Dream Cottage

Built in 1885 for Wallace Bruce, this cottage was the home of a man who later became the longest-serving president of the Florida Chautauqua Association. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison called on Bruce to serve as U.S. consul general to Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bruce left this house for five years of overseas service, during which he erected a statue of President Abraham Lincoln in a nearby Edinburgh cemetery, the first statue of an American president erected on foreign soil. That event inspired a friendship between Bruce and Robert Todd Lincoln, the late president's son. After returning to the Florida Chautauqua presidency in 1893, Bruce continued to live here until he suffered a stroke in 1906. In 1907, he moved into the renovated Chautauqua Art Department on Circle Drive, where he died in 1914. As an author, lecturer, poet, orator, and consul general, Bruce built a prestigious career and a unique network of famous friends, entertainers, and international leaders whom he influenced to participate in many Florida Chautauqua assemblies.

DeFuniak Springs, Florida · United States