Skip to main content

Fort Meyers

 Naples and Ft Meyers, Florida

After a few days staying in the middle of the Everglades, a bit of a change to stay at the KOA Campground in Naples / Marco Island on the southwestern coast of Florida.  We had a small site right near the pool. 

The sites were a bit close together, and our neighbors were a bit noisy late at night, but that is part of campground life...   for better or worse.

Cape Romano 

In 1979 Bob Lee, a retired businessman built a house consisting of a set of four domes on a the small Morgan Island near Marco Island.  The story we were told was that he built the house as a vacation
house, but also to be the anchor point for a new island development off Marco Island. 

The new development that would need  bridge from the larger island.  Seems that as the world progressed, the increased emphasis on natural areas reduced the likelihood that the bridge would ever be built. 

The Domed home laid idle, passed hands a few times until Hurricane Andrew in 1992 when the interior of the domes were destroyed, never to be rebuilt.

The Cape Romano Domes (as they are called today) remain an eyesore to some, a symbol of a new age to others, and a curiosity to most folks like us who take a nice chartered sightseeing boat ride to collect shells and look from across the beach at the dome oddity.


We took a small charter boat from Marco Island, through the Mangroves, passed some dolphins, saw a large number of sea birds, and hunted for shells on the nearby beach.  And yes, we brought some shells back as souvenirs...  

Edison and Ford's Winter Homes

Thomas Edison maintained a winter home in Fort Meyers and convinced a good friend, Henry Ford to join him during the cold northern winters in sunny Florida.  Edison had a second laboratory so he could continue his work on developing technology, movies, recordings and the incandescent light bulb among his thousands of inventions.  Henry Ford visited the Edisons and purchased the home adjacent to the Edison winter estate.


. The Edison house is believed to be the first prefabricated house in history, built in pieces in Maine and transported to Fort Myers onboard schooners. Pilings from the original pier are still visible extending out into the river.


 And what Florida home would be complete without a swimming pool?









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 Florida Keys    Off to the primary destination of this trip...   The Florida Keys...   Marathon, Key West and the Dry Tortugas...  Places that we have been looking forward to seeing for the past few years...  The best destination for our first major trip!! But on the way down, we had to stop at the " Robert is Here " fruit stand.  A special fruit stand that was founded in 1959 when a young boy started selling fruit on a corner in Homestead Florida...  Still active today and well known in the media it is a great stop on the way to the Keys.   Just a little bit out of the way, but well worth the slight detour.  Famous for their exotic fruit, milkshakes and... we particularly like the salsa...   great salsa...   Marathon We based our Keys exploration out of Marathon, and stayed at the Jolly Roger RV Resort , right on the sea wall.  A great site!!   And some great sunset views from the trailer!!!     Key West And, of course the ultimate destination was Key West...  and the furth
Post a Comment
Read more
 Saint Augustine - For the second time... On the way south, we stopped for a couple of days in Saint Augustine Florida for a second time... we wanted to complete a couple of stops that we missed on the first time, and needed a convenient place to stop for a rest...  Long trip!    We stopped at the Stagecoach RV Park, and had a nice full hookup, pull-through site... We did get a chance to climb the St. Augustine lighthouse on this stop...  The plan was to get there early in the morning (fewer people, and cooler)!!  And in spite of the COVID mandatory mask rules, we successfully climbed all 219 steps...   The St. Augustine Lighthouse was the first Florida Lighthouse and currently stands 165 feet tall.   Today's lighthouse was constructed in 1874 to replace the first lighthouse, known as the the Old Spanish Watchtower that fell into the ocean in 1880 (not an uncommon demise for lighthouses built on sandy soil near the ocean). And had a great view of St. Augustine!! We had heard report
Post a Comment
Read more