Edison and Ford Winter Estates

	Thomas Edison Winter Estate and Henry Ford Estate
	Henry Ford's winter home
Location	Fort Myers, Lee County, Florida
Built	1886 (Edison Estate); 1915 (Ford Estate)
Added to NRHP	August 12, 1991 (Edison Estate); September 8, 1988 (Ford Estate)

The Edison and Ford Winter Estates contain a historical museum and 17 acre (6.9 hectares) botanical garden on the adjacent sites of the winter homes of Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford beside the Caloosahatchee River in southwestern Florida. It is located at 2350 McGregor Boulevard, Fort Myers, Florida, USA. It is open daily from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, including Sundays.

History

The present site dates from 1885, when Edison first visited Florida and purchased the property to build a vacation home. This structure, completed in 1886 and dubbed "Seminole Lodge", served as a winter retreat, laboratory, and work place until Edison's death in 1931. Edison’s good friend Henry Ford purchased the adjoining property in 1915 where he built "The Mangoes". In 1947, Mrs. Thomas Edison deeded the property to the City of Fort Myers in memory of her husband for the enjoyment of the public. It was opened for public tours in 1950. By 1988, the adjacent Henry Ford winter estate was purchased and opened for public tours. In 2003, the governance of the site was transferred by the City to a new non-profit corporation, Thomas Edison & Henry Ford Winter Estates, Inc. (dba Edison & Ford Winter Estates, Inc) whose mission is to protect, preserve and interpret the site and future growth and development. The new corporation successfully completed a $10 million restoration project in 2006. A separate fundraising arm, Edison-Ford Winter Estates Foundation, Inc., was created to assist the restoration project with no function in governance, programming or development but rather to assist the governing board with the initial restoration.

Gardens

Edison's botanical garden contains more than a thousand varieties of plants from around the world, including African sausage trees and a 400-foot banyan tree given by Harvey Firestone in 1925. It was originally an experimental garden for industrial products. Later Mrs. Edison gave the garden an aesthetic turn with plantings of roses, orchids and bromeliads.

At present the collections include: Acalypha hispida, Arenga pinnata, Artocarpus heterophllus, Billbergia sp., Blighia sapida, Bougainvillea glabra, Bougainvillea spectabilis, Calliandra haematocephala, Canage odorata, Cattleya hybrid, Cattleya sp., Chorisia speciosa, Citrus sp., Clerodendrum speciosissimum, Cordyline terminalis, Cycad sp., Dendrobium, Dombeya sp., Epidendrum ciliare, Ficus auriculata, Ficus benghalensis, Ficus saussureana, Hibiscus schizopetalus, Holmskioldia sanguinea, Ibosa riparia, Ixora chinensis, Kilgelia pinnata, Leea coccinea, Malvaviscus arboreus, Musa sp., Parmentiera cereifera, Plumbago capensis, Solandra nitada, Spathoglottis plicata, Tabernaemontana corymbosa, Tecoma stans, Thunbergia erecta, and Tibouchina semidecandra.