Orange County museum program traces rise, reinvention and legacy of Cypress Gardens
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Summary
At a lunchtime talk, Jeremy Heilman of the Orange County Regional History Center surveyed Cypress Gardens’ history—from its 1930s founding and iconic water-ski shows to ownership changes, the 2003 closure and the site’s later redevelopment as LEGOLAND—highlighting preserved botanical features and archival holdings on display.
Jeremy Heilman, assistant curator of collections at the Orange County Regional History Center, told a lunchtime audience the story of Cypress Gardens, the winter-season attraction in Winter Haven that helped define Florida tourism for decades.
Heilman said the attraction traces to the Pope family and early promotion work that combined horticulture with showmanship. He described how the gardens grew into an extensive botanical collection—“it would eventually grow to 200 acres and nearly 8,000 different types of plants,” Heilman said—paired with water-ski exhibitions that became the park’s most recognizable draw.
The lecture reviewed varying dates tied to the park’s opening: Heilman cited a January 24, 1935 dedication, a March 1935 ribbon-cutting, a winter-season opening on Dec. 29, 1935 and noted some contemporary sources list Jan. 2, 1936 as the formal opening. He asked the audience for corrections, stressing the differing primary sources in circulation.
Heilman discussed the park’s use of federal relief during the Depression, saying Cypress Gardens used Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) assistance early on to clear canals and create paths but that FERA support was temporary. He traced the attraction’s evolution through midcentury publicity events—most notably the 1953 MGM film Easy to Love, which led to construction of a 90-foot, Florida-shaped pool—and a Johnny Carson special in 1968 that a contemporary clipping said reached 88 million viewers.
Ownership and strategy shifted over time: Cypress Gardens became a publicly traded company in the 1970s, was sold to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1985 and later became part of an Anheuser-Busch entertainment portfolio before a 1995 local buyout led by general manager Bill Reynolds. Heilman said the park struggled with attendance in the late 1990s and early 2000s and closed in April 2003.
The site was purchased in February 2004 and reopened as Cypress Gardens Adventure Park with new rides and concerts; Heilman said those efforts ultimately failed and the park closed again. In January 2010 the plan to redevelop the property as LEGOLAND Florida was announced and the new park opened in 2011. Heilman noted LEGOLAND preserved several garden elements—an approximately 85-foot banyan tree and the historic Florida pool among them—and integrated the botanical sections into the new resort.
The program included images and items from the History Center’s holdings, and Heilman recommended Lou Vickers’s book Cypress Gardens, America’s Tropical Wonderland for listeners who want more detail. During a short question-and-answer period, audience members asked about horticultural exchanges with other gardens and whether original master plans exist; Heilman said the gardens were meticulously designed and benefited from contributions by horticultural experts, though he did not have original master plans on hand.
Heilman closed by inviting attendees to visit the museum’s galleries, which include ski memorabilia and postcards, and encouraged support for the History Center’s programs.
