Seaside Opulence

The tour guide was immaculate. Black two-strap shoes, black pants and a black sleeveless top crisscrossed by vivid blue arcs. Her skin was a rich Florida brown, with a still richer relief of wrinkles, and her bleached-blonde coif added valuable inches to a five-foot and change frame. She began the tour by telling us that James Deering, then-president of International Harvester and the pockets behind the extravagant villa we now stood in, was fortunately unburdened by today’s “repressive income tax where the government doesn’t want you to keep any of your own money.” Sadly, Ms. Arlene B. Stephens did not punctuate the rest of the tour with political commentary.

Regardless of your guide, Deering’s villa is stunning in its sumptuous splendor. A medley of classical, baroque and renaissance styles of décor, each room calls forth a different century than the last. Constructed from 1914-1916, it is the product of nearly a decade of shopping expeditions through Europe, which undoubtedly would have exhausted a lesser man. However, Deering was clearly determined—his first set of gold-enameled china sank with the Titanic, so he quickly ordered a second—and his faithful artistic director, Paul Chalfin, undoubtedly helped carry him through the great furniture odyssey. Besides, he needed the company: he was never married.

But ten years of shopping will tire a man out. For one thing, Deering seemingly got rather lazy in his later years. According to our dear Ms. Stephens, the music room “en totale” was bought in Italy: harp, piano, chairs, paintings, fireplace, walls, ceilings, even the minstrels. Talk about one-stop shopping. In the long-run though, Deering might have been better off buying more complete-room packages. In 1925, scarcely a decade after the home’s completion, he died.

(Perhaps as a token of her solidarity with Deering’s noble efforts in a time before the deadly income taxes of today, our lovely Ms. Stephens spotted him about forty years, repeatedly announcing he died in ’64. On the other hand, she brought some balance to here inaccuracies by extending the completion of the house until 1918, two years later than the guidebook’s date.)

For the most part, each room of Deering’s villa held to a single century. Occasionally though, he chose to span the ages. For example in the foyer—called by the guidebook the ‘Entrance Loggia’—furniture in the neoclassical style rested on a baroque-inspired marble floor under an ornate ceiling inspired by those of “Renaissance times.” (Our darling Ms. Stephens was attached to this particular construction: ‘They hung tapestries on their walls in Renaissance times…’, ‘He put a fireplace in this room because he wanted it to be just like in Renaissance times’, etc.) To add to the mix, Deering’s technological preferences were not so dated as his decorative choices. He furnished his multi-century villa with every state-of-the-art convenience that the current age had to offer: Electric candelabras, refrigeration, two elevators, an electric telephone with a dial tone, a central heating system (to dry out the furniture at night), a fire control system and even a central vacuuming system—none of which were available in Renaissance times!

Before the tour, I had explored the gardens on my own—without the benefit of commentary from our delightful Ms. Stephens. Despite lacking her guidance—and the sullen heat—I managed to both make my way through the garden and out again. Dotted by statuary, ponds and pools, carved up by mini-canals and hedges-turned-labyrinths, and in the slow process of decay, the garden was both spectacular and dispiriting. Hurricanes and minimal funding had wreaked double damage to the clearly once exquisite grounds.

Behind the villa and facing the coast, a wide half-circle of a terrace is cast tangent to the shore, its extending ends jutting into the Atlantic. One is crowned by a yacht landing (closed for my visit), the other with a ‘Tea House’, though all but the most hardened most tea-takers would be discouraged by a persistently putrid breeze. Nestled in this palm-dotted arc is Deering’s “Great Stone Barge,” according to the guidebook. And they do not oversell themselves. The structure, which at 130 feet long is twice the length of Columbus’ vessel (according to the infallible Ms. Stephens), is incredible. Its statues had recently been restored when I visited, as the barge, which was built by Deering to serve as a ‘break-water’, had seemingly been in too high demand during Hurricane Wilma’s tour last year. But limps remain missing, noses long-gone, tridents de-tined, and there is, of course, occasional decapitated sea nymph.

Perhaps the estate’s decay is due justice. Deering’s stretch of South Florida has long pretended it existed instead on the Italian coast, but the illusions could not be maintained forever. During its heyday the estate—which then sprawled over 180 acres—included an area with a dairy, poultry house, mule stable, greenhouse, machine shop, paint and carpentry workshop and staff residences, all “designed to resemble a typical northern Italian village,” according to my trusty guidebook. Now reduced to a paltry 36 acres, the estate cannot even relish its privacy. A chain-link fence with a sturdy padlock blocks the path leading away from the estate’s southeastern ‘Peacock Bridge’, and the top floors of the neighboring mid-80s apartment blocks door have an air-conditioned overview of all garden goings-on.

As I walked away from Deering’s molding villa, leaving behind the ageless Ms. Stephens and passing a few amorphous, headless statues on my way out, I passed a shiny new sign. “For your safety, the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens does not allow animals, loitering, swimming, skating, biking or firearms! Thank you!”