Orlando, Florida

                       November - no, December 3, l935
Dear Sis:
We've really been cheating on you the last ten days -
willfully and maliciously withholding news of great
interest, but only because the final seal of official
approval was lacking.

We've bought a house!  Yes, a house and eighteen acres
of land - or twenty-two if you want to include our
equity in a small lake. The place is a green-eyed honey
- colossal - superb - breath-taking - whole gamuts (may
a gamut be pluralized?) of emotions piled on top of one
another by experienced gamut-pilers would only reach to
the ankle joint of our collective enthusiasm.

The property is situated near the little hamlet of
Gotha, ten miles out of Orlando on one of the rare
swell local roads. Back in 1929, a Dr. Nehrling,
curator of the Milwaukee Museum and distinguished
commentator on American bird life, purchased this
property, sight unseen. He was a rare character and
before his death in 1929 he had become one of the
foremost authorities on plants suitable for
introduction in Florida. He was known throughout the
civilized world for his many horticultural discoveries.
Our place was his place and here he experimented with
literally thousands and thousands of various forms of
plant life.

He embodied all the physical and spiritual
characteristics which we would wish to associate with a
leader in any field. Tall, heavily built, kindly and
benign of countenance, he earned the love and affection
of everyone who came in contact with him.

Here at Gotha he introduced many of the plants which
today do much to relieve the monotony or the Florida
landscape.  From 1890 until 1917 he planted, inspected,
rejected until the property became the meeting place
for eminent horticulturists from all over the world,
who came to marvel at this man-made garden of
loveliness. In 1917 Florida experienced a devastating
freeze which killed many of his choicest rarities. It
must have been a heart-breaking blow to see the labor
of so many years wiped away in a single night, even
though his sorrow was tempered with a scientific
detachment, enabling him to examine with interest the
results of the acid test of his plants' hardiness by a
temperature in the low twenties. Nevertheless, he
determined to remove to Naples on the East Coast of
Florida (strangely enough, this is the town where
Cousin Speed has made his home for so many years).
Incidentally, the latter knew the aging Doctor very
well. There in Naples Dr. Nehrling continued,
against almost overwhelming obstacles, his work of
experimentation. Naples is supposedly a much more
tropical spot than Gotha but he had a good deal of
difficulty with the soil and other factors - chief
among then the boom of 1925-26., the loss or his
position and home and constant friction with his second
wife - a no-count character by all accounts


                                  2-


You may think I ramble at too great a length over the
old Doctor, but you can't get any inkling of the
property unless you have some idea of the man behind
it, who must have been the living epitome of the more
kindly characteristics of nature itself. In 1929 he
died at Gotha and the work of indiscriminate pillaging
began. Palms and rare shrubs with values mounting in
the hundreds of dollars were moved out wholesale, some
by actual theft, others were sold by the widow. Finally
the place itself was sold and allowed to go, as mother
would says and doubtless will, "to wrack and ruin".

Three years ago a Mr. Wheeler purchased the property,
for the proverbial song, I suspect. Fortunately for us,
he is a lover or flowers and nature, and while his
finances did not permit him to rehabilitate the place
in any degree they did prevent further gutting or this
horticultural treasure trove, He installed a family of
"crackers" in the old house as a deterrent to night
marauders. They in turn allowed their chickens the run
of the place and you can picture the scene that greeted
us as we turned off the main road past the broken gate
down the moss-hung avenue of cedars. It was a tangled
wilderness, but the fundamental and indestructible
beauty of the place was apparent immediately.

A factor vastly important in the picturesqueness of the
property is that there has never (I'm almost afraid to
use such an all inclusive negative lest the gods
overhear me) been a fire in the woods since he (the
doctor) purchased the land.  You don't realize how
important that is until you have been down here. Almost
the entire state has been burned and re-burned, and
much of the original character of the flora and fauna
has been destroyed. The ignorant "crackers" used to
purposely set the woods ablaze so they could shoot the
terrified wild creatures as they fled from the flames.

As to the physical dimensions of the place: we bound
the main road (main in name only - it's macadam but
not heavily traveled) for 1432 feet. The house sets back in
the property and is invisible from the road because of
the dense planting. On the north the line extends west
front the road about 728 feet, if I remember correctly,
and on the south the property line is several hundred
feet shorter because of the lake. Actually, however,
the line extends into the lake, ours to have and to
hold. The type of land is what is known as high pine -
Gently rolling and, as the noun indicates, the native
haunts of the turpentine pine, magnificent trees
soaring a hundred or more feet up into the sky. These
are the only trees that antedated the Doctor's
occupancy with the exception of a few live oak; all the
others were planted by him or have grown wild during
the last few years of neglect. Magnolias with huge
shiny leaves abound in variety, and scattered
throughout are the lovely remnants or his collection of
tropical palms. I can't begin to name the trees,
because I've never seen any or them before. It's very
nearly like being

                                 -3-
transported into another world, more particularly when
you walk hundreds of feet through mysterious a11eys
shaded by huge specimens of bamboo - more than fifty
varieties still flourishing, according to Mr. Wheeler.

Sis, it's a find in a million. When we were first taken
to the place we walked the length and breadth of what
we thought was the eight acres described in the
advertisement and since the man from the real estate
office (who was pinch-hitting for a fellow salesman who
knew the details concerning. the property) didn't know
any better than we about the boundaries of the place we
wandered over considerably more than the eight acres
indicated in the ad.

I must digress here a minute. How we found the place.
Sunday evening, the night before we were to leave for
our farther journeying south, Dad, as usual) was
conning the want ad section or what the natives publish
under the mistaken impression that they are producing a
newspaper. Well, he found a three-inch ad written in
somewhat gummy prose, extolling the virtues of the
highland hammock. Hammock is what they call this type
of land that is heavily covered with trees. It mildly
caught our interest and we rather negligently allowed
that we'd run out and look at it in the morning, before
parting.  We very nearly parted without the peek but
since Hugh, who is always called by his full title by
mother, our "chauffeur-cook", had a little work to do
prior to loading.the car, we telephoned the real estate
office and arranged to go out that Monday morning.

The advertised price for this treasure - eight acres of
it- including house, guest house (by courtesy only
until it is repaired) and garage (not even by courtesy)
and privy (unmentioned) was $3,750. That didn't sound
high and we all immediately commenced browbeating the
figure down to three grand. Now to pick up the tangled
threads of my story - isn't it swell? - The eight acres
we had thought we had seen turned out to be nearer
thirty. When I say "walked over", I'm wrong -you can't
get through any of the place except on shadowy Indian-
like trails, save for a rough path down to the lake
from the house. Upon further inquiry the price for the
block consisting of the property that had been the
Doctor's prior to his death - the block that we now
possess all eighteen acres of - was $7,000. No! No! was
our unspoken complaint of disillusionment.
 Disillusionment? Pooh! We were so hot after it that we
again mentally pared the price until we all
telepathetically arrived at five thousand. That's what
the figure turned out to be, except that the sum was to
be cash, not mortgage.

We didn't let you know because there were so many
things standing between us and this Utopia, if you can
so describe a situation that will permit a good sized
tree to grow out of the back steps. Not that there was
really much uncertainty about our

                                -4-

achieving our ends from most angles - such as to just
where the money would come from and how it would be
paid - but these items required thought and seeing
people and plenty or just standing around, As it was,
we delayed our departure south for a day and a half,
keeping Hugh disconsolately hanging around, dreaming
visions of Miami where every darker is a king and
cocoanuts grow in the streets, They do too, but the
darkeys still live on the other side of the main line
or the Seaboard Air Line, as Hugh found out. When we
did leave for the south, even though every-thing was
almost fixed up there were many details that weren't
completed until today. Even as it is we haven't paid
the money for it but we have plenty of fancy contracts
and the other impediments of real estate dealings.

The house is without improvements. I am attaching a
rough sketch or its present exterior from the front
and, if my good intentions hold out, the back likewise.
Downstairs in the main body of the house are three
rooms; a large sitting roan with fireplace and two
smaller rooms, one to be a bedroom and the other to be
converted into a bath. No stairs in the house inside -
that fascinates me - they're out on the back porch.
Upstairs, another large room corresponding with the
size of the sitting room below and two other small
rooms, to be converted into bedroom and bath
respectively. Upstairs porches front and back, likewise
downstairs. Adjoining the main house and connected by
porch and porch roof is a wing containing dining roan
and kitchen, both large. A very attractive layout.
Behind the house is the guest house, used by the Doctor
as his study, I believe. This could be made into a
guest house or two good sized rooms and bath with but
few alterations. The main building needs practically no
exterior alterations to make it a thing of beauty - a
home of the Monterey type. On the inside, everything
has to be done.  We went to an architect with a maximum
of $2500 clutched firmly in our minds and nearly fell
over dead when we returned on last Monday to find that
he was equally firmly adhering to a fifty-eight hundred
dollar restoration job - and mind, this is no complete
job. Well as the situation is now, we'll not go ahead
until we can find a more sympathetic mind reader. He's
capable all right, but as you know we just haven't the
money.

Here are our plans. The place is to be my home.
Farewell, rock-bound North?  I shall raise all manner
of quaint and curious living things and become very
famous. After the first of the year Mother, Dad and I
will turn our faces southward, as too many people have
said before, and arrive here around the tenth of
January. We will rent some small house either in Gotha
or in Orlando while repairs are being made to our
house. Plenty of water available through wells but it
must be brought into the residence. Likewise light. No
heating - we'll have to cower around the single hearth
for warmth. Electricity is cheap here. We'll use that
for refrigeration, heating (water) and cooking,
likewise pumping the water. After we get settled, when
the minimum amount of repairs have been made to make
the house habitable
                                       5

Dad will uproot himself and come North for a time.
Mother will remain. With the exception or our early
return nothing is definite.

There is an unholy amount of work to be done. Fully
a year's time will be required to bring some sort of
picturesque order out of the shaggy chaos. Even the
lake needs trimming - it must be about 20-40 acres
large, I don't know much about judging infant's sizes
in lakes. It is full of fish - bass. It also was the
home of an alligator, size fourteen and one half feet,
but since speeded to his heavenly reward by some
hunter's rifle. Be of good cheer, the "crackers" avow
that there are smaller ones. They won't eat you,
however, although they might make a lethal pass at
Teddy Pup, your canine crown of thorns. There must be
four acres of pretty fine low lying muck land (they
call it muck - it looks like sand to me, all the
country is sandy down here) around the marge of the
lake - fine for plants and vegetables.  There is,
strangely enough, no fruit on the place, well, almost
no fruit. Mother looked so unhappy after finding that a
single grapefruit represented our share of the citrus
industry that I braved the perils of our jungle (yes,
there are snakes) and found two stalwart and self-
sufficient orange trees bearing heavily.

Oh, one other thing - regarding the discrepancy of
size in the property. Our place accounts for twenty-
two, or, to be exact, 18 of the land acres mentioned.
We found out that there was a piece of five acres that
belonged to a gentleman named Soop, so help .me, on the
south. He paid a thousand dollars an acre for his and
may build some time. Boom time purchase. I don't think
he'll build - he's old and he likes Miami where he
spends his winters, far from his Rochester home. We may
be able to get it some time- not Rochester, God forbid!
Another plot of undetermined size is the cemetery for
Gotha - all the names (a tiny handful) are German, as
one might infer from a settlement with the name of
Gotha. That undoubtedly influenced Doctor Nehrling to
settle there, although he was born in the. United
States. And lastly there are a few odd small plots of
land, foot frontage stuff, on the county road, all
undeveloped and probably liable to remain so. Gotha
couldn't have more than seventy-five or a hundred
people in it. After we found out that Soop's property
was unobtainable we didn't worry about what was on the
other side or it - i.e. what turned out to be the
cemetery and the village lots. Gotha has only one store
and a postoffice and a school. Opposite our place is a
large undeveloped piece of high pine scrub land. All
the other places on our road are in grove with the
exception of twenty acres in pine. No houses on any of
the places, just grove.

Dr. Nehrling, among his other labors, compiled
voluminous records about plant growth and possibilities
of acclimatization
                               -6-

of foreign plant forms in central Florida, as
represented by Gotha, and southern Florida, as
represented by Naples. Many of his valuable notes have
recently been published in a swell book called "The
Plant world in Florida", edited by two people in Palm
Beach and published by MacMillan in New York. It's a
big book, and what a grand thing for me to have a
handbook that actually deals with the property that I'm
going to work on! Many of his other writings have been
published from time to time in scientific papers and in
a crack-pot newspaper published by some esoterics on
the west coast who believe that we are living on the
inside or the world. Don't worry, they're really pretty
sane on most subjects and turned to Doctor Nehrling for
horticultural assistance in their colony. Dr.
Fairchild, one of America's most distinguished plant
enthusiasts and scientists, has his original notebooks.
I aim to ask to see them after I get settled.

I've probably forgotten some important details and
loaded this top-heavy outpouring of horticultural
enthusiasms with inessentials for your better mind
picture of the place. What I've missed we'll all be
able to tell you soon, probably all at the same time,
when we get home. Doesn't it all sound great?
          Love to you all.
                               Devotedly
                                        Jugi