Visiting Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, the villa built by artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, a wealthy Chicagoan, is a classic experience. The property, originally owned by Bartlett’s father-in-law, Hugh Taylor Birch, also a rich Chicagoan, is now a tropical haven of green and 1920s eclecticism fronting the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Tour the kookily charming house, full of Bartlett’s artworks (and those of his second wife, Evelyn Fortune Lilly (also a Chicago heiress and artists) and get a glimpse into how the moneyed set played in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Ceilings are painted with fun murals, there are shell mosaics over walls and framing doorways and the entire quirky, breezy mansion is a charmer.

Plus, you can also speculate on the sexuality of both Bartlett and his father-in-law Birch, who both seem a bit just arty and eccentric enough to raise eyebrows. Also the gardens are full of roaming iguanas – and monkeys! A great half-day folly.

Admission is $20.