Bok Tower Sanctuary & Singing Tower  has got to be one the most amazing sites I have ever visited in my life. Just seeing this place makes you feel like your in some Lord Of The Rings movie as you travel through orchards, lush gardens, trails and eventually the gothic tower looming off into the distance. I think bringing you the history of this place was more important then paranormal evidence because this place honestly fascinates me.

In 1885 a man by the name of Robert J. Ruth from Baltimore had purchased about 1,400 acres of land.  J.B. Corlett from Ohio and built a home nearby on the southern slope of Lake Wales in 1917 many years later. However beforehand in about 1890 he has visited the area exploring it only to find a large mass of Iron ore at the top of the mountain. He theorized that the Indians must have used it for some sort of ceremony that is when he named the location Iron Mountain. Being that the location is about 298 feet above sea level this technically may just be the highest point in the state of Florida. I thought Mount Dora was but this mountain is a little more steeper and of course Lake Wales is a very hilly and woodsy area to begin with.

Now lets talk a little bit about Edward William Bok he was an American Editor and Pulitzer Prize winning author born in the Netherlands immigrated to the US in 1869 at the age of six. He became an office boy at the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1876 and attending school in Brooklyn.

He then worked for a company called Henry Holt and Company in 1882 eventually two years later to work for Charles Scribner's Sons Publishers then an advertising manager. He was an editor for the Brooklyn Magazine in the 1880s and eventually found the Bok Syndicate Press which led to an offering of the editorship of the The Ladies Home Journal in 1889. So Boks career was booming in the later 1800's which of course generated him alot of funding for future projects.

The Ladies Home Journal was the first magazine to have over 1 million subscribers. He also was involved in public sex education, prenatal education, childcare, and social causes. He also played a part in saving Niagara Falls. Now let me make something clear before we were based in Florida we were based near Niagara Falls although we only did a few investigations out near the falls if you have ever learned the history or seen them that was an area at one time plagued by War, Indians, and Even Ghost Stories. In 1919 Bok retired then a year later he published the Americanization of Edward Bok which won him a gold medal of the Academy Of Political and Social Science and Pulitzer Prize for best autobiography.  So yes this was a very brilliant man and probably even in the afterlife extremely advanced.  Even after his retirement he still wrote a few other books.

But more then anything Bok was noted for being a philanthropist after his retirement. He established many awards like the Citizens Award in Philadelphia who performed outstanding acts of service, the Philadelphia Award of $10,000 which would go to a citizen who brought to the community an act of service or best interest. Then he also created the American Foundation Incorporated which today is known as Bok Tower Gardens Foundation. 

Other mentionable awards created are the Harvard Advertising Awards, The American Peace Award and the establishment of the Woodrow Wilson Professorship of Literature Of Princeton University by endowment and eventually he established the Woodrow Wilson Chair at Williams College by endowment. But one notable mention that Bok was responsible for is making the downtown Philadelphia metropolitan area beautiful with lush plant life as he started what they called the Philadelphia Forum. 

In 1929 President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Sanctuary that Bok had made as a gift to the American People for all the gratitude he recieved from those that helped him. Sadly a year after this Bok had died near the tower and today is buried just a few feet from the towers entrance. 

Now I would like to talk about the tower which the project started in 1927. At the time in 1922 the area was just a bird sanctuary and was established to remember Boks grandparents and that is why Bok purchased the surrounding land.  Milton B. Medary was the architect which resembles a similar tower in Malines Belgium. It was covered in Georgia marble and made with Florida Coquina rock. It also features carved screens, friezes, and ornamentation depicting fables, natural and human scenes. The entire tower is actually very breathtaking and somewhat eerie at the same time. 

The tower is roughly 205 high, with a width of 37 feet, and 51 feet  circumference.  The tower weights roughly 5,500 tons. If you were to stand on top of the tower you could view 36 lakes however from the base of the tower 14 of them are visible since the tower sits on a giant hill. The tower sits a couple miles back in the woods through lush gardens and eerie citrus orchards. There is a sundial carved on the south wall which indicates the towers location and latitude. 

At the top of the tower are 53 large carillon bells which were cast and made in England some ranging between 17 to 22,400 pounds. Their range is about 4 1/2 octaves. The 6th floor in the tower is the carillonneur's office where a keyboard is located that can be practiced on and the main keyboard is on the seventh floor. The fourth floor within the tower has offices and a library. When the tower was dedicated a total of 70,000 people attended and over the years millions have visited this serene site.  Is the tower haunted? Well if you use enough imagination and take a deep breath out of the normal realm of reality you will feel an energy that surrounds the entire area. Bok wanted the bells to be added to the tower so it could remind him of Holland and luckily before his death he was able to hear them perhaps then he was able to let go.  Edward Bok before building the tower had a home adjacent to Iron Mountain and he would walk up here to watch Sun Sets and bird life. He truly wanted to preserve this area and well although words cannot describe this place it truly is a world of its own. 

Now lets talk about the lush gardens surrounding the tower which were designed by architect Fredrick Law Olmstead Jr. The area at the time he had to work with was about 130 acres and in 1923 the planting started which would include about 1,000 live oaks, 10,000 azaleas, 100 Sable Palms, 300 Magnolias, 500 loblolly bays, 10,000 Boston Ferns and Swords. 

As f ar as the gardens go the area was full of sandhill scrubs and so many trenches had to be dug so that pipes could be laid out for irrigation and water. Olmstead had thousands of loads of black soil to fertilize the land as well.  Even in the area a subtropical garden was planted with many bushes that would provide much food for over 100 bird species.  Also surrounding the tower is the reflection pool it serves more or less like a moat filled with water which contains giant coy and captures the reflection of the tower. 

Near the tower is the Pine Ridge Preserve Trail which is a long leaf pine-turkey Oak habitat. The native scrub habitat is the only preserved area before the gardens were built to show others what the area use to look like.  Found on the trail is a bog garden, sandhill forest, an open glade and is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world because the plant life here is found nowhere else in the world. 

Lastly I would like to talk about the estate which we seen in the distance but did not get to investigate. The estate is not to far away from the tower and was called the El Retiro estate back in 1930. It was the winter home of C. Austin Buck the vice president of Bethlehem Steel. For those of you that are not aware of this or not Bethlehem Steel was located in Buffalo NY. We did not investigate it but as a child I did get to visit the factory at one point in my life. Back when I was a child it employed alot of people in Buffalo then eventually they shut down and perhaps that caused Buffalo NY to start dying as a city.

The gardens surrounding the estate were designed by Olmstead as well which were private gardens. By looking up some history apparently there were other estates at the time in the area. However this one estate still stands today near the tower and was designed by a Charles Wait who designed the house to be in the form of a Mediterranean Revival style. The estate had wrought iron surrounding it, carved woodwork, and thick walls. It also had large porches so those that sat on it could enjoy the gardens surrounding them.

The tiles were obtains from Cuba from Buck who enjoyed the Latin Lifestyle and architecture.  Philips created a series of vistas at the estate, a Spanish frog fountain leaving to a grotto in front of the house, an Oriental Moon Gate outside the dining room, rolling lawn leading to the lily pool. The house although containing gardens also is surrounded by pine trees perhaps that is why they called the house eventually the Pinewood Estate. This 13,000 square foot mansion today still receives just as many visitors as the tower.

Over the years the estate was owned by man but Pinewood was not owned by Bok Sanctuary till 1970 and eventually was restored to its original design by landscape architect Rudy Favretti who was staff of Bok Sanctuary and a volunteer. The mansion and tower of course are on the National Register Of Historic Places.

Now that you have a little bit of history lets discuss the area just a little bit.  To get to the tower you have to ascend slowly up Iron Mountain which overlooks Lake Wales. Imagine walking for a couple miles through lush citrus trees and all you see in the distance is a glowing light in the distance. The closer you get the more apparent the tower becomes. Once you get to the tower you have to journey through gardens in one case we traveled past a vegetable garden will we actually found the more exotic gardens near the tower. Then you have to cross a moat with these large wrought iron gates.

The area is pretty peaceful and serene we even found some stone foundations piled up hidden in the woods. The area dates back to when the Indians performed ceremonies here. Its a place of power and energy. Its also a place of 3 very giant boars which galloped past me only a few feet away. If I did not stay still their is a good possibility I could have been gored or stampeded to death being each one was the size of a bear. This perhaps was one of our more difficult investigations between the long hiking, giant boars, etc so we may not visit here a second time but we wanted to share the history, beauty and supernatural that comes with the area. Words of warning cause we always get some mimic who thinks they can be like us if you go in this place you may just get lost the area is VERY large lots of trails, orchards, gardens etc and now we bring you the adventure!

© By

Rick-LordOfThyNight

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