12/27/2022 0 Comments Moonlight garden![]() Why did Mina change her mind? I don’t know. However, we know that she made a change and hired a prominent garden designer to create a moonlight garden in the space. The sources I read tell me that she, initially, laid out the rectangular space into 24 small geometric plots. The Reflecting Pool with Mina’s favorite Tea Cart Mina added Edison’s favorite climbing bougainvillea. Henry Ford, his friend, and seasonal neighbor offered to build a pretty white and green trellis to enclose the space while letting the river breeze drift through. Her gift to him when he returned to Florida, was this spacious study, a single-roomed, gray building with a small front porch and a rectangular garden accessed through the rear door. At the end of the day, a pleasant spot to enjoy the last cigar! By this time in his life, his diet, due to various digestive issues consisted primarily of milk and cigars. With this place, he could work, read and think. She thought the bit of land adjacent to this new little building (where the former laboratory stood) would make a fine garden space for him to relax. The One Room Study from the Front is in the Lower Right ![]() It would be a stand-alone building on the grounds of Seminole Lodge, their winter home, private but accessible to the 21 acres of palm-shaded landscape he loved along the Caloosahatchee River. Mina had a perfect idea to build a combination study and small chemical laboratory. Thomas needed a comfortable place where he could continue to work, but at his own pace. She was a daughter of Lewis Miller, an agricultural inventor and a founder of the Chautauqua Institute, which continues to be an important center of education for Americans today. Mina Miller Edison, his much younger second wife, was a builder, an idealist, and an improver. He held over 1000 patents, never filing less than a patent a year for 60 years: the phonograph, a workable electric light bulb, the first commercial power station the list goes on. ![]() Thomas was always searching, always learning, and still creating. He was someone who worked all his life, starting his first enterprise at age 12. Thomas was, after all, Life Magazine’s “Man of the Millennium.” Thomas Edison Statue-In his Ficus Grove ![]() It was resurrected at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn MI, for posterity to enjoy. He was 82 years old, the laboratory he worked in every day along the river in Ft. In 1929 Thomas Edison, a man who changed everyone’s life got the gift of a small change from his wife. At The Edison Ford Winter Estate, Fort Myers Fl A Historic American Garden gets a Makeover and Returns to its Roots ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |