Perched on one of the highest points of peninsular Florida, surrounded by hundreds of acres of orange groves, palm trees, ferns, great oaks and a 15 feet deep moat is this rather stunning centrepiece, a soaring 200 foot pink marble tower.

[F]ounded in 1921 [by] Dutch immigrant Edward W. Bok, editor of the popular women’s magazine Ladies Home Journal. [He] was spending his winter at the nearby Lake Wales Ridge and thought it would be the perfect place to create a bird sanctuary on its highest hill.

Attempts were made to introduce flamingos to the sanctuary several times, but efforts proved unsuccessful because the birds couldn’t survive the colder winters of central Florida.

Instead, swans swim around the tower’s moat today.

I want this apparently rarified membership just so I can climb to the top and scream, “Come to me, my flying monkeys! Come to your new master!”

Well, that and all the books. In the secret library on the top floor. Dedicated to the esoteric subject of…bells.

Photos by Bok Tower Gardens.
Via Messy Nessy Chic for the full fascinating article, including many more photos.