Bonnet House restaurant proposed on Intracoastal

FORT LAUDERDALE The Bonnet House is so hungry to preserve its history it might add a waterfront restaurant to help pay its bills.

The historic property stretches from the ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway a few blocks south of Sunrise Boulevard. It has applied for a federal permit to allow a 427-seat restaurant and four-slip dock along the Intracoastal on the southwest portion of the estate.

Bonnet House has a letter of intent from a restaurateur interested in building on the property, CEO Karen Beard said, but the idea is in the preliminary stages and a final decision could be years away.

What isn't in doubt is the increasing cost of upkeep for the museum and gardens on the site.

"It's just a hugely expensive property to maintain," Beard said. The house and buildings are nearly 100 years old.

The restaurant operator would build the establishment and make lease payments for using the site. The permit application says the interested individual "has years of experience operating a similar concept in Palm Beach County." Neither the application nor Beard revealed the operator.

Fort Lauderdale pioneer Hugh Taylor Birch gave the land to his daughter Helen and her husband, artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, as a wedding gift in 1919. Helen died in 1925, and Bartlett married Evelyn Fortune Lilly in 1931.

Evelyn Bartlett continued wintering in the home after her husband died in 1953 until a few years before her death in 1997 at age 109. She was insistent on preserving the estate from development and deeded the property to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation in 1983, with the proviso she could keep living there.

While the deed prohibits most development of the property, it allows for a restaurant on the western portion if the trust "has exhausted all other reasonably available means for raising funds" to operate, maintain and preserve the site.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently reviewing a permit application needed for the construction. Public comment is being accepted through Friday, April 10. Comments should be submitted to the District Engineer, Palm Beach Gardens Regulatory Permits Section, 4400 PGA Blvd., Suite 500, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33410.

Continue reading here:
Bonnet House restaurant proposed on Intracoastal