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https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cap-s-place-island-restaurant

This lively seafood joint is a relic of an especially colorful period in Florida’s history. Opened in 1929 by Captain Theodore Knight, a.k.a. “Cap,” the restaurant helped raise folks’ spirits during Prohibition. (The fact that Cap was a rum runner certainly helped.)

Cap’s Place quickly became a popular spot for both gambling and memorable seafood suppers. The original name of the restaurant was Club Unique, and built out of a stripped barge that Cap bought for $100, it certainly lived up to this title. After the barge’s cabin and machinery were removed, and some enclosed structures were added on, Cap and his team had themselves a proper gathering spot, which they eventually docked on an island off Lighthouse Point in Broward County.

From the beginning, the restaurant served up some interesting dishes, including a hearts of palm salad—made from Sabal Palm trees imported from the Ever­glades—and Turtle egg pancakes served with seagrape jelly. While the menu these days is a bit less adventurous, there’s still a focus on only the freshest native fish, which can be broiled, deep fried, blacked Cajun style—you name it!

Thanks to its seedy charm, Cap’s Place has drawn in many notable guests over the years, with Joe DiMaggio, George Harrison, and the Vanderbilt family all entering the storied barge. The most surprising visitors, however, were Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who arrived at Cap’s in 1942 while staying in Hillsboro Beach for secret war conferences.

Though it no longer contains slot machines or a Wheel of Fortune by the bar, it’s easy to picture the restaurant’s history as an illegal gambling den when looking up at its pine ceiling beams or ordering a drink at its one-of-a-kind bar—made of Everglades bamboo and polished wood from the decks of ships. Newspaper clippings and photographs on the walls document the restaurant’s past, and you’ll encounter many other antique curiosities, including a Spanish galleon’s bow-sprit behind the bar.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cap-s-place-island-restaurant

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hillsboro-inlet-lighthouse

In 1855, the Army Corps of Engineers determined that the Hillsboro Inlet—a connector between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean—was a hazardous passage for ships. However, due to a lack of funds, Congress did not authorize construction of a lighthouse here until 1901. Five years later, the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse was built in Detroit and shipped 4,000 nautical miles to illuminate the inlet.

With a height of 147 feet, the lighthouse is one of the tallest on the East Coast, and stands apart from others with its distinctive iron skeleton framework and cast-iron roof with a finial. The lower third of the structure is painted white, while the upper two-thirds and the lantern are painted black. This scheme was chosen to aid sailors’ daytime visibility: The lower portion’s white stands out against trees, while the upper black section contrasts with the sky.

The Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse’s second-order bivalve Fresnel lens was one of the most technologically advanced of its time when it was added to the lighthouse in 1907. It weighs a whopping 3,500 pounds and is made of 356 glass pieces that form a large diamond. In this way, the original vaporized kerosene lamp used for the lighthouse could refract and create a horizontal beam across the ocean. Today, Hillsboro Inlet’s lens is one of the few Fresnel lenses still actively rotating.

Also important to the lighthouse’s original construction was a mercury bath, which was used to float and rotate the massive lens. However, numerous dangerous spills during hurricanes eventually led lighthouse keepers to replace it with a ball-bearing rotation system. The keepers themselves certainly had ample reason to want a change, as tending to the bath over time gave many of them mercury poisoning.

Since 1997, the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society (HLPS) has been the steward of this beloved beacon, showcasing its history through educational events and public access tours. The society also succeeded in restoring and repairing the original Fresnel lens, now reactivated inside the lighthouse. Visitors to Hillsboro Inlet can stop by the HLPS Museum in Roy L. Rogers Family Park to learn even more about the lighthouse’s rich past.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hillsboro-inlet-lighthouse

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-bonnet-house-museum-and-gardens

Artist Frederic Clay Bartlett established Bonnet House in 1920 on a stretch of pristine oceanfront land that is one of the last remaining examples of a native barrier island habitat in South Florida. For decades, Bartlett and his wife, Evelyn Fortune Lilly, spent their winters here, embellishing the home with an eclectic array of paintings, sculptures, and antiques. Lilly herself took up painting in 1933, and today her works are displayed in the house’s Carl J. Weinhardt Gallery.

The Bonnet House property encompasses five distinct ecosystems: the Atlantic Ocean beach and primary dune, fresh water slough, secondary dune, mangrove wetlands, and maritime forest. In addition to this variety of wildlife, the site contains a Desert Garden, which presents an equally diverse array of greenery, from arid plantings to a hibiscus garden and a tropical courtyard.

Due to its unique ecological conditions, Bonnet House is home to several rare tree species, including Rangpur lime trees, which originated in India but were brought to Florida in the late 19th century. You can also find Sapodilla trees (native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean), mango trees, and Ear trees—flowering members of the pea family that are known for their ear-lobe shaped seed pods.

Though Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma significantly damaged Bonnet House’s grounds in 2005, a major replanting project in 2008 restored much of the tree canopy. To help preserve the estate’s aquatic ecosystem, community members have worked to remove invasive species and clean up detritus buildup in the waterways.

Today, visitors to Bonnet House Museum and Gardens can paddle board or kayak through the tranquil waters of its Coconut Cove. On this wetland voyage, you’ll find migratory birds, wetland waders, and even the occasional manatee swimming in the Boathouse Canal. It’s also not uncommon to see raccoons, iguanas, or even a monkey while strolling along the estate’s lush trails.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-bonnet-house-museum-and-gardens