McKee Gardens

The McKee-Sexton Land Company was established in 1932 to preserve an 83- acre tropical hammock along the Indian River in Vero Beach, Florida. This is where the history of today’s McKee Gardens begins.

Arthur G. McKee and his good friend and business associate Waldo E. Sexton where pioneers in the development of Indian River County, and both men also shared a love of horticulture. They chose to preserve this hammock instead of developing it as an orange grove. For several years the hammock was used to experiment with plants, nursery houses and lily ponds, but in 1932 McKee and Sexton decided to create a landscaped botanical garden attraction on the site.

William Lyman Phillips of the famous Olmstead Brothers firm was engaged as the consulting landscape architect and Winton Rainsmith the on-site architect along with McKee and Sexton created an amazing attraction, known as The McKee Jungle Gardens.

By 1940 there were more than 100,000 tourists visiting the jungle gardens each year to marvel at the exotic rubber trees, Amazon lily pads large enough to support a small child, Chinese fan palms, orchids, Lilies of all colors and sizes, plants from around the world. There was the Spanish kitchen that cooked 100 steaks, rosin potatoes, and swamp cabbage as the staple McKee meal and the hall of giants that is home to the “world’s largest mahogany table” a 35 foot solid piece of wood. Yes for 30 more years the gardens continued to attract and amaze.

Then in the early 1970’s competition from new large scale attractions caused attendance to dwindle and by 1976 the gardens closed its doors for the last time. As a result 65 acres of the land was used to develop a condo community and golf course and the remaining 18 acres lay dormant for many years until finally the Indian River Land Trust launched a campaign in 1994 to raise funds to purchase the property in 1995 to save it from commercial development. Indian River Land Trust

As a result of the love and labor of the Vero Beach community along with state and private grants McKee Botanical Gardens has become once again a place of great exotic beauty and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is endorsed by the Garden Conservancy as a project of national significance.

Today McKee Gardens is a haven for painters and nature lovers, with its pathways and ponds full of colorful lilies, and quiet benches to sit and ponder. It is also home to the first permitted, engineered giant Bamboo structure to stand in the United States. The bamboo known as guadua came from Colombia SA where it was built disassembled and shipped by boat to Florida and rebuilt on site.  The thatched roof was made using traditional methods used by the Seminole Indians of this region.

To learn more about its history and its plans for the future and all McKee Gardens has to offer please visit their website. And if you’re in the area come share the beauty, grab a shady spot on a bench perhaps under a 200 year old oak and do a little pondering of your own.