If These Walls Could Talk Artwork at Historic Shadow Point Vacation rental

If These Walls Could Talk...
Renowned Guests who have visited
Historic Shadow Point and Artwork that has been donated to us Over the Years

Please click on the pictures to find out more information about each person or painting

Karen Leffel-Massengill

Sheila Geoffrion

Dr. Robert McNaughton was a gastroenterologist trained at Harvard and the Mayo Clinic, and was also a steadfast supporter of Fairchild Tropical Gardens for more than 40 years. His support stretched across departmental boundaries and plant families alike. His true passion was tropical fruit. He fought for the creation of the Tropical Fruit Program at Fairchild. His support and encouragement were keys to the program’s growth. The building of the Whitman Endowment and Pavilion and the development of Fairchild’s world-class genetic collections. The McNaughton Arboretum was inaugurated at the Fairchild Farm in 2009, spreading the McNaughton family’s roots deep into the South Florida community. His words, intellect, passion, and grafting knife have all left an indelible mark. He brought many of his cronies interested in botany to stay and experience the incredible flora and fauna in the area. He married Marvin and Lelia Sweeting Adam's daughter, Patricia, and was always dedicated to keeping Historic Shadow Point unique.

Marvin D. Adams, who married Lelia Sweeting in 1892, built the cut from Key Largo's ocean side to the bayside. The Monroe County Commission renamed the "Cut" to the "Marvin D. Adams Waterway," serving the Upper Keys community. It could be the second most significant non-government private project, the railroad being the first in our Upper Keys history. Marvin was a poet and writer and enjoyed sitting out by the water to get inspired.

Humphrey Bogart, nicknamed Bogey, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as classic American cinema's most excellent male star. While he was filming the movie, Key Largo, it is told that he came over to gamble and drink with Mr. Sweeting.

Buckminster Fuller was a 20th-century inventor and visionary who did not limit himself to one field but worked as a 'comprehensive anticipatory design scientist' to solve global problems. He stayed at Shadow Point in the '60s after a rally in Coconut Grove for Earth Day.

Philip Michael Ondaatje is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Prix Médicis étranger.

Linda Spalding, author of The Purchase, a Governor General's Literary Award winner from 2012, and A Reckoning, was married to Ondaatje and enjoyed writing while at Historic Shadow Point.

Dennis Aufiery was a renowned artist who received numerous awards for his paintings, including the Josef Albers Fellowship to the Skowhegan School and the Thomas Eakins prize from the Pennsylvania Academy. Dennis loved painting at Historic Shadow Point and loved how the light bounced off the Gumbo Limbo trees and water.

Robin Lee Makowski is a Signature Member of the Florida Watercolor Society, the New Mexico Watercolor Society, and the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies. She has illustrated more than thirty published children’s books, authored half of them. Her illustrations have appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The Cousteau Society’s Dolphin Log, Surfer, and New Yorker Magazines. Robin has received many honors for her artistic merit. Her work has been featured on the annual posters for several prominent art festivals, and she has received numerous awards in juried shows and art festivals. Many can see her work in Florida in juried and gallery exhibitions and is represented by Lost Art Gallery in St. Augustine. She has stayed many times at Shadow Point with her husband Mark, and they both have several pieces of artwork created at and inspired by the property and Marlee's collection of antiques.

Dr. David S. Howell was a Professor of medicine at the Miller School of Medicine since 1967, a founder of its arthritis division, an international expert in the mineralization of cartilage, and author of hundreds of textbook chapters and journal articles. Dr. Howell was also an acclaimed painter of the majestic and passionate sea, from Gloucester to Key Largo, who generously agreed to support United Way with artist-approved, studio-quality prints of his work.

Dr. John Kelsey, known as Dr. John to his thousands of patients over the past half-century, will be remembered for his deep commitment to personalized care, and for the extraordinary vision of the practice of medicine, he shared with his brother, based on their training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He enjoyed visiting Historic Shadow Point and left this beautiful painting for all to enjoy.

Karen Leffel-Massengill was a signature artist in the Florida Watercolor Society and the Society of Animal Artists. Birds in Art, an annual international competition, has accepted her entry four times, twice in watercolor and twice in oils. In addition, she has held several workshops at Historic Shadow Point.

Cristina De La Vega seeks to articulate through her artwork the beauty that exists randomly in nature, seemingly without reason. The way that layers of trees and brush and grass fall into and crowd out one another, how the light filters through, the way the clouds hang heavy and overwhelm the sky. Cristina paints landscapes that capture nature's stunning, stark beauty, whether it’s a picturesque scene of a high bluff overlooking the Indian River or a pasture dotted with scrub palmetto trees under an endless sky. She has created many paintings inspired by her visits to Shadow Point.

Sheila Geoffrion paints primarily in Maine but also keeps studios in Florida and Ireland. Her works are interpretations of plants in natural arrangements and seek to capture abstract elements rather than precise renderings. She is inspired by the contrasts between the fields and forests. She paints wet surfaces of savannas, marshes, and rivers' edges where vegetation and reflections change and engage. She is another artist who has been inspired by the flora and fauna at Shadow Point.

Janeen Mason is a noted artist, curator, author, illustrator, speaker, and arts advocate based on Florida’s Treasure Coast. She has curated 35 exhibits since joining The Lighthouse Art Center in 2016, ten for the State of Florida’s official galleries in Tallahassee. As an avid champion for the arts, Janeen has served in appointed positions under three governors, advising on matters regarding arts and culture as a board member for Florida Council on Arts and Culture, Citizens for Florida Arts, and as a member of the Florida Department of State’s Strategic Planning Task Force under the Division of Cultural Affairs. Janeen’s fine art has been featured in solo exhibits at galleries and museums throughout Florida. It is part of the permanent collections at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Central Florida. Private collectors include S. Kent Rockwell, the late Burt Reynolds, and Reba McIntire. Janeen has published sixteen children’s books that have garnered ten industry awards and won the affection and favor of booksellers, libraries, schools, and families nationwide. Her latest book, Counting the Days, was published in June 2019. Shadow Point commissioned her magnificent screen of mangroves' new life.

Annie Potts is a dedicated author and lighthouse rescuer of Hope Town lighthouse. Hope Town features one of the last operational kerosene-fueled lighthouses in the world. This lighthouse was built in 1862 and became operational two years later; it is striped horizontally red and white. Its light can be seen from 23 mi (43 km) away.

The Elbow Reef Lighthouse is one of only three manual lighthouses left in the world. Hope Town's most notable hurricane is Hurricane Dorian, which hit on September 1, 2019, as a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Annie is also one of the artists who painted a plate for our wall in the main house.

Dan Mackin is a world-renowned artist famed for painting scenes from his exotic trips in the Caribbean, South Pacific, Asia, and the Amazon River rainforest.

William (Bill) Whitman is a famed horticulturist and member of a pioneering Miami Beach family.

Kay Sweeney Botanist and owner of the Kampong was a dedicated caretaker of this beautiful property which was Dr. David Fairchild’s private home.

Andrea Collesano loves drawing in ink on paper that he himself prepares, giving the material a flavor of ancient times and a feeling of melancholy serenity. The oneiric present in his works mixes with the almost scientific, obsessive precision of detail.

Maggie Hurchella was the County Commissioner of Martin County, Fl, for over 20 years and a famed environmentalist. In 2002, she was named the Everglades Coalition's Conservationist of the Year. In 2003, she won a National Wetlands Award from the Environmental Law Institute for volunteer leadership. In 2019, she gave the keynote address at the 50th-anniversary meeting of the Friends of the Everglades.

Roger Murray is an artist and cartoonist. An American tourist saw his paintings and offered a fair sum of money for it, changing the course of Roger's French painting career. Now living on Zaca, he switched to more marine severe paintings. With the help of a local French artist, it was not long before galleries in Nice, Cannes, and London started to sell his marine paintings. Exhibitions followed in Nice, Paris, The Royal Society of Marine Artists in London, The Royal Academy, Coasts of Britain Exhibition, the Manchester Academy, and various major marine art exhibitions. Roger's paintings began to be collected by many notable people, including The Duke of Edinburgh. But, as he always maintained, he was never a proper artist in the fine art sense, always a bum quayside artist with a taste for painting boats and the sea, never caring much for the arts community. Nevertheless, Roger's marine paintings today are commanding high prices.

Bill Baggs was a journalist and writer for the Miami News. He supported early pioneering conservation efforts to rescue the southeast section of Key Biscayne from developers' overdevelopment. The Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park was named in his honor on land protected from development.

Todd Daniel Snider is an American singer-songwriter with a musical style that combines Americana, alt-country, and folk. Snider has said, "I was trying to come up with the best ... most open-hearted ... well-thought-out lyrics I could come up with. I wanted every song to be sad and funny simultaneously, vulnerable and entertaining, personal and universal. I wanted every song to be as uniquely written as possible, and then I wanted to perform them in a studio loose and rugged and hopefully as uniquely as possible. I hope to be hard to describe and/or new ... I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that's the hope."

Aida Fry Aida Gonzalez Fry was born in Miami and maintains a studio in Stuart, Florida, where she works in oil, watercolor, and fresco. Her work expresses the joy of spontaneous discovery while still conveying her deep respect for figure painting's great traditions. Known as a master of color, Aida has taken her skills and branched out into architecture with her company, AidaColor. As a colorist, Aida has been instrumental in choosing the palette for many of the large condo, office, and shopping projects we see built over the last twenty years across Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Counties.

Lundin Kudo was an artist and ceramist who studied art in Miguel Ballesta in Seville, Spain, from 1959-60, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1969. Her work has been featured in numerous galleries in Florida and throughout the United States. It can be found in private collections across North America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Japan.