Bamboo Pavilion - Touring - McKee Botanical Garden, Vero Beach, Florida - Brief Article

Travel America, March-April, 2004

The first permitted, structurally engineered bamboo structure in the United States is a recent addition to McKee Botanical Garden, a tourist attraction in Vero Beach, Florida. Built in Colombia and then reassembled at McKee, the pavilion contains nearly 350 stems of bamboo 18-24 feet in length. The roof was completed locally by Seminole Indians who used more than 9,000 palm fronds to thatch it.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, McKee reopened to the public in 2001 after being closed 25 years. Contact: McKee Botanical Garden, (772) 794-0601; www.mckeegarden.org.