LANDMARKS
Versailles Cuban Restaurant
Every candidate for national election must pass through Iowa and New Hampshire. And every candidate must also pass through Versailles. To carry Versailles is metonymically to win the favor of the Cuban exiles, a group that still wields considerable power throughout Miami. Candidates as far removed as Mitt Romney and Bill Clinton have held court there. […]
Charles Deering Estate
Some years ago, the late Walter Ferguson, himself a Miami landmark, sat enjoying an early spring breeze, reminiscing about Miami before the boom. The conversation turned to the Deering brothers and the two estates they built. Someone asked Ferguson if he thought there’d ever be another Vizcaya. The latter smirked and sat back in his chair, “listen here.” He leaned […]
Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables
She is the center of life for much of the neighborhood: residents eat at her restaurants (one of which contends each year for the title of Miami’s Best); they drink at her bars and swim in her pool; they exercise at her gym and play tennis on her courts; they spend mornings on her golf course and nights in her ballrooms and live theater.
Fairchild Tropical Gardens
Not everyone is ready for a day in the swamp; happily, David Fairchild, botanist and early Miami resident, joined Col. Robert Montgomery, Everglades champion Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and landscape architect William Phillips to build an unusual treasure in southern Coral Gables, 34 hectares of tropical and subtropical gardens built with plants brought in from all […]
Wayside Market
I’m told there was a time children played outside. I don’t mean a time they were driven to soccer at the appointed hour, but rather a time we let a child walk out the door and look for friends, for games, or maybe just for a spot under a Southern Elm. Deep in an affluent […]