Cape Coral’s first tourist attraction was the Rose Garden, located in Southwest Cape Coral on the site that is now Tarpon Point. Cape Coral’s developers, Leonard and Julius Rosen, developed the Rose Garden as a tourist destination to entertain visitors who came to look at buying property in Cape Coral. In its mid-1960s hey day, the Rose Garden had over 40,000 rose bushes. Complete with a reflecting pond, JFK Memorial, porpoise pool and mini-Mount Rushmore, the Rose Gardens left a lasting memory for many Cape Coral visitors.
Today, the Rose Garden name lives on in a Southwest Cape Coral neighborhood just north of the site of the original tourist attraction. The Rose Garden features single-family homes with both sailboat access and gulf access boating. The wide canals of the Rose Garden offer expansive water views and contribute to the beauty of this neighborhood.
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The 1966 musical comedy The Fat Spy was filmed entirely in Cape Coral and has some footage from the original Rose Garden. Notable stars in the movie included Jayne Mansfield Phyllis Diller.
In 2004, The Fat Spy was featured in a documentary, The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.