So. Florida Trip #5: Vizcaya the Mansion

Rob and Tom

 After we saw the Everglades one of the days we were in south Florida, our friend Jeff J. recommended that we visit a mansion called "Vizcaya" so we did. 
  This is the 5th of 5 blogs about the trip.

One thing we noticed was that the former owner had purchased treasures from all over the world - Egypt, Italy, France, England and more. (It was like walking through the Vatican museum in Italy where so many artifacts were pillaged from other cultures).

Front entrance of Vizcaya

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune, on Biscayne Bay in the present day Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida. 

VIEW OF BISCAYNE BAY - The back of the house is on Biscayne Bay, and has a recreation of gondola poles from Venice, Italy as well as a replica of a ship in shallow water, where the owner held parties.

My favorite picture of Tom

Vizcaya Gardens

FAST FACT - The mansion took 2 years to build, and James Deering only lived in it 4 months out of the year (during the winter because his main home was in Chicago). He lived in the house over 9 years, so about 36 months.

A Roman statue we admired

Checking the camera

Backyard gardens

The early 20th century Vizcaya estate also includes: extensive Italian Renaissance gardens; native woodland landscape; and a historic village outbuildings compound. The landscape and architecture were influenced by Veneto and Tuscan Italian Renaissance models and designed in the Mediterranean Revival architecture style, with Baroque elements.

OBSERVATION - James Deering lived and died a bachelor and his 2 nieces inherited the house. So we'd venture a guess that he was gay. 

Miami-Dade County now owns the Vizcaya property, as the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, which is open to the public. 

That concludes our South Florida Trip.