Just east of Red Road, set back from the traffic at 5530 Sunset Drive, a low wooden cottage sits under a canopy of hammock trees. It is the Doc Thomas House, built in 1931 and 1932 from native woods and local oolitic limestone. It has been the headquarters of Tropical Audubon Society for half a century. This fall it looks different from Sunset Drive. Much of the front-yard growth that hid it is gone, and in its place is a native pollinator garden low enough to show the house.
TAS designed the new landscape partly to keep the house dry, and that makes the house's 50th year under Audubon care a good time to see how a wood house survives in Miami.
A house built from what was here
The story starts with a man who was called "Doc" but never went to medical school. TAS says Arden Hayes Thomas moved from Fortville, Indiana, to Miami in 1925. A year later he opened the O.K. Drug Store. He held an English degree and became a pharmacist through apprenticeship and licensing, and the nickname followed.
In 1931 Thomas hired Robert Fitch Smith, a University of Miami architecture graduate, to design a home for his wooded lot. According to Tropical Audubon Society's history of the house, the result is Florida Wood-Frame Vernacular with an Arts and Crafts influence. It combines oolitic limestone and coral rock with native woods, and its interior is paneled in tidewater red cypress.
The wood is what makes the rest of this story matter, because a wood exterior needs sun and moving air to stay dry.
The house has a long record of public recognition. TAS reports that it became a Dade County historic site in 1982, joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2014, and was named a Florida Heritage Site in 2016. Thomas left the house and most of the property to the society as a life estate. TAS took formal possession in April 1976, and that is the start of the 50 years it is marking now. The grounds were dedicated as the Steinberg Nature Center in 2012.
The garden that keeps the walls dry
Community Newspapers' October 13 announcement describes the front-yard project in detail. 3o5 Gardens helped design it, and its staff installed it alongside volunteers under Amy Creekmur, TAS's Events and Grounds director. The new plants are lower and sized to the cottage, so the house can be seen again.
The same piece explains how the new layout protects the cottage.
"A new three-foot perimeter of crushed clam shell and the replacement of vegetation that had grown too large or too close to the structure allow more sunlight and air to reach the wood exterior, helping reduce the moisture that can promote mold and mildew."
At the Doc Thomas House, growth that had crept too close to the walls was holding moisture against the wood. The fix was to choose plants that stay small and to keep a band of open ground around the house, not to clear the lot.
The new plantings are all natives that birds and pollinators use:
- Coontie
- Havana skullcap
- Swamp milkweed
- Quailberry
- Wild petunia
A grant from The Villagers Inc. helped pay for the work. The group has a long record of supporting the house's restoration.
What changed inside
The work outside matches recent work inside. The Community Newspapers piece lists the restored and refinished woodwork, including the living room's built-in bookshelves and the mahogany-pegged oak floor. The cypress and pine ceiling over the front porch has also been stained. TAS's own tour page says the cottage has "recently undergone extensive structural repair."
So the inside work brings back the original wood finishes, and the outside work protects them. A tour this season shows both, and the guides cover why the gardens and the demonstration forests around the house matter to TAS's conservation work.
How to see it this fall
Two tour dates are left in 2026, and both fall on the first Saturday of the month. TAS's tours page lists tours at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. from October through May.
| Date | What | Time | Cost and sign-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, November 7 | Doc Thomas House history tour | 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. | Free, donations welcome; registration link on the TAS event page |
| Saturday, November 21 | Bird-Friendly Gardening Day | 9 a.m. to noon | RSVP required |
| Saturday, December 5 | Doc Thomas House history tour | 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. | Free, donations welcome; registration link on the TAS event page |
| Saturday, December 19 | Bird-Friendly Gardening Day | 9 a.m. to noon | RSVP required |
On length, TAS describes a guided tour of about an hour. The Community Newspapers announcement says 75 to 90 minutes, so plan for the longer one. The tours are led by Dan Jones, a retired educator, TAS board member and the society's resident historian, with help from other volunteers. Admission is free. Donations go straight to the upkeep of the house and the Steinberg Nature Center. You can sign up for November through the TAS event listing.
Parking on site is limited. TAS directs drivers to the auto gate on SW 55th Avenue.
The Bird-Friendly Gardening mornings are the hands-on way in. Volunteers spend three hours on garden and grounds upkeep, the same kind of work that keeps the new perimeter and plantings in shape. If you have been thinking about a native planting at home, a morning working in a finished one is a good way to learn how it holds up.
Before or after the tour
The 2.2-acre Steinberg Nature Center wraps around the house. TAS describes pine rockland, hardwood hammock, a bird-friendly demonstration garden, nature trails and picnic areas. The Community Newspapers announcement invites visitors to walk the grounds on their own before or after a tour. TAS does not publish daily hours for the grounds, so a tour Saturday is the surest time to walk them.
The first tour date comes one week after a family evening on Sunset Drive. The City of South Miami's Safe Streets Halloween runs Saturday, October 31, from 4 to 7 p.m. on Sunset Drive between US 1 and 57th Avenue, with trick-or-treating, games and music. It is organized with Miami Kids Magazine. Families who spend Halloween on the downtown blocks can come back to the house, a few blocks east, the following Saturday.
Two nearby South Miami stops round out a tour Saturday. SOMI Magazine's fall roundup reports that Mano Libera, at 7201 SW 59th Avenue, has been added to the Michelin Guide's recommended list. The same roundup says Garcia-Nevett Chocolatier de Miami, at 7812 Red Road, was ranked second among the country's independent chocolatiers in USA Today's top ten.
The house's own calendar doesn't stop in December. TAS runs tours on the first Saturday of each month through May, so anyone who misses November 7 and December 5 can go in the new year, when the coontie and quailberry in the front yard will have had a few more months to grow in.
At Boschetti Realty Group, our family background in development and construction means we pay close attention to houses like this one, where the architecture and the care behind it hold the value. If you own an older South Miami home built from native wood and stone and want a thoughtful conversation about what its character is worth, we would be glad to hear from you. Work With Us.
