{"id":12981,"date":"2016-09-29T08:24:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T15:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/somimag.com\/?p=12981"},"modified":"2016-09-29T09:11:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T16:11:14","slug":"vizcaya-celebrates-100th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somimag.com\/vizcaya-celebrates-100th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"VIZCAYA CELEBRATES 100TH ANNIVERSARY"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/a>

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Vizcaya, James Deering\u2019s sumptuous home filled with fine art and antiques, and gardens festooned with sculpture, fountains, and grottoes, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Through time, the millionaire\u2019s winter residence has moved from private home to that of a highly-regarded, accredited museum, National Historic Landmark, and popular attraction. Deering\u2019s purchase of 180 acres in Coconut Grove was on densely forested land bordered by mangrove swamp and Biscayne Bay. Into this untamed land was imposed a grand palace with a design aesthetic borrowed from an Italian villa and formal gardens inspired by the Renaissance. The success of designer and decorator Paul Chalfin, architect Francis Burrall Hoffman, Jr., and landscape designer Diego Suarez was to create a place that was highly evocative of Europe while being sensitive to the site\u2019s subtropical environment.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: Vizcaya Museum & Gardens Archives<\/p><\/div>\n

James Deering<\/b>
\nJames Deering (1859-1925) was born in South Paris, Maine, the son of William Deering and his second wife, Clara Hammond Deering. His father inherited a woolen mill but later turned his eyes westward and moved his family to Chicago where he purchased a farm equipment manufacturing firm.\u00a0He renamed it the Deering Harvester Company. In 1880 James and his half-brother Charles Deering (1852-1927) joined the company.<\/p>\n

Deering Harvester went on to great success, eventually merging with other companies to become International Harvester in 1902. The new company quickly became one of the leading manufacturers of farming implements, remaining so for most of the 20th century and making the Deering family one of the wealthiest in America.<\/p>\n

James worked for the company until 1908. He served as vice president until 1919 and was a director of the company until his death in 1925. Deering never married and had no children.<\/p>\n

\"Deering-Bedroom\"

James Deering\u2019s Bedroom. Photo by Bill Sumner, courtesy of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Deering-Bathroom\"

James Deering\u2019s Bathroom. Photos by Bill Sumner, courtesy of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens<\/p><\/div>\n

Members of the Deering family were not strangers to Florida; they had previously spent time in Saint Augustine to improve William Deering\u2019s failing health. Later William would purchase land in Coconut Grove. James, who suffered from pernicious anemia, was also advised by his physician to winter in south Florida for the warmth and sunshine.<\/p>\n

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In 1912, he purchased 130 acres of land in the Grove; two years later he bought another 50 acres. He began his project to build his Florida home\u2014something in which he would be fully engaged until the end of his life at the age of 66 aboard the SS CITY OF PARIS as it was returning from Europe to the United States. He left Vizcaya to his brother Charles.<\/p>\n

Villa Vizcaya<\/b>
\nVizcaya was likely inspired by the baroque Villa Rezzonico-Borella<\/i> in Bassano del Grappa<\/i>, in the Italian Veneto, built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Deering was very involved in the design and decoration of his future palace on the bay. An avid sailor, he wanted the house to be seen and approached from Biscayne Bay. The east fa\u00e7ade with its wide terrace and the decorative \u201cbarge\u201d seemingly afloat in the water have never lost their ability to impress. The west side of the home was the proper front entrance for visitors coming by land.\u00a0The north side includes a swimming pool under arches and on the south, the entrance to the elaborate gardens with loggias on the first and second floors.<\/p>\n

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Exterior photos on these pages, courtesy of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens. (Except as noted)<\/p><\/div>\n

The main house is distinguished in the United States for its Renaissance-inspired architecture and interiors replete with European antiques and American art commissioned in the 19th century. Inside on the first floor, there are reception rooms, the library, music room, and dining room surrounding the large courtyard. The courtyard, now covered with a glass roof, was designed to be open to the elements. The second floor includes Deering\u2019s suite of rooms, guest bedrooms, a breakfast room, and the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Although the house is deferential to European decorative traditions, Vizcaya was designed to include the latest in technology, with heating and ventilation, elevators, central vacuum-cleaning system, a dumb-waiter, and an updated laundry room.<\/p>\n

\"Vizcaya-Entrance\"In an interest to make Vizcaya virtually self-sufficient, Deering had the Village built apart from the house and formal gardens. It contained staff housing, maintenance buildings, garages, stables, a dairy, a poultry house, and greenhouses. The estate also had a working farm and citrus grove. Today the Village consists of nearly a dozen buildings, from the east and west gate lodges on either side of South Miami Avenue to the poultry barn along US Route 1.<\/p>\n

\"2012-Orchidarium-Yellow-Orchid-Detail\"Conceiving, designing and building Vizcaya was a massive project that employed approximately 1,000 workers, a full\u00a010 percent of Miami\u2019s population at the time.<\/p>\n

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\"East-Loggia\"

East Loggia – Photo by Bill Sumner<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Living-Room\"

Living Room – Photo by Bill Sumner<\/p><\/div>\n

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By Design: Chalfin, Hoffman, and Suarez<\/b>
\nJames Deering worked together with a team of three men, Chalfin, Hoffman, and Suarez to make Vizcaya a reality. New Yorker, Paul Chalfin (1874-1959), was an artist who studied in Europe at the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts<\/i> in Paris and later served as the curator of Asiatic arts of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Chalfin returned to Europe in 1906 for a painting fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. He studied and traveled extensively through Italy for the next three years. He fully embraced the Italian design aesthetic, became fluent in Italian, and building networks with people in the Italian art market. Although not a trained architect, Chalfin had a great love of and sensitivity to the discipline. His relationship with Deering was one of trust and collaboration, and his keen sense of design and understanding of the role of the decorative in architecture served in the successful creation of Vizcaya. Chalfin was responsible for the choice of the general overall design of the main house and garden, and for decorating and furnishing the interior of the main house.<\/p>\n

Accordingly to Vizcaya\u2019s website: The interiors of the Main House were meant to suggest the passing of time and the layered accumulation of artifacts and memories. The rooms were designed around objects acquired in Italy and\u00a0assembled into new compositions by Chalfin.<\/i><\/p>\n

Francis Burrall Hoffman, Jr. (1882-1980) was a professional architect who implemented Chalfin\u2019s design aesthetic into Vizcaya\u2019s architecture. He studied at Harvard and the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts<\/i> in Paris and worked in the architect office of Carr\u00e8re and Hastings, establishing his own office in 1909 in New York. True to his Beaux-Arts training, Hoffman designed an essentially square building allowing for movement along a main east-west axis from the entrance through the courtyard to the terrace facing Biscayne Bay. Hoffman worked on Vizcaya until 1917, when he joined the army to serve in France during World War I. He enjoyed a lengthy architectural career, but Vizcaya remained his most notable project.<\/p>\n

Colombian-born, Diego Suarez (1888-1974), a landscape architect, lived in his mother\u2019s native Italy after the death of his father, a diplomat. He studied architecture at the Accademia di Belle Arti<\/i> in Florence and designed many formal gardens for private homeowners. It was in Florence that he met Deering and Chalfin. Suarez was invited to the United States by an American patron and became stranded in New York when the war broke out. At Vizcaya, Suarez took into account the flatness of the topography, the many hours of Florida sunshine, and the semi-tropical climate. He fashioned a European garden aesthetic with local stone and native plantings. Using low hedges, he created strong perspective lines in the French parterres<\/i> style of formal gardens. He made slight changes to the levels of certain areas to give interest to the flat topography. In addition to complementing the main architecture and other structures such as the Casino\u00a0on the mound.<\/p>\n

Suarez created a garden of discoveries, rewarding a visitor\u2019s walk with a grotto, a fountain, or a statue.<\/p>\n

Like Hoffman, Suarez also left the project in 1917. The villa was completed for residency in 1916, and the formal gardens and acres of landscaped grounds completed in 1922.<\/p>\n\n\t\t