'Vizcaya', the James Deering estate designed by F. Burrall Hoffman Jr. between 1914 and 1923 in Miami, Florida with extensive landscaping by Diego Suarez. Deering was involved with the family business of the Deering Harvester Company, later the International Harvester Company. Today Vizcaya operates as Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. Click HERE to see 'Vizcaya' on google earth and HERE on bing. Many more pictures to follow.
Photos from Architectural Review, 1917.
8 comments:
A banner day. Thanks Zach for posting Vizcaya. I didn't grow up around gilded age mansions like many of you and I credit a trip to Vizcaya as a pre-adolescent boy with igniting my unquenchable love for these grand estates, the exquisitness of their design, the talent required to create them and the extravagant lifestyles that existed within their gates. That visit was just one of many gestures of my grandfather to nurture my love of architecture and design and persuade my career path. Of course, I was most fascinated at the time with the ability to swim inside or outside in the same pool.
Spectacular home without a doubt with historic interiors and fabulous formal gardens. Love that stone breakwater.
I confess to having done a two part blog post of these same pictures also, about a year and a half ago. They capture the perfect moment of what is arguably the best of the its type.
There's great pity here. The Deering heirs donated the southern end of the gardens to the Catholic Church, that great destroyer of landmarks. They built a hospital, filled in the canal, paved over most of the garden features, and built a hospital tower that compromises the view from the house in a big way. But, in their thirst for party dollars, the management of Vizcaya has been barely less destructive, with the astoundingly misguided glass pyramid over the courtyard, sold to the board as the only way to achieve climate control which is horse puckie if anyone thinks it through for even ten minutes. The gardens also need a firm trained hand to bring the shrubbery back into line. The aerial hedge on either side of the long central pool, always clipped square, an essential part of the design intent,has been allowed to lose form, and the parterres have become completely misshapen. Very sad. Better gardener training, and an educated, more exacting eye are clearly needed.
And we should start an organization. "SAVE VIZCAYA FROM ITSELF: TEAR DOWN THAT PYRAMID". Any of us who visited Vizcaya before and after that tragedy know how deeply sad and misguided it is.
PS, could that lost boathouse and its wonderful roof terrace be any more dreamy?
I had always thought that the southern portion of the gardens were never fully developed as shown on the site plan and that the hospital just infilled most of the lake. I agree the tower is an eyesore. It is a shame though when you climb up to the casino at the end of the garden vista and overlook not a beautiful lake, but a narrow ditch of water with some non-descript buildings on the other side. It awakens one back to reality. However, loss of gardens aside, what remains is a superlative example of architecture and landscape design.
Archibuff, the southern gardens, meant to be more wild, but with a lagoon on axis with the main gardens, and a few architectural features. It's sad---a pity that someone with a crystal ball could not have predicted how horribly the hospital would vandalize the land---
Look at this photo and weep:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RvfQlyio7ZE/Tevb5pVCdAI/AAAAAAAADGI/zxgtzqhKlc4/s1600/romer-photo-aerial-1940.jpg
Yea all that acreage would have made a wonderful park. Very sad. The view from the casino obviously was spectacular. Never saw the completed garden scheme before. Thnx
For those interested, here is a landscape impact report about Vizcaya--very critical of the current garden maintenance (as am I), and with lots of history of the development of the gardens, views of elements still visible in the hospital and high school grounds, and great historic views of the grounds, even if not interested in reading it.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDwQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Frepository.upenn.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1047%26context%3Dhp_theses&ei=NOOFT4zvCIeWgwf27b3LBw&usg=AFQjCNEN1F4aE5AdS03qn0SudNDXDOLVdQ&sig2=OLc7WhzRZus1uJge2k5HaA
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