The Dream of a Gallery

Clyde and Niki loved driving the scenic Tamiami Trail through the Big Cypress National Preserve. One particular spot on this drive appealed to them both which was Leon Whilden's property, Orchid Isles. At the time Leon purchased a portion of Robert’s Strand in the 1950s to create Orchid Isles, there was no national preserve in the Big Cypress Swamp.

Clyde noticed the beautiful front pond on Leon's property and tried several times to photograph it, but each time, he was chased off by Leon. Niki had better luck; she stopped one day while driving along Tamiami Trail and was welcomed by Leon and his dog Grumpy. She enjoyed the peaceful feeling of the property. As she was leaving, she saw a sign that said it was for sale!

Clyde and Niki met with the Superintendent at Big Cypress National Preserve to see if it was possible to build a gallery there. The Superintendent was happy about The Butchers buying the property. The Butchers headed to Leon's place after their meeting and found him in a much better mood. He cheerfully greeted them in the window of the orchid shed and welcomed them to walk around. 

“As I started down the path behind the orchid shed, I walked into an overgrown jungle. What I thought was a path, and later found out, was the road to the back of the property. It was just overgrown like everything else. I fell in love with the place. Whether a gallery would succeed out in the middle of nowhere didn’t matter, it would be a great place to live,” said Clyde.

They knew instantly that buying Orchid Isles was the right thing to do. Clyde and Niki drove down the road to Oasis Visitor Center and used a payphone to call the realtor who was handling the sale of the property and put in an offer.

Clyde and Niki were so excited their offer had been accepted for Leon Whilden's property, Orchid Isles! Their first project was to clean the property, which proved to be easier said than done in the heat of the summer. Just as they were completing the cleaning process, Hurricane Andrew made its presence known in the Atlantic.

After the sale was final, they gave Leon two months to leave the property. He had hundreds of orchids and it was too much to do on his own, so Leon’s son came down from Tampa to help. After the two months were up, the Butchers took charge and quickly realized the extent of the work that lay ahead. Leon had left behind a considerable amount of belongings and an overgrown jungle! Clyde’s close friend, Oscar Thompson, along with Oscar’s wife, Miladie, and their employee, Bob Polk, pitched in to help. Additionally, Bill, who had been Leon's employee, agreed to stay on and continue working on the property for Clyde and Niki.

They removed seven thirty-yard dumpsters of trash that Leon had thrown into the swamp. Even today, old orchid pots that he had thrown away years ago suddenly appear in the muck. They also cleared out three thirty-yard dumpsters of tires from the property. Leon had collected the tires for his nursery so that when there was a threat of frost, he would burn them, and the smoke would protect his orchids. Unfortunately, the tires turned out to be excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Clyde and Niki had taken possession of the property in July 1992 and cleaned up the mess when in August 1992, Hurricane Andrew was headed straight toward Tamiami Trail. They anxiously watched the news from their house in Fort Myers as the hurricane drew nearer and nearer. During the storm, they lost power and communication, but they later learned that the hurricane had turned and made landfall south of their property. Those were very nerve-wracking days as they waited for Tamiami Trail to reopen so they could assess the extent of the damage.

It was shocking. All of the exotic trees that Leon had planted were down. Niki was curious to see how the back of the property looked and made her way to the section where native growth thrived. The trees were standing; no trees were down! There were a whole lot of branches and leaves on the ground, but other than that, everything looked fine.

“One of the fun stories about Hurricane Andrew was that when Clyde went into the county to get a building permit, they asked him why he never got a permit to tear down the buildings,” Niki Butcher remembered. “He replied, ‘Hurricane Andrew didn’t ask for a permit, either.’ Since all of the structures on the property were blown down by Hurricane Andrew, all we had to do was tear them apart and throw them into another dumpster.”

Clyde and Niki were relieved that the native portion of the property didn’t look as bad as the front. They had JUST finished cleaning the property and simply didn't know how they could handle a total repeat of what they had just been through.

Stay tuned for more on The Dream of a Gallery in the next edition of the Coastal Breeze News.