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The first resident to settle on the shores of brackish Lake Worth established a sprawling pineapple plantation in 1875 in the isolated Everglades. By the 1920s Pittsburgh socialite Jay Phipps established the El Cid subdivision there, and in 1941 industrialist Ralph Norton opened his Norton Gallery and School of Art, designed by local architect Marion Sims Wyeth. Norton married sculptor Ann Weaver in 1949, who established a studio on Norton's estate. Surrounded by native vegetation overlooking the lake, Ann began an ambitious project to design a botanical garden of rare palms and bird habitats that would also house her life’s work of monumental granite, brick, marble, and bronze sculptures.

Norton enlisted Sir Peter Smithers to design the garden, who in turn employed Veronica Boswell Butler as caretaker of the 300 species of rare palms and native plants. His “Principles for the Gardens” written in 1988 organized the two-acre plot into an active reception zone near the house and two outdoor museum galleries. Meandering paths connect a series of outdoor rooms bordered by fruit trees, pines, and palms which enclose nearly 100 sculptures placed amidst lush tropical vegetation, set in pools, and displayed in Norton’s studio. Recent hurricanes and droughts have taken their toll on plant materials but Smithers’ stewardship principles continue to guide the care and management of the garden.