The Estate offers informative tours of lush natural areas where fossil bones have been found from as far back as 50,000 years, and of some of South Florida's earliest buildings dating from 1896. The new Environmental Education Center showcases programs for school children and adults, teacher training and research. The property also serves as a small conference center for organizations with an affinity to Charles Deering's interest in the environment, botany, history, fine arts, antiques, rare books and wine.
Rental facilities are available for special social functions.
Nature tours and guided canoe tours to the offshore island of Chicken Key are available for an additional fee. Human remains found at the site have been carbon dated to 10,000 years ago, suggesting that the Paleo-Indians, the earliest known people of North America, inhabited the area. The Tequesta Indians lived on the site from about 2000 years ago to the late 1700s. In 1838, the United States awarded a provisional land grant to Dr. Henry Perrine for the propagation of commercially valuable tropical plants, in what is currently the Deering Estate. Perrine was killed by Seminole Indians during the Second Seminole War and never did settle the grant.