Vero's Oldest Cultural Landmark Makes History...Again
- Vero Minute
- Mar 2
- 1 min read
Vero Beach’s first and oldest cultural treasure has just become the first—and only—to have its story published by Rizzoli, the legendary house behind the world’s most beautiful art and design books.
Few places are more deserving than McKee: a once-endangered jungle garden, saved and lovingly restored by this community, now celebrated as one of North America’s great sanctuaries of beauty and imagination.
It took a century to grow the story, and this fall the world gets to read it.
Pre-orders are available through McKee's website here
Rizzoli will release The Jungle Garden: Preserving a Tropical Landscape this October, a richly photographed volume chronicling the Garden's founding vision under Arthur G. McKee and Waldo Sexton, its mid-century decline, and its remarkable community-led resurrection. Written by Heather O'Shea, former editor-in-chief of Vero Beach Magazine, and photographed by Ngoc Minh Ngo, with a foreword by Julian Fellowes, the book features more than 200 photographs and four years of editorial development.
Through luminous photography and deeply researched prose, the volume moves from the Garden's founding vision and subtropical heyday, through its dramatic community-led restoration, to the careful stewardship of its rare orchids and waterlilies and its emergence as a modern, award-winning living museum.
The book arrives as McKee marks a dual milestone: the centennial of its living collections and the 25th anniversary of its reopening.
