Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, also known as Villa Vizcaya, Miami's exotic, paradisiacal house museum, recently celebrated its centennial. Built in 1917 for International Harvester scion James Deering, the house is a sublime melding of art and architecture into a cohesive, exotic whole.
Bordered by the Miami River to the north, Biscayne Bay to east, the Rickenbacker Causeway to the South, and I-95 to the west, Brickell is one of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods. Constantly evolving, Brickell has changed radically over the years, including an incredible development boom in the last twenty years. Brickell is a hub of the Latin American financial industry, and home to many of Miami’s foreign consulates, as well as thousands of condo-dwelling urbanites. Beginning as a neighborhood of luxurious mansions over a hundred years ago, Brickell has become the densest neighborhood south of Manhattan.
Vizcaya has always been fabulous. The architecturally and horticulturally spectacular bayfront villa built by International Harvester Company tycoon James Deering in the 1910s is preserved today as a museum of his time.
Vizcaya, the early 20th century winter home of Chicago industrialist James Deering was almost from its earliest inception destined to be far more than just a big house in Coconut Grove, despite Deering's desire for a comfortable and pleasant place to spend the winters and entertain relatives in his retirement. As soon as Deering met Vizcaya's chief designer, or 'creative director' as he is also known, Paul Chalfin, the estate became a great gestamkunstverk, or total work of art.
