The Miami estate of Vizcaya, like its palatial contemporaries
Biltmore and San Simeon, represents an achievement of the Gilded
Age, when country houses and their gardens were a conspicuous
measure of personal wealth and power. In Vizcaya: An American Villa
and Its Makers, a celebrated architecture critic and writer and an
award-winning landscape architect explore the little-known story of
Vizcaya, an extraordinary national treasure. Witold Rybczynski and
Laurie Olin use a rich collection of illustrations, historic
photographs, and narrative to document the creation of this
stunning house and landscape. Vizcaya was completed in 1916 as the
winter retreat of Chicago industrialist James Deering. The
cosmopolitan bachelor, who chose Miami for its warm climate,
enlisted the guidance of artist Paul Chalfin, with whom he traveled
throughout Italy to survey houses and gardens. With the assistance
of architect F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., and garden designer Diego
Suarez, the 180-acre site on Biscayne Bay was transformed into a
grand estate, complete with lagoons, canals, citrus groves, a farm
village, a yacht harbor, and a 40-room Baroque mansion. The lure of
this architectural and landscape masterpiece, named for a Spanish
Basque province, is undeniable. John Singer Sargent planned a short
visit in 1917 but stayed for several months, producing an inspired
series of watercolors, many of which are reproduced here for the
first time. The book is further enriched by archival material and
by the color images of noted photographer Steven Brooke, paying
homage to Vizcaya as a lens through which readers learn about
architecture, landscape and garden design, interior decoration, and
art.
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