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Ivey House in Everglades City: Lodging for outdoors folks

If you’re visiting the western entrance to Everglades National Park and the Ten Thousand Islands, there is a hotel that caters specifically to kayakers, hikers and outdoor enthusiasts – the Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel in Everglades City.

We’ve stayed here twice, once in the historic wing (now gone thanks to Hurricane Irma) and once is the new wing, with modern conveniences and pool-side rooms.

Ivey House Bed and Breakfast in Everglades City is designed for outdoors-oriented visitors. (Photo: Bonnie Gross)
Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel in Everglades City is designed for outdoors-oriented visitors. (Photo: Bonnie Gross)

Ivey House has an attractive screened pool, an excellent buffet breakfast and easy access to outdoors activities.

Ivey House actually is an outgrowth of a successful canoe and kayak outfitting company and is the base for EvergladesAdventures.com, which offers guided trips, equipment rental, livery service and lots of good information.

For example, if you’ve dreamt of paddling the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway from Flamingo to Everglades City (a five- to nine-day trip), Everglades Adventures can provide the transportation between those locales that makes it possible.

Pool area at Ivey House Bed and Breakfast in Everglades City (Photo: Bonnie Gross)
Pool area at Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel in Everglades City. (Photo: Bonnie Gross)

Or, if you’ve read Florida Rambler’s article on kayaking the Turner River but don’t own a kayak, these folks can help you do it.

The complex is located near the Barron River in Everglades City, walking distance to three popular restaurants. (Two are seafood houses that are among the most popular places to get stone crabs —Triad Seafood and City Seafood – and the third is Camellia Street Grill, with a more varied menu that also includes stone crabs and seafood.)

The hotel, which has spacious with private baths, has rates that start at $129 off season with January to April rates from $179 to $249 (plus taxes.)

A breakfast buffet is served in the dining room and it offers lots of choices — tasty hot foods, fresh fruits and yogurt, hot and cold cereals, rolls and muffins and a choice of sliced cheeses in the style of B&Bs in Europe.

Ivey House Bed and Breakfast in Everglades City (Photo: Bonnie Gross)
The Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel in Everglades City grew out of a successful canoe outfitting business. (Photo: Bonnie Gross)

Rooms are comfortable and the staff goes out of its way to help you have a great experience in the area. The white board in the lobby lists local wildlife sightings, for example, and when we told the desk clerk we were going to kayak the Turner River, he pulled out maps and information about it.

The atmosphere here is like a national park lodge and based on the conversations and accents heard at breakfast, Ivey House appeals to an international clientele.

The history of the Ivey House

The Tamiami Trail (pronounced tammy-ammy and standing for Tampa-Miami) is the southern-most link between the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. This road through the swampy, buggy, alligator-filled Everglades was not easy to build. While begun in 1915, the project was delayed by a world war, hurricanes and a land bust. Eventually, it took real estate developer Barron Collier’s funding to get the road built and it was completed in 1928.

Ivey House Bed and Breakfast in Everglades City (Photo: Bonnie Gross)
Dining room at breakfast as the Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel in Everglades City. (Photo: Bonnie Gross)

Everglades City was the center of the huge road project and Barron Collier had a recreation building constructed for the workers, offering a bowling alley and pool hall. That recreation building is now the lodge portion of the Ivey House.

After the road opened, Earl Ivey, who had operated the huge dredge that dug the Tamiami Trail, and his wife Agnes, ran a boarding house in the building – until she died in 1974!

For a few years after that, the historic building was the Beckett Academy, a school for troubled children that offered a program of wilderness activities.

In 1978, the current owners bought the school and the Ivey House began its transformation to first a bed and breakfast and eco-tour provider and is now calling itself “an Everglades adventure hotel.” In 2001, the inn with its swimming pool and the lodge lobby and dining room were completed. After losing the historic building to Hurricane Irma, an additional wing was added.

Ivey House Everglades Adventures Hotel Bed and Breakfast
107 Camellia St E, Everglades City, FL 34139
(239) 695-3299

Reviews on TripAdvisor

Reservations via Hotels.com

Things to do in Everglades City area

We love visiting Everglades City, a small fishing village with fresh seafood and historic buildings and proximity to so many outdoors adventures.


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