The whimsical Bonnet House sits on 35 acres that were gifted to Chicago artist Frederic Clay Bartlett and his wife, Helen, in 1919 as a wedding gift from Helen's father, Hugh Taylor Birch. Both artists, the couple began building the house in 1920 to serve as a winter retreat where they could both work. Development of the house became sporadic following Helen's death in 1925, but embellishment of the estate resumed upon Frederic's second marriage in 1931. His second wife, Evelyn Fortune Bartlett, lived in the house after Frederic's death in 1953. She later gifted the house to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.