Obsessions Masquerading as Flowers -- An Orchid-fueled Revival at McKee
- Vero Minute
- Dec 22, 2025
- 2 min read
Most of us drive past McKee Botanical Garden on US-1 without realizing we're passing one of the greatest orchid stories ever told.
Obsessions masquerading as flowers—orchids are botanical treasures so prized they rival the world's most coveted art collections.
They inspired Victorian ladies to lock themselves inside private conservatories, launched scientific expeditions that ended in fever dreams, and became as coveted as the rare masterpieces that drove art collectors to mortgage their homes.
McKee drew the world's attention to Vero Beach long before its beaches did. In the 1940s, botanists traveled from around the globe—not for the weather, but to marvel at a horticultural masterpiece that rivaled the most prestigious institutions worldwide. Founders Arthur McKee and Waldo Sexton had enlisted Dr. David Fairchild, the legendary plant explorer who introduced over 200,000 exotic species to America and inspired Miami's Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
As Vero Beach's first and oldest cultural attraction, McKee drew visitors for decades until Interstate 95 rerouted America's traffic patterns, pulling travelers away from US Highway 1 and ultimately forcing the original jungle garden to close in 1978. What began as a wildly ambitious vision in the early 1930s seemed lost to progress and development.
But the current McKee, reopened in 2001 on 18 rescued acres, proved that serious culture and world-class horticulture could be rooted here once again.
Now, as McKee enters its centennial year in 2026, two developments signal serious ambition: Luis Manuel Ortiz Jordan's appointment as Orchid Collection Curator represents McKee's most strategic hire in decades, while their centennial exhibition "Floragami in the Garden," running January 17 - May 24, will transform the grounds with towering sculptures—butterflies the size of automobiles, oversized birds, flowers that dwarf their living neighbors.
Ortiz Jordan joins McKee at a singular and auspicious moment. McKee already holds one of only seven worldwide certifications of excellence for water lilies. Now they're positioning to achieve similar distinction for orchids—reclaiming the international recognition Jungle Gardens commanded from 1946 until closing in 1978.
With Ortiz Jordan overseeing the legendary collection, the centennial becomes a strategic foundation for McKee's future leadership in orchid excellence.
