Dazzling, trendy, glossy.  

Sleek buildings, flashy cars, the lastest everything.  

Beautiful people; star sightings. 

Hot bodies drinking MonaVie on white sand beaches; SoBe glitterati getting past the velvet rope at A-list night spots.

Miami is all this…but it is also so much more. 

 

 

Miami didn’t start out as a sizzling international hot spot, but it didn’t take long for it to get there.  Looking at the city today, it’s hard to believe that in the 1870s there was little there, save for a few hardy pioneers battling mosquitos as they farmed coontie roots to make starch on the narrow oolitic limestone ridge along pristine Biscayne Bay, where mirrored, high-rises now stand.

The isolation didn’t last long.  The tourism potential of the warm climate, beautiful beaches, and aqua-hued water was not lost on wealthy American industrialists of the late 1800s with plenty of money to spend.  They bought vast tracts of waterfront land for mere dollars, invested in land schemes, and built grand hotels on the speculation that tourists would come.  And come they did

They built Miami in an over-the-top way, using showy architectural styles, remnants of which still exist along the eastern edge of Miami, in Coral Gables, and along its famous beaches.  To visit Miami and not see these incredible architectural statements is to leave short-changed.

After lunching in one of Coconut Grove’s many sidewalk cafes, or shopping in its trendy boutiques, cross over to the shady side of Main Highway and into The Barnacle State Historic Site.  Just beyond the fern-covered natural limestone rock wall, shaded by immense banyan canopies, sits The Barnacle, the simple, sensible home of boat builder and naturalist, Commodore Ralph Munroe.  Built in 1891, with a wide veranda to shade the house and an intriguing skylight operated by ropes and pulleys to take advantage of the bayfront breezes, it tells the story of Miami’s early days.  

Wind up through the Grove along the bayfront and pass through the walls of magnificent Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, and into the world of Miami of 1916.  A palacial villa built by James Deering, a very rich agricultural industrialist with borrowed tastes, it’s at once elegant and gaudy.  With a dizzying, eclectic array of styles from different periods, it’s an incredible sight.  The antique, painting and sculpture-filled, gilded and embellished villa is fascinating; the manicured grounds with garden statuary, magnificent; the stone, barge-shaped, sculpture-topped breakwater, unusual, bordering on bizarre.  The view is breathtaking.

Long before there was SoBe, there was the City Beautiful - Coral Gables, a suburban development of the early 1920s, whose every detail was planned and executed in a Mediterranean theme by founder, George Merrick.   The fairy-tale project began as a sales ploy, but the end result, still viable 80+ years later, is a truly elegant community.  Ornate, walled and fountain-centered entrances graciously herald one in.  Purposefully planted, lush majestic royal poinsianas, dripping in flame-red blossoms, and huge banyans with roots the size of columns, shade streets lined with lovely old-world, Spanish-inspired homes.  Step back to the Gilded Age with a stay, or just lunch, in the fabulously elegant Biltmore Hotel. Swim in the one-of-a-kind Venetian Pool, an oolitic limestone rock quarry, whose rock outcroppings and caves, waterfalls and lush landscaping create a natural rock swimming pool.  Drop in to Books & Books, a wonderful bookstore with an old world feeling for a great read; shop along Miracle Mile, the place for brides; dine in one of dozens of the Gables’ fine intimate restaurants with cuisine from across the globe.   

To see Miami without the razzle-dazzle, venture south, off the beaten tourist path, down Old Cutler Road, a beautiful drive along the limestone ridge, to James Deering’s brother’s place, the Charles Deering Estate.  Here the grounds show off the exquisite natural beauty of Miami, a testament to the passion of the man whose interests were more introspective than those of his flamboyant brother.  On 450 remarkable acres of bayfront land stands Charles’ comparatively simpler, solid, rather boxy home which fits comfortably into the amazing natural landscape which surrounds it, including 115 acres of coastal tropical hardwood hammock, rare in today’s Miami. 

Back to civilization on steroids, South Beach, don’t let the skimpy bikinis keep you from noticing the fabulous painted ladies of Ocean Drive, Miami of the 1930s.  Amazing, austere, abstract, but with a touch of whimsy, these Art Deco hotels were built in the 1930s, for yet another influx of tourists. The geometry of the streamline design of these hotels is energized by pastel colors and by the designs on bas relief panels and etched glass depicting the fantasty of South Florida lifestyle: flamingos, sealife, palm trees, seashells, portholes.  

South Beach Lifeguard Tower

 

On the famous beach, even the lifeguard stations are whimsical, colorful, and fanciful.

Miami has always been all about fantasy and futurism.  It thrives on optimism and what could be.  It is, and always has been, a true escape.

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