Vizcaya Museum and Gardens

ABOUT VIZCAYA MUSEUM AND GARDENS

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is a National Historic Landmark that preserves the Miami estate of agricultural industrialist James Deering to engage our community and its visitors in learning through the arts, history and the environment. Built between 1914 and 1922, Vizcaya is one of the most intact remaining examples from this era in United States history, when the nation’s most successful entrepreneurs built estates inspired by the stately homes of Europe. Vizcaya features a Main House filled with a decorative art collection, 10 acres of formal gardens, a rockland hammock (native forest), mangrove shore, and a historic village that is being restored to tell Vizcaya’s full story and provide additional spaces for programs and community outreach, including those on agriculture. Vizcaya has been a community hub since it opened to the public in 1953;

it currently welcomes about 275,000 visitors annually.

Located on Biscayne Bay at 3251 South Miami Avenue, Vizcaya is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. except Tuesdays, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. For more information, visit www.vizcaya.org, connect via social media, or call 305-250-9133.

ABOUT VIZCAYA VILLAGE

Vizcaya Village is a natural extension of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, located across South Miami Avenue from the Main House and gardens. The historic Village was part of the original 1916 estate, and consisted of more than a dozen buildings with the intent of making Vizcaya virtually self-sufficient. This idea evoked the spirit of European estates of the Renaissance era while, on a practical level, compensating for the limited services and merchandise available in early twentieth-century Miami. The Village included staff quarters, an automobile garage, workshops and an array of barns.

Today, 100 years later, the plans for Vizcaya Village outline a strategic approach to improving upon Vizcaya and telling its full history by restoring land and historic buildings, with the goal of bringing together locals and visitors through expanded green spaces, new venues and community engagement programs. The vision for the Village includes a visitor center, classrooms,

urban gardens, greenhouses and shade houses, green space and restoration of remaining original buildings for walking tours and

additional operational space.

The Vizcaya Village is open for special programs and events. Starting in 2019, proposed plans are to begin to open parts of the Village to the general public. 

ABOUT VIZCAYA’S CONTEMPORARY ARTS PROGRAM (CAP)

The Contemporary Arts Program (CAP) is a Vizcaya-based commission program that provides artists with the creative challenge to develop original, site-specific work in response to a historic site situated in the public realm. CAP was inspired by the dynamic, creative spirit that characterized Vizcaya’s inception one hundred years ago, and it preserves Vizcaya owner James Deering’s tradition as a patron of the arts. From John Singer Sargent, a houseguest who painted watercolors of the estate, to A. Stirling Calder, who sculpted the figures on the Barge, and Robert Winthrop Chanler, creator of the swimming pool grotto ceiling mural, Vizcaya continues a dialogue between the historic and the contemporary. As was the case one hundred years ago, Vizcaya’s singular sense of place remains the point of departure for artists.

Text source: Vizcaya Museum and Gardens staff
Photo source:Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Archives

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