Monday, March 10, 2014

Vizcaya

The James Deering estate of Vizcaya is from a time when seasonal houses and their gardens were a measure of personal wealth.  Located in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, it is owned by Miami-Dade County.  The estate includes one of the grand Gilded Age mansions that I so love to visit, and one of only three in Florida.  Marjory and I have visited all three Florida mansions this winter including also Whitehall (Palm Beach) in February, and Ca’ d’Zan (at The Ringling on Sarasota) in March.  We toured Vizcaya in late January.

James Deering is from the family of farm equipment manufacturers whose company eventually became International Harvester.  From this, the entire family achieved great wealth.  James Deering began planning his winter home in 1910 and purchased the land on Biscayne Bay in 1912.  Deering began to collect art, artifacts, and architectural elements which were later incorporated into both house and gardens.  These collections span the entire period of the European renaissance and include items from Italy, France, Spain, and elsewhere.

Working with designer Paul Chalfin, Deering first imagined a Spanish-style house.  However, the design was later changed to that of an Italian villa (country house).  The house was designed with an open center forming a courtyard.  (The courtyard has been enclosed with a skylight since 1986 to help preserve the house and its treasures.)  Construction of the main house was completed in 1916 and the gardens in 1921.  At its peak, this project employed ten percent of the population of Miami at the time.

The mansion offers a symmetrical view from the east, with Biscayne Bay intended as the main arrival route (see below).  Today, visitors enter through the motor court on the west side.  The north façade includes a swimming pool that emerges from vaulted arches at the lower level of the house. The south façade opens onto the formal gardens with enclosed loggias on the first and second floors.


Perhaps the least that can be said about Vizcaya is that it is stunning.  The interiors of the main house were meant to suggest the passing of time and the layered accumulation of artifacts and memories.  Decorative elements and furnishings include Italian wood paneling, French silk walls and marbled walls, massive furniture pieces from the Napoleonic French empire period, and tapestries and paintings dating from 1300 to 1900. 

The grounds, too, are amazing, including a mound with a casino, a grand allee, a maze, fountains, a secret garden, and many others.  Unique to my knowledge is the “barge,” actually a concrete and stone breakwater that sits between the house and the bay.  This has helped to somewhat protect the house from the water.

Originally a working estate, a dozen farm buildings, called Vizcaya Village, are still in existence across South Miami Avenue.  It is hoped that these will someday be fully restored and open to the public.

Deering, always a bachelor, passed in 1925.  Partly because of the enormous cost of maintenance, Deering’s nieces sold the house to the county for a small fraction of its value in 1955.

There is a very nice one-hour documentary on Vizcaya prepared by the local PBS-member station WPBT2 available online.  It does far more than I possibly could in describing Mr. Deering’s legacy.

Vizcaya is the smallest of Florida's Gilded Age mansions – originally only 30,000 square feet without the courtyard that was enclosed much later.  But because of the blending of so many styles and periods of its furnishings and collections, it remains somewhat overwhelming.  And its grounds were originally the largest.

As always, I'm left with so many questions.  Despite its magnificent water view, did Deering understand the peril of placing his house so close to Biscayne Bay?  (It has been damaged by hurricanes at least four times.)  Why did he feel the need for a working estate?  Did he intend or expect that Vizcaya and its contents would become a museum after his passing?  A single visit is not enough to fully absorb, understand, and appreciate this wonder created my James Deering and designer Paul Chalfin.

 

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