by Beth Luberecki

Some people come to Lake Wales, Florida, for its history or natural beauty. I came for the free orange juice.

OK, that’s not exactly true. But I did start my visit to Lake Wales at the Grove House Visitor Center, where I happily sampled some Florida’s Natural juices.

I waited until after my husband and I checked out the site’s exhibits, though, filled with artifacts, historic photos, and videos telling the story of the company’s nearly eight decades of operation in the area. We learned about how orange shipments used to travel by ox to Tampa and about freak freezes and snow storms that damaged crops. And I think all that newfound knowledge made the free beverages taste that much sweeter.

With our thirsts quenched, we headed into the Central Florida city’s historic downtown. Lake Wales was founded in 1911, and its compact city center still hearkens back to its early twentieth-century heyday. It was a little quiet on this springtime Saturday, but frankly, too much hustle and bustle would have felt out of place amid all this historic charm.

We wandered among the shops and galleries located downtown, checking out antiques and imagining their stories. We watched high school girls ogle Vera Bradley bags at Polka Dots & Co. In the circa-1919 Bullard Building, we found the Village Kitchen Shop, filled with cookie cutters, fondue pots, Le Creuset cookware, and anything else a gourmand or wannabe baker might need.

Once located in the nearby Eagle Ridge Mall, the shop made the move recently to downtown. “We loved the historic feel to the whole district,” says co-owner Diane Armington. “We fell in love with the building we purchased here; it just has a lot of charm, and you don’t get that in a mall store.”

To learn more about Lake Wales’s past, we ventured to the Depot Museum, housed in a pink stucco former railroad station that dates to 1928. Its grandma’s attic–like collection includes everything from vintage citrus labels and railroading artifacts to a prehistoric dugout canoe found in Polk County’s Lake Hancock. Exhibits explore the city’s history, the businesses that helped develop the area, and the people who have called Lake Wales home.

“We’re preserving the past for the benefit of the future,” says Mimi Hardman, the museum’s director. “It’s very, very important that we capture all this. Even though economic times are bad, we still have to remember that we have to have some kind of history.”

We were going to be resting our heads among some of that history later that night at the Chalet Suzanne, but before we checked in, we made a quick detour to the Lake Wales Arts Center. It occupies a circa-1927, mission-style former Catholic Church with an octagonal dome, bell tower, and other architectural details as interesting as the art displayed inside. Classes, exhibits, and concerts take place year-round, highlighting art forms ranging from watercolors to photography.

Since opening in 1931, Chalet Suzanne has had something of a cult following. Run by generations of the Hinshaw family, the one-hundred-acre property exudes a decidedly European feel. Its pink-tinted buildings with their pointed rooflines and hidden alcoves look like something right out of a fairy tale.

We stayed in one of the property’s original guest rooms. No flat-screen TVs or other twenty-first-century touches here, just lots of vintage details, like our very cozy bathroom. If we looked out the window behind our bed, we could see the hotel’s airstrip for guests arriving in private planes.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Chalet Suzanne is also home to a gift shop, spa, ceramics studio, citrus groves, and a cannery producing its own line of soups and sauces. The vibe here definitely skews more quirky than luxurious, and that’s just what seems to draw the inn’s devoted clientele.

What could be classified as luxurious is the traditional five-course dinner at Chalet Suzanne’s restaurant, featuring its famous caramelized grapefruit, romaine soup, and entrée choices like buffalo filet and lump crab. But we opted to forgo the splurge and headed back downtown for a little French cuisine.

Thanks to a chef who attended Paris’s Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Très Jolie brings a little bit of the City of Light to Central Florida with entrées like steak au poivre and coquilles St. Jacques. We visited on a quiet evening for the restaurant, so we enjoyed a leisurely dinner and attentive service.

We began the next morning with a walk around Lake Wailes, just east of the downtown. The lake was named after Sydney Wailes, a land agent employed by the State of Florida following the Civil War. But town fathers dropped the “i” when naming the city that grew up around the body of water; they thought its similarity to the word “wail” would connote a sense of sadness.

A two-and-a-half-mile trail hugs the lakeshore, providing a scenic pathway for walkers, runners, and bike riders. Those inclined to more aquatic pursuits take advantage of the lake’s fishing pier and boat ramp.

Located in the center of the state, the city of Lake Wales sits along Florida’s geographical ridge, which claims the highest elevation in the peninsula portion of the state at 298 feet. That distinction becomes clear at the Bok Tower Gardens, our last stop during our weekend visit.

Dutch-born Edward Bok, who wintered in the Lake Wales area, was inspired by the beauty of its Iron Mountain to create a public garden on the hilltop. He hired famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. for the job, and the end result is an expanse filled with colorful blooms, rolling lawns, and patches of shade trees connected by winding paths that reveal postcard-worthy scenes at every turn.

The site’s landmark marble and coquina carillon, one of only four in Florida, stands 205 feet tall and offers daily concerts. Visitors find a spot on the lawn or amble along tree-lined walkways while listening to the tower’s sixty bronze bells ring out. Gaze to the south from the back side of the carillon, and it’s easy to imagine you’re somewhere other than flat-as-a-pancake Florida.

We did just that while taking in this lovely spot, which its founder hoped would “touch the soul with its beauty and quiet.” And I decided that the free orange juice definitely wasn’t the only reason to visit Lake Wales.

Beth Luberecki is a Venice, Florida–based freelance writer and an editor for Times of the Islands, RSW Living, Bonita Living, and Gulf & Main.