Florida doesn’t do mountains, so why is there a 205-foot marble tower ringing above the palms?

Bok Tower Gardens isn’t what you’d expect

Florida doesn’t do mountains. It barely does hills.

So when you pull up to Iron Mountain in Lake Wales and realize you’re nearly 300 feet above sea level, one of the highest points on the entire peninsula, the whole scene catches you off guard.

There’s a 205-foot marble tower rising above a canopy of oaks and palms, and on the hour, bells fill the air. More than 23 million people have made this trip since 1929.

Once you’re here, it’s not hard to see why.

An immigrant built this for a country that gave him everything

Edward Bok arrived in Brooklyn from the Netherlands in 1863, six years old and poor. By 30, he was editing the Ladies’ Home Journal, a job he’d hold for three decades.

His autobiography won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. After retiring, he and his wife started spending winters near Lake Wales, and the landscape got under his skin.

He bought Iron Mountain, hired landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to shape it into a garden sanctuary, and on Feb. 1, 1929, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the whole thing as Bok’s gift to the American people.

Bok died less than a year later. He’s buried at the base of the tower.

The tower is marble, mosaics and 60 bells

Stand at the base and look up. The Singing Tower runs 205 feet of pink and gray Georgia marble and Florida coquina, with Art Deco carvings climbing toward the sky.

Architect Milton B. Medary won the AIA Gold Medal in 1929 for the design, a mix of Art Deco and neo-Gothic that somehow fits perfectly inside a Florida garden.

Inside, 60 bells hang from the carillon, ranging from 16 pounds to nearly 12 tons. A moat and reflecting pool surround the base, and on calm mornings, the whole tower mirrors itself in the water below.

The carvings and ironwork could anchor a museum

Look closely at the stonework before you move on. Sculptor Lee Lawrie carved the Art Deco details from Florida wildlife, herons near the top, eagles at the base.

The iron gates and interior staircase came from master metalworker Samuel Yellin, the same hands behind the Great Brass Door, which depicts 30 scenes from the Book of Genesis across its surface.

Near the top, colorful ceramic tile grilles designed by J.H. Dulles Allen break up the marble. The tower sits on 118 reinforced concrete piles driven 24 feet into the ground.

It weighs about 5,500 tons.

Bell concerts play twice a day, every day

You don’t need to press close to the tower to hear the music.

The carillon carries across all 250 acres, so you might be watching a gopher tortoise cross a trail when the bells start. Live concerts play daily at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., with shorter selections on the hour and half-hour.

From mid-October through mid-May, the resident carillonneur performs Thursday through Sunday. In summer, recorded selections from the Anton Brees Carillon Library take over.

Only about 600 carillons exist in the world, so hearing one this size isn’t something you stumble into often.

Olmsted designed these paths to make you slow down

Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. didn’t want the gardens to look planted. He wanted them to look found.

The winding paths pull you gradually uphill, and the tower appears through the trees, disappears, then reappears from a completely different angle.

The original plan called for 1,000 live oaks, 10,000 azaleas, 100 sabal palms, 300 magnolias, and 500 gordonias, and most of that vision took root. Azaleas and camellias add color through the seasons.

Oaks, ferns, and pines hold the green year-round. Each morning, the Visitor Center posts a board showing what’s currently in bloom.

A 1930s mansion sits tucked into eight acres

El Retiro is a 20-room Mediterranean Revival mansion built between 1930 and 1932 as the winter home of C. Austin Buck, a vice president of Bethlehem Steel.

The house has been restored to its 1930s look, with period furniture and an art collection that puts you squarely in that era. The backyard gardens were designed and planted before the house even went up.

El Retiro holds its own spot on the National Register of Historic Places, separate from the rest of the gardens. Confirm tour availability before you visit, since access can vary by season.

Kids can crawl through a tortoise tunnel and splash around

Hammock Hollow Children’s Garden covers nearly three acres, and it’s the kind of place where kids stop asking when you’re leaving.

There’s a giant spider-web climbing structure, a gopher tortoise tunnel to crawl through, water features to splash in, and hammocks to collapse into between all of it.

Sculptor Kevin Carman set pebble mosaics of native wildlife into the paths, including a red-headed woodpecker and a gopher tortoise. A life-size indigo snake sculpture wraps around the sand play area.

Acoustic instruments, bird feeders, and a performance stage round it out. Leave the dog at the car for this section.

Two trails wind through a disappearing Florida ecosystem

The Pine Ridge Trail covers three-quarters of a mile through longleaf pine and turkey oak habitat, an ecosystem that once blanketed millions of acres across the Southeast and now exists only in fragments.

The 1.5-mile Preserve Trail pushes through pine forest and former citrus groves being pulled back toward native habitat. Together, the out-and-back trails add up to about 4.5 miles of walking.

Give your eyes time to adjust and you might spot a gopher tortoise crossing the path, or catch a Northern Harrier working the treetops overhead.

Some of the rarest plants on Earth grow right here

The Lake Wales Ridge was an island chain about 100,000 years ago, and that isolation pushed dozens of plant species to evolve in ways you won’t find anywhere else.

The ridge is now home to 48 rare plant species, and about 30 of them grow in the Endangered Plant Garden near the Visitor Center.

The Florida Ziziphus was once thought to be extinct until small clusters turned up in the 1980s. Bok Tower Gardens is the only place on Earth where the Ziziphus produces seeds.

The Rare Plant Conservation Program here works directly to pull these species back from the edge.

More than 126 bird species call this place home

Bok Tower Gardens sits on the Great Florida Birding Trail, and the numbers back it up. The Pine Ridge Preserve draws Pileated Woodpeckers, Loggerhead Shrikes, and Bachman’s Sparrows.

In spring and summer, hummingbirds and butterflies move through the cultivated gardens. September, October, and April bring migratory songbirds through the canopy.

If you want a close look without the walking, the Window by the Pond is a small cabin with a wide-open window. You sit, stay quiet, and the wildlife comes to you.

It’s one of the better setups you’ll find at any nature garden.

One visit won’t cover all of it

Eight acres of the Wild Garden take you through pine savanna, oak hammock, and wetland prairie on a single loop. A boardwalk crosses a bog where carnivorous pitcher plants grow at the edge of the path.

The Pollinator Garden and Outdoor Kitchen give you more reason to stay longer than you planned.

The gardens are open every day of the year, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last admission at 5 p.m. Leashed dogs are welcome throughout, except inside Hammock Hollow, the cafe, and El Retiro.

Parking is free, and paved paths plus shuttle service make the whole site accessible.

Visit Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida

You’ll find Bok Tower Gardens at 1151 Tower Blvd. in Lake Wales, about an hour south of Orlando and an hour east of Tampa.

The gardens are open 365 days a year, including holidays, though hours shorten on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Parking is free.

General admission runs $20 for adults and $5 for children ages 5 to 12. Children under five get in free.

Wheelchair-accessible paths and shuttle services cover the grounds.

Check the official website for El Retiro tour schedules and any seasonal programming before your visit.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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