An Early History Of Sunnier Palms Nudist Park 

 SunnY Palms was established in Florida City in 1948 by Reed Supplee, an American Nudist pioneer.

 In 1984, Reed, who was in ill health, was in his second marriage to a non-nudist.  She, unbeknownst to members, got a contract to sell the beautiful pristine 40 acre pine forest (Members Lodge) to DuPont.  The sale was contingent on a zoning change.  When members and neighboring property owners finally learned of the potential sale, all rallied to keep DuPont out with many of the nearby farmers fearing that DuPont would use the property for testing explosives. Despite a valiant effort against it, Dade County allowed the zoning change and members, who were for the most part absent during the mosquito ridden Florida City summers, were contacted to remove everything in a matter of days.

Sunnier Palms, a Not-for-Profit Corporation, is formed.

Having organized members and neighbors to fight the zoning change, a trio of members organized a re-location search committee, which soon grew to incorporate Sunnier Palms as a not-for-profit corporation.  Sunnier Palms adapted a fundamental non-profit co-op concept of the successful White Thorn Co-Operative Nudist Park on the Pennsylvania Ohio border.

The Search Continues and a Plan.

After much frustration with Dade County the search committee broaden the land search to at one point, to include Australia.  Ultimately, Sunnier Palm's consulting biologist, David Southall advised the  search be limited to Vero on the East Coast and Fort Myers on the West Coast, as Sunnier was to include projects on the land.  The diagonal line that Southall drew across the state represented the most friendly area for agriculture projects including rare fruit.

During the search, Sunnier considered buying undeveloped land with a beautiful plan that married the agriculture project with residential.  Then in 1991, the search committee turned to existing RV parks for sale and found Timberland Park in rural St. Lucie County.  On the first visit to see the park, they discovered an adjacent road side general store, swampy field, and pine forest.  Treasurer Barry made the sale of the already developed RV park contingent on that the owner get adjacent property owners to sell as well.  Timberland developer Cambell successfully bought the adjacent property owners into the package and agreed to carry the mortgage.

 On August 2, 1992 Timberland Park became Sunnier Palms Members' Lodge,  Inc.

The properties were secured by non-interest bearing loan from 8 founding families, which funded many improvements and business start up costs.  Fortunately, Sunnier had paying visitors before we even had a gate.  Those and many 1000's of other visitors in the past 20 years, have paid the mortgage on time, funded a major city water project, repaired Sunnier's hurricane damage and continued to fund improvements.  A true co-operative, Sunnier owes todays beauty and freedom to enjoy a natural community to all the member volunteers who have labored long and hard over the 20 plus years since 1992.  Thanks to all who visit and call Sunnier Palms their home.

A home where "It Is Always Sunnier At Sunnier Palms" .

Historical contribution provided by T.A. 

Enjoy the photo tour of the early years of Sunnier Palms.