"Nehrling Gardens is not simply a piece of property but a living part of Florida's history." Richard Nehrling, great-great-grandson of Dr. Henry Nehrling, said that in September. He was supporting the garden's request to Orange County, and his own case for it was practical: "With a mature canopy of historic trees and plantings already providing natural buffer, we believe there's a path forward that protects the neighboring homeowners while preserving Florida's oldest surviving botanical garden."
Gotha has no downtown and no lifestyle center. It has two short roads, Hempel Avenue and Gotha Road, and two volunteer nonprofits that set most of its public calendar. The Henry Nehrling Society runs the gardens at 2267 Hempel Avenue. The Gotha Rural Settlement Association looks after the 1916 schoolhouse on Gotha Road. This fall the older of the two is asking the county to put its public role on paper. The answer will shape how the garden operates, from the driveway in to how many visitors it can host.
A Garden Running on a House's Paperwork
The problem goes back to a building. The West Orange Times & Observer reported that the gardens' main building went up in 1910 as a residence and was never legally converted for non-residential use. So for permitting purposes, a site that has drawn public visitors for more than a century still sits on a house's paperwork. That gap limits what the society can repair.
The society's board has asked Orange County to recognize the property as an arboretum through a special exception. According to the Observer's September 23 report, approval would let the gardens remodel the driveway, repair the historic buildings, improve emergency-vehicle access, add parking and host more education programs such as field trips.
Gardens President Giordana Lyons described the request narrowly. "If they have a medical emergency, if there's a fire in the gardens, that we are able to tend to that. That's the sole request of us being able to fix the driveway." Director Ralph Leemis said the aim is for the county to recognize the garden "as a botanical garden, to reflect what it was from its inception," with the nonprofit society still owning and protecting it.
The application met most of the special-exception criteria but not the county's landscape buffer-yard requirement. The gardens' original filing treated the needed buffer as a residential subdivision buffer. County staff said the correct buffer is the one that separates community commercial uses from all residential uses. Board member Tiffany Acireale summed up the mismatch: "We don't fit any of the established criteria for the buffer zone. We're not turning into a business, we're not trying to build a facility or a strip mall."
What the Lake Nally Woods HOA President Has Said
Some homes border the gardens directly, and some of their neighbors see the request as more than a driveway repair. Paul Dehart, a Gotha resident and president of the Lake Nally Woods HOA, told the Observer:
"This is all designed around increasing capacity which increases noise. … They already have weddings there, which we don't allow."
Dehart also said he hopes the homeowners and the board can reach a resolution. The board, for its part, disagreed with the buffer recommendation and asked for more time to find a solution. Both sides describe the same few acres and the same tree canopy. What separates them is how much public activity those acres should carry.
Where the Request Stands as of Early October
The case number is SE-26-04-012, listed as Jim Hall for Nehrling Gardens. It was item 15 on the Orange County Board of Zoning Adjustment agenda for Thursday, October 1. As of this writing, the most recent minutes on the county's BZA records page are from the September 3 meeting, so the October 1 outcome has not been published. No decision should be assumed in either direction.
Even after the October hearing, there are two steps:
- The Board of Zoning Adjustment makes a recommendation on the special exception.
- The Board of County Commissioners has to confirm that recommendation before it takes effect.
So a recommendation out of the October 1 meeting would not be a final approval. Neighbors following the case can check the county records for the October minutes and for any commission date.
The Garden as It Runs Today
None of this has closed the gate. The gardens' visitor page lists hours of Tuesday and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It asks for a $5 donation per person. Private tours are by appointment at $10 per person, with a $30 minimum. That adds up to 14 public hours a week across three days, which is a small footprint for a garden people come in from out of town to see.
The garden's history explains the draw. Henry Nehrling chose 25 acres in Gotha for what he called Palm Cottage Gardens, developing them between 1885 and 1896. In the early 1900s he tested more than 3,000 plants there. More than 300 of them became important to Florida ornamental horticulture, including caladiums, palms, bamboos, magnolias, amaryllis, Indian Hawthorne and crinum lilies. The Henry Nehrling Society formed in 1999, and Henry Nehrling's Palm Cottage Gardens was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The garden's 2026 programs show the kind of activity at issue in the request. In July it held a $45 cyanotype botanical-print workshop. The $50 Owl Prowl on October 3 combined art, wine, music, owl ambassadors and an auction. The garden also describes a free Story Time from 10 to 11 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month. Its events page currently shows no upcoming listings, though. Based on the stated schedule, the remaining dates would be October 10, November 14 and December 12, but call the garden to confirm before you go.
The Other Volunteer Calendar, on Gotha Road
The Gotha Rural Settlement Association is the second group behind Gotha's public calendar. It oversees the 1916 Gotha Schoolhouse, also called the Gotha Community Center, at 9561 Gotha Road, and rents it out for meetings and celebrations. The association meets there at 6:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and says everyone is welcome. On the calendar, that falls on October 21, November 18 and December 16. The association's site also lists restoration of the historic Zion Lutheran graveyard at 1001 Hempel Avenue as one of its projects.
Its biggest public event this fall is the third annual Gotha Rural Run Among the Trees 5K on Saturday, November 14. Check-in opens at 6:30 a.m. and the race starts at 7:30 a.m. at Gotha Middle School, 9155 Gotha Road, which the race page lists with a Windermere mailing address. Every finisher gets a medal and a race T-shirt, and the morning wraps up with a Gotha Family and Friends gathering with food, local vendors and family activities. That is also the second Saturday of November. If Story Time runs that month, the festival and the garden's 10 a.m. reading would fall on the same morning, about a mile apart on the two roads.
The Short Commercial Stretch Around Them
Gotha has very little commercial space, which is a big reason these two nonprofits carry so much of its public life. Yellow Dog Eats, at 1236 Hempel Avenue, is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with happy hour from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays. Its October specials include a Reuben on marble rye, a "Drunken Brat" on a pretzel bun and a "Pumpkin Love" sandwich made with pumpkin butter and bananas. Farther up the same road, Royal Landscape Nursery at 2204 Hempel Avenue runs a retail and wholesale nursery that is open to the public on weekdays and Saturdays. That puts the nursery a short walk from the garden whose founder tested so many of the plants now sold across Florida.
Both of Gotha's county parks are open this month, with one short disruption:
| Place | Address | This fall |
|---|---|---|
| Gotha Park | 10013 Park Ridge Gotha Road | Parking lot maintenance Oct. 12–16; facilities stay open |
| Lake Pearl Park | 1700 Twin Lake Drive | Open daily on seasonal hours; picnic areas and fishing |
Gotha Park has picnic grills, a playground, tennis and sand volleyball, so the parking work matters most to anyone with a court time that week.
If you drive north on Hempel Avenue, expect construction well past this season. Florida's Turnpike is replacing the Hempel Avenue bridge over SR 408 in a $23 million project. The new bridge will have one lane in each direction and sidewalks on both sides, and completion is expected in early 2027. A Hempel Avenue pedestrian walkway between Saddlebrook Lane and Lake Hugh Drive will stay closed until then. The Turnpike's notice gives conflicting information about which side is closed, so go by the posted signs.
The next public record in the Nehrling case will be the October minutes on the county's Board of Zoning Adjustment page. After that, any commission hearing date will show whether the garden's paperwork catches up with its century of public use.
Danholm Collection is based in Gotha, and we follow cases like this one because a land-use decision a few doors away can change how a property feels day to day and how it is valued. If you own near Hempel Avenue and want to talk through what the Nehrling request could mean for your home, Book Your Strategy Consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
