Sunlight filters through a tangled web of native cypress trees, sunburned gumbo limbos and more than 50 species of palms, many adorned by orchids and trailing philodendrons. Wind gently rocks the 28-year-old tree house—the first permitted structure of its kind in Naples—as boardwalks and trickling waterfalls whisper stories of the past. At the center of it all, a midcentury compound serves as a decades-long experiment in biophilic living, a study that continues today under new ownership. “The property feels wild, untamed and beautiful all at once,” says homeowner Katherine ‘Kat’ Boll, a printmaker who works with foraged botanicals to transfer the textures of the landscape onto paper.
Long before Bayshore Arts District’s status as an eccentric arts hub, before Naples Botanical Garden, Celebration Park or any of the modern mansions lining the neighborhood’s waterfront today, one Naples family created one of the city’s first nurseries and an arboreal neighborhood amid the area’s scrub oak forests. Nursery owner Winford ‘Win’ Turner Sr. created a tropical oasis within Turner Oak Hill Estates, a verdant neighborhood along Liberty Lane. Today, the storied property, which has survived hurricanes and developmental pressure, retains its overgrown spirit.
Photography by Christina Bankson
Photography by Christina Bankson
Photography by Christina Bankson
Photography by Christina Bankson
A Naples native, Kat discovered the jungly property more than a decade ago. “The image of it stayed with me for years,” she reflects. After receiving a small inheritance following her parents’ passing, the young artist found the home and garden for sale in 2022. The original homeowner, Win Turner Sr., had passed away in 2020, and two years later, his son, Win Jr., sold the property after relocating to Georgia with his family. Flipping through the property’s real estate brochure, she saw plans for redeveloping the 1.33-acre site into three separate homes. “I found that idea offensive,” Kat says. She made a cash offer, negotiating the price down to about half the listing price—an agreement that ensured the gardens and original structures would remain in place. For Kat, the project was an opportunity to root her family’s legacy in something cathartic and creative. Since moving into the property with her partner, real estate photographer Emily Hancock, Kat, who studied psychology and art, has established a studio to make her prints and offer nature-based art workshops.
A rare historic property in the Bayshore Arts District, the estate is a testament to ecological design philosophies that drive today’s sustainably minded builds. Originally built in 1960, the main home is composed of rot-resistant western red cedar, regionally sourced pine from Dade County and durable redwood siding. The midcentury residence—built on a natural sand ridge, 16 feet above sea level—evolved organically alongside its owners as Win and his son, Win Jr., added the tree house, an outdoor kitchen, boardwalks and functional water features, including a hot tub and turtle pond. The designed grounds set the foundation for Kat’s creative reinvention.
Considering its natural elevation, the home often served as a safe house for neighbors and family when major hurricanes and tropical storms swept through the coastal area. Even the tree house, which Kat describes as more of an emblem of the estate’s biophilic ideals than a daily-use space, was built to sustain hurricanes, with conical support beams allowing the circular structure to sway in the wind, much like the native palms that surround it. The tree house, wrapped around a preserved pine tree more than a foot in diameter, remained intact after Hurricanes Charlie, Wilma and, most recently, Ian tore through the surrounding Bayshore neighborhood. The father-son duo started construction on the tree house in 1998, mainly using reclaimed wood collected from construction site dumpsters. Over the years, Win Jr. maintained the property and continued renovation projects, including expanding the tree house and adding a boardwalk that connects to the primary bedroom balcony. The space serves as a capsule, decorated with the Turners’ belongings, including a sign with the family name and a collection of vintage beer cans and bottles.
Photography by Christina Bankson
naples liberty treehouse kat boll
Kat’s tree house marks a moment in history. The first such structure approved in Naples, the place was built storm-ready with reclaimed wood, an extension of the past and current owners’ sustainability-focused mindsets.
Green-thumb Win Sr. shrouded the built structures with towering trees and fanning tropicals. Win would travel to Homestead and South America to source new orchids and other tropical plants to fill his family’s garden. Over the years, Kat says, bees and strong winds caused cross-pollination, creating hybrid species within the brush. Longtime Bayshore residents credit Win’s yard as an inspiration for Naples Botanical Garden, land once owned by his siblings. Win Sr.—who was active in the Naples Orchid Society and Naples Garden Club—donated plants to the garden early on and volunteered for decades.
Though generations apart, Kat’s vision for the estate echoes Win’s ethos. A groundskeeper comes in once a week to help manage overgrowth, allowing the grounds to remain lush and untamed without tipping into neglect. She volunteers weekly with Florida Gulf Coast University orchid grower John Finer at Naples Botanical Garden’s lab, grafting his hybrid species to trees throughout her property alongside species donated by neighbor Jim Longwell, president of the Gulf Coast Orchid Alliance. It’s part of a tradition that started when Win Sr. adopted a mature sausage tree from Port Royal legend John Slater—known in the ’60s and ’70s for running an unofficial zoo in his backyard. Kat’s prints, made from the tree’s maroon flowers, hang in the dining room, overlooking the now 100-year-old tree.
Where Win constructed the house to live with the land, Kat and Emily now build their life around the garden’s bounty. During Kat’s workshops, guests forage for leaves, seeds and flowers before pulling prints by hand at an etching press inside her studio, in the home’s former shed.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
naples liberty treehouse inside view
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Courtesy Wanderlust Photography
naples liberty treehouse outdoor yard wood walkway
She transformed the space into an air-conditioned room to house art supplies, including sustainably made Japanese washi paper, oil-based inks and an etching press sourced from a fellow artist in North Florida. Dried palm fronds collected from the property adorn the ceiling, while repurposed shelves from the main house display jars filled with seed pods, stones, shells and wood slices—materials gathered from the grounds. “I literally just sprayed the whole thing white in there to clean it up, and boom,” she says. Cranking the industrial iron wheel, Kat makes ink-based reliefs from pressed foliage she’s collected from the grounds.
Rather than strip the home of its history, Kat and Emily honor it. Inside, they embraced the worn-in quirks, like the layers of paint collected around door frames that were modified over the years to accommodate expansions, or a creaky bathroom door. “It’s like a rinky-dink slider door that makes the loudest noise when you close it, but I refuse to get rid of it,” Kat says. “He handmade this handle for it—it’s just three pieces of wood, but it’s so cute.” After fixing some plumbing and replacing the roof on the home and tree house, the couple opted for minimal renovations, adding warmth with a vintage copper vent hood and matching farmhouse sink. When they moved in, they spent the first few weeks sleeping on a mattress on the living room floor. Emily led the design charge as they scoured thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace for antique pieces to complement the home’s character. Kat’s naturalist prints adorn warm pine walls, and jars of collected seeds and stones decorate built-in shelves.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
naples liberty treehouse print artwork
Working in the converted shed studio she created, the artist draws inspiration from her arboreal surrounds, crafting minimalist prints from foraged materials coated in ink and pressed onto paper. Kat hosts classes in her workshop, leading students through projects and allowing them to explore the property.
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Courtesy Wanderlust Photography
naples liberty treehouse print press
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Photography by Christina Bankson
naples liberty treehouse print artwork in progress
Once a refuge from natural storms, the property, renamed Liberty Home Gardens, now shelters emotional needs. As a licensed clinical social worker, Kat hopes to host onsite art therapy sessions, helping at-risk youths heal through art and nature—the same combination that allowed her to process grief after her parents died unexpectedly. Cleaning out her family home after her parents’ passing, Kat remembered a joke her mom made while they dined at Three60 Market in Bayshore, proposing her father should buy Kat a home out there. Years later, the for-sale sign at 45 Liberty Lane felt kismet: a chance to honor her parents and renew her spirit. “It’s as if they knew I needed a place like this to feel grounded, to feel at home, and to reconnect with life and creativity,” Kat says. Every evening, as dusk falls on the grounds, a ring of bistro lights in the tree house glows, a beacon proclaiming the estate’s permanence.
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Courtesy Wanderlust Photography
naples liberty treehouse outdoor orchid closeup
After Win Sr.’s death in 2020, plans emerged to redevelop the site into three separate homes. “I found that idea offensive,” Kat says. She and her partner, Emily, acquired the property, committing to preserving the gardens’ history.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
naples liberty treehouse outdoor fire pit waterfall