Villa Vizcaya - History

History

The estate property originally consisted of 180 acres (730,000 m2) of shoreline Mangrove swamps and dense inland native tropical forests. Being a conservationist, Deering sited the development of the estate portion along the shore to conserve the forests. This portion was to include the villa, formal gardens, recreational amenities, expansive lagoon gardens with new islets, potager and grazing fields, and a village services compound. The villa was built primarily between 1914 and 1916, while the construction of the extensive elaborate Italian Renaissance gardens and the village continued into 1923. During the World War I years building trades and supplies were difficult to acquire in Florida. Vizcaya is noteworthy for adapting historical European aesthetic traditions to South Florida's subtropical ecoregion. For example; it combined imported French and Italian garden layouts and elements implemented in Cuban limestone stonework with Floridian coral architectural trim and planted with sub-tropic compatible and native plants that thrived in the habitat and climate. Palms and Philodendrons had not been represented in the emulated gardens of Tuscany or Île-de-France.

Deering used Vizcaya as his winter residence from 1916 until his death in 1925. Paul Chalfin, a former art curator, painter, and interior designer, was the project's director. He assisted and encouraged Deering to collect art items, antiquities, and architectural elements for the project. Chalfin recommended the architect F. Burrall Hoffman to design the structural and envelope of the villa, garden pavilions, and estate outbuildings. The landscape master plan and individual gardens were designed with the Colombian landscape designer Diego Suarez, who had trained with Sir Harold Acton at the gardens of Villa La Pietra outside Florence, Italy. The estate's name refers to the northern Spanish province Vizcaya, in the Basque region along the east Atlantic's Bay of Biscay, as 'Vizcaya' is on the west Atlantic's Biscayne Bay. Records indicate Deering wished the name also to commemorate an early Spaniard named Vizcaya who he thought explored the area, although later he was corrected that the explorer's name was Sebastián Vizcaíno. Deering used the Caravel, a type of ship style used during the 'Age of Exploration),' as the symbol and emblem of Vizcaya. A representation of the mythical explorer "Bel Vizcaya" welcomes visitors at the entrance to the property.

Vizcaya's villa exterior and garden architecture is a composite of different Italian Renaissance villas and gardens, with French Renaissance parterre features, based on visits and research by Chalfin, Deering, and Hoffman. The villa facade's primary influence is the Villa Rezzonico designed by Baldassarre Longhena at Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is referred to sometimes as the "Hearst Castle of the East".

James Deering died in September 1925, on board the steamship SS City of Paris en route back to the United States. After his death Vizcaya was inherited by his two nieces, Marion Chauncey Deering McCormick and Ely Deering McCormick Danielson. Over the decades, after hurricanes and increasing maintenance costs, they began selling the estate's surrounding land parcels and outer gardens. In 1945 they gave significant portions of the Vizcaya property to the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Augustine, Florida, and to Miami's Mercy Hospital. 50 acres (200,000 m2) comprising the main house, the formal gardens, and the village were retained. In 1952 Miami-Dade County acquired the villa and formal Italian gardens, needing significant restoration, for $1 million. Deering's heirs donated the villa's furnishings and antiquities to the County-Museum. Vizcaya began operation in 1953 as the Dade County Art Museum. The village and remaining property were acquired by the County during the mid-1950s. In 1994 the Vizcaya estate was designated as a National Historic Landmark. In 1998, in conjunction with Vizcaya's reaccreditation process by the American Association of Museums, the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Trust was formed to be the museum's governing body.