051817 SWB DIGITAL EDITION

8 x May 18 - 31, 2017 x www.SouthwestOrlandoBulletin.com
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historic church in Gotha in 2000, but
now they have relocated to Winter
Garden. The Church of Christ
at Gotha occupied the small, white
church for a while, but it too has relocated.
Since 2006, the Foundation
for the Historical Zion Lutheran
Church of Gotha has owned the
property.
A hard freeze in 1886, bad weather
in 1888, and a yellow fever epidemic
led many settlers to leave the Gotha
area. The severe freezes of 1894 and
1895 decimated the groves, and,
eventually, Hempel moved back to
Buffalo. But, by then, the community
was well-established. In 1900, the
Census Bureau reported 202 residents
in the Gotha vicinity. Ten years later,
that number had increased to 298.
The area is ripe with history. In
1995, Orange County commissioners
designated the Gotha Rural Settlement
the county’s first historic preservation
district, thus future development
must follow the rural and historical
character of the community.
Palm
Cottage Gardens
One of the people who bought land
in the 1800s was botanist Henry
Nehrling, who was born in Howard’s
Grove, Wisconsin, to German parents.
Nehrling purchased 40 acres from his
friend, Francis von Siller, in 1886,
without seeing the property and arrived
later that same year for the first
time. From 1886 to 1904, Nehrling
spent one or two months each year
clearing and working on his land. He
planted oranges and built a small oneroom,
pine-walled cabin. He planted
palms and magnolias in 1890 and
named the property Palm Cottage
Gardens.
After visiting the Colombian
Exposition in Chicago in 1893,
Nehrling became interested in fancyleafed
caladiums. His work with caladiums
would make him famous.
Nehrling planted 250,000 caladiums
annually and had about 1,500
named varieties. He praised the
property, which also includes palms,
bamboo, night-blooming cereus,
tropical pond lilies and magnolias,
for its tranquility and peace.
In 1896, he purchased an additional
25.65 acres,
and Nehrling and
his family moved to
Florida in 1902. He
bought an 1880s-era
abandoned house
and kitchen near
Lake Olivia, dismantled
it, moved it
by ox cart, and fixed
up the two-story frame
vernacular-style home
and kitchen. The
house, with its heartpine
floors and sleeping
porch, is located
about 200 feet down a narrow drive
from Hempel Road on Lake Nally.
Nehrling experimented with tropical
and subtropical plants, testing more
than 3,000 new and rare species for
the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He
introduced hybrid amaryllis and gloriosa
lilies to the Florida landscape.
Many of those original plants remain
on the property. Nehrling entertained
Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas
Edison and other luminaries at the
Hempel Avenue site.
Henry Nehrling’s house was the site of the botanist’s
passion for caladiums and other tropical plants.
Nehrling died at Palm Cottage
Gardens in 1929 and is interred at
Woodlawn Memorial Park in Gotha.
His research has been preserved
in manuscripts at Rollins College in
Winter Park. In 1979, all but 6 acres
of the property were sold off. What
remained was purchased in 2009 for
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Friday, June 16
8:30 p.m. Bill Breeze Park
www.ocoee.org