Some 40,000 people visited Peace River Botanical & Sculpture Gardens last year. Chances are good that none arrived by accident.
The 27-acre property sits on Riverside Drive, a residential road skirting the Peace River. There is no signage along nearby I-75 or U.S. 17 to attract travelers. The one bit of roadside advertising that does exist—a billboard on U.S. 41 near Downtown Punta Gorda—was erected just six months ago.
Those who do find their way down the narrow, two-lane drive are greeted by an illustrated welcome sign depicting the bust of a woman, head upturned and surrounded by tropical blooms. It’s the first hint at what’s to come: hundreds of thousands of horticulturist-curated blooms and botanical rarities, wetland overlooks, a butterfly house and 23 sculptural works that rise in concert with the landscape. The whimsical menagerie of sculptures that dots the grounds is not united by theme, period or genre. Rather, the throughline is a couple who, after decades of professional success and globetrotting adventures, found a home for their passions along the Gulf Coast.
Photography by Anastasia Walborn Yu Zhaoyang’s Ostriches
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Linda Tetrault and her late husband, Roger, began buying parcels of land for the gardens in 2000. Today, Tanna Horner maintains daily operations. Top photo: Linda and Roger commissioned artist Jacob Kulin to create Steel Palm as the garden’s first sculpture.
When Linda and Roger Tetrault moved to Punta Gorda in the late ’90s, she had retired from academia, and he was preparing to step down as CEO of McDermott International. They discovered an overgrown patch on the banks of the Peace River and began transforming it into their forever home, a nearly 9,000-square-foot estate, as much a gallery for their art as it was a place to lay their heads.
The gardens were Roger’s idea, sprung on Linda one morning in 2000, shortly after his retirement. From her sitting room, Linda gestures to a glass-walled breakfast nook where the couple started each day before his passing in 2020. “Linda, I have an idea,” he announced, and she winced a little. Roger was an engineer by trade, his mechanical mind forever conjuring new projects.
Over the next several hours, he laid out his vision, inspired by their travels to the world’s renowned gardens—places like Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa and The Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. “I remember thinking, ‘How do you even start?’” Linda says.
Photography by Anastasia Walborn, Stefani & Co.’s Tree Trellises
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First up: Acquiring land. The Tetraults, already concerned about losing the adjacent wetlands to development, wanted to use the gardens as a way to tread lightly on the landscape. They engaged with experts and took on much of the work themselves—learning Charlotte County’s permitting processes, navigating environmental regulations, and negotiating with property owners to acquire neighboring plots. Some neighbors initially balked, fearing something akin to a theme park. There was a lawsuit to halt the project; the Tetraults, who had the backing of the mayor and other community leaders and who had established a nonprofit to run the eventual gardens, ultimately prevailed.
The first piece the Tetraults commissioned was Steel Palm, a 21-foot-tall sculpture created by Boston-based artist Jacob Kulin. “We want to do something big,” Jacob recalls Roger telling him over cocktails during one of his visits to Florida. The artist found his inspiration right there in the Tetraults’ home: a 50 million-year-old fossil of a palm frond encased in stone and framed like a painting. Jacob was astounded by its completeness. He interpreted it by casting 14 steel plates, each 1 inch thick, positioned 6 inches apart. If you look at the sculpture straight on, you see the shape of the fossilized frond; as you change your vantage point, the sculpture breaks into geometric abstraction.
Photography by Anastasia Walborn
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The shifting perspective satisfied the couple’s divergent sensibilities—he liked realism and engineering, she favored abstract and contemporary art—and became emblematic of the garden’s collection.
The Tetraults continued to acquire more art, planting subsequent pieces around the property, some in plain sight, others tucked away into gardens or natural areas, awaiting discovery. Among the works are four sculptures by New York hyperrealist Carole Feuerman. Her New York City Slicker is the inspiration for the entry sign. Along a mangrove-shaded boardwalk sits the monumental Keel by Turkish artist Kemal Tufan. Moss-covered and pockmarked, it looks like an ancient relic. Flanking the northern entry, an 18-foot-tall male figure bows his head; a similarly tall female opposite him is about to plant a kiss. The pair, entitled Ostriches, comes from artist Yu Zhaoyang.
The organization hired its first employees in 2017 and opened to the public that October. But after that initial bloom, the place nearly withered. Roger died abruptly in January 2020. Within months, the pandemic emptied the grounds. The executive director left. Then, Hurricane Ian destroyed 80% of the botanical collection, followed by the two 2024 storms, which flooded the property again.
But Linda and her fellow board members made a strategic hire in 2021, choosing a new executive director who—like so many guests—stumbled upon the gardens by chance and fell in love. For the past five years, Tanna Horner and her growing team have fueled the organization’s post-hurricane recovery, bringing nationally and internationally recognized artists to Punta Gorda, hosting special events and unveiling new programming, with a focus on artmaking and wellness.
Photography by Anastasia Walborn
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Roger passed in 2020, but the team continues building toward his vision for the gardens, with plans for a conservatory and propagation facilities.
Horticulture Director Thomas Hecker came on board in 2022, replanted what was lost and, like an artist himself, started filling in blank spots on the property’s canvas. “My legacy, hopefully, will be a canopy of unique flowering trees,” says Thomas, who counts poincianas, tropical hydrangeas and jacarandas among his favorites.
Their cloistered little garden is beginning to get noticed. TripAdvisor’s software company Bókun recently dubbed the Peace River Botanical & Sculpture Gardens the “best hidden gem” in America. “That’s fabulous,” Tanna says with a grin. “But I don’t want to be hidden, I would just like to be a gem.”
She’s likely to get her wish. The organization is about to launch the next phase of Roger’s vision, which will add a 1,600-square-foot conservatory and propagation facilities to the lesser-developed south side. Eventually, a food forest, an education pavilion and a children’s garden will follow. The latter was particularly important to the Tetraults. “Families don’t have enough places to go as a family and just experience doing things together,” says Linda, who watches the grounds flourish from her home, which is connected to the gardens via a footbridge. She maintains a seat on the board and continues to oversee the acquisition of new art. “It’s becoming even more beautiful,” she says, approvingly, of the way the staff and board are continuing to interpret her late husband’s dream.
Around Christmastime last year, the prized cannonball tree on the property’s north side suddenly burst into bloom for the very first time. The tree, a rarity outside its tropical habitat, produces softball-sized pink flowers on vines growing from its trunk.
It was Roger’s favorite tree and where his ashes were laid. To Linda, Tanna, the board and the staff, determined to see his vision to completion, the blooms were a wink, a nod and a push to keep going.