Happenin’
Places › Florida › Southwest Florida › Edison and Ford Winter Estates
Edison and Ford Winter Estates

Photo: J. Miers (Jtesla16) / CC BY-SA 3.0

Attractions

Edison and Ford Winter Estates

Fort Myers, FL · Southwest Florida$$Adults $28, teens $20, kids 6 to 12 $15

About

Thomas Edison built his winter home here on the Caloosahatchee River in the 1880s, and Henry Ford later bought the bungalow next door so the two friends could tinker side by side. The grounds hold the laboratory where Edison tested thousands of plants searching for a homegrown source of rubber, alongside a botanic garden Mina Edison filled with orchids and a moonlight garden meant to be walked at dusk. Out front spreads a banyan tree planted in 1925 from a sapling the size of a walking stick, now a grove of aerial roots covering most of an acre.

Highlights

Largest banyan tree in the continental USEdison botanic research labRiverside historic homesOrchid and moonlight gardensEdison Ford museum

Getting there

2350 McGregor Blvd., Fort Myers, FL 33901

Related places

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens Attractions

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens

Naples, FL · Southwest Florida

The boat ride at Naples Zoo runs past islands where the lemurs and apes live, and one admission covers more than one ride. The islands sit in lakes Julius Fleischmann dug in the…

The Dali Museum Attractions

The Dali Museum

St. Petersburg, FL · Tampa Bay$$

A free-form geodesic bubble of 1,062 glass triangles, called the Enigma, erupts from an eighteen-inch concrete block built to ride out a hurricane, and it rises about…

Henry B. Plant Museum Attractions

Henry B. Plant Museum

Tampa, FL · Tampa Bay$

Six silver minarets crowned with crescent moons rise over Tampa's riverfront, the unmistakable signature of the 1891 Tampa Bay Hotel that railroad man Henry Plant built to lure…

More in Southwest Florida

Others worth the drive in this corner of Florida.

All of Southwest Florida →
Lee County Manatee Park Gardens & wildlife

Lee County Manatee Park

Fort Myers, FL · Southwest Florida$

The canal at Lee County's Manatee Park is warmed by cooling water from the Florida Power & Light plant across the street. Manatees come in once Gulf water drops below 68 degrees…

J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge Gardens & wildlife

J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge

Sanibel, FL · Southwest Florida$

On Sanibel Island, the refuge's Wildlife Drive runs one way for 4 miles with a 15 mph limit, and you can bike or walk it as well as drive. Go at low tide on any day but Friday…

Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Gardens & wildlife

Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Naples, FL · Southwest Florida$$

Corkscrew's 2.25-mile boardwalk, half an hour northeast of Naples, passes through a 700-acre stand of old-growth bald cypress. Some of the trees reach about 130 feet, hung with…

Bowman's Beach Beaches

Bowman's Beach

Sanibel, FL · Southwest Florida

The quarter-mile walk from the lot to Bowman's Beach, on Sanibel's western end, crosses a footbridge over Clam Bayou, where you might spot a manatee or an alligator. People come…

Cayo Costa State Park Beaches

Cayo Costa State Park

Boca Grande, FL · Southwest Florida$

A 30-minute boat ride from McCarthy's Marina on Captiva Island puts you on Cayo Costa's nine miles of white-sand beach. It's day trips only, and the island has no drinking water…

Naples Beach Beaches

Naples Beach

Naples, FL · Southwest Florida

Naples Beach is 10 miles of white sand on the Gulf. The stretch by the pier is steps from the shops on Third Street South. The pier dates from 1888 and is being rebuilt after…

Part of these collections

Florida Attractions44 places

Florida Attractions

The big Orlando parks are all here, for the first trip. So is the rest of the state, for the one after that.