harry S. Truman Little White House Veterans of Foreign Wars Walter R. Mickens Post 6021 and William Weech American Legion Post 168 West Martello Tower Fort Zachary Taylor Notes that a majority of this list contains sites that have been added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places or as a U.S. National Historic Landmark
People Conch (people) Henry Flagler John Geddes (politician) Ernest Hemingway Winslow Homer Indigenous people of the Everglades region José Martí Vicente Martinez Ybor Matthew C. Perry Mel Fisher Carl Tanzler Harry S. Truman
Topics Sinking of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha Key West Street Car Company The Great Fire of Key West (1886) Isaac Allerton (shipwreck) Overseas Railroad Overseas Highway Wrecking in the Florida Keys 1935 Labor Day hurricane Cubana de Aviación Flight 493 Key West Agreement Mariel boatlift Conch Republic Hurricane Wilma
Timeline Pre-history, until 1513 Spanish Rule, 1513–1763 British Rule, 1763–1783: American Revolutionary War, 1775–1783 Spanish Rule, 1783–1821: War of 1812, 1811–1814 U.S. Territorial Period, 1822–1845: Florida Wrecking Act, 1823 Federal Wrecking Act, 1825 Statehood, 1845–present: Fort Zachary Taylor, 1845 Ordinance of Secession, 1861 Civil War, 1861–1865 East Gulf Blockade Squadron, 1861 States
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The house was slated for demolition in 1958, but was saved by the Mitchell Wolfson Family Foundation, a nonprofit educational institution. This was the first restoration project in Key West.

The Audubon House Museum & Tropical Gardens was established in 1960 by Key West native, Colonel Mitchell Wolfson and his wife Frances. They invested $250,000, with celebrated architect and developer Alfred Milton Evans and his sons Harry, John, Alfred Evans who restored the Audubon house using building techniques of their father Sidney Evans, a known big ship builder. The Evanses' 2-3 story estate houses dot the Key West landscape and can be recognized by their customary circular wooden accents and grand multi-poled verandas. Alfred Evans used a special shipbuilding technique of gradually bending the wood for circular archways and stairways. Most of Key West's landmark homes were built by The Evanses, who lived in a grand 3-story home on 716 Olivia in Old Key West, a few doors from Ernest Hemingway's home, whose book Old Man in the Sea was inspired by his experiences in Key West and the Evans family. The Evanes restored the three level Captain's home, which was built in the American Classic Revival architectural style of the mid-1800s. The home was originally built by Captain John Huling Geiger, who was Key West's first harbor pilot. Captain Geiger raised many children in the house, and planted beautiful tropical vegetation on the property. It was the beautiful plants which drew Audubon to it during his visit in 1832. Audubon took cuttings from the plants growing on the property, and used them as backgrounds in many works, including the White crowned Pigeon, which has the "Geiger tree" in the background.

This was the first restoration project in Key West and is still considered the gem of the island's restoration movement. Antique enthusiasts who tour the house appreciate the unique quality of the furnishings, which were typically found in a prosperous Key West home in the 1800s.