In 2015, Norma and Larry Ellis drove down from Ashburn, VA to bring Bok Tower Gardens a very special donation. Mr. Ellis’ great grandfather is Horace Burrell who, along with son Edward, was the builder for the Singing Tower. The donation included the Burrells‘ two handwritten journals detailing the construction of the Tower, a scrapbook, and several hundred photographs.
Using the information and photographs from the Burrell Collection, we have created a new traveling exhibit called Creating an Icon: The Way We Worked on the Singing Tower. The exhibit shares some of the details contained within the journals and helps to shed new light on the Singing Tower and those who worked so hard to create it. Creating an Icon was partially sponsored by the Florida Humanities Council and Visit Central Florida, and is on display here in the Visitors Center now through January 18, 2018, after which it will travel to other locations around central Florida and beyond.
We hope that you will come by and check out the exhibit, but even if you’re unable to visit in person, you can still view the Burrell Collection! The collection has been digitized and the journals, scrapbook, and a selection of photographs are now available online.