Traver Dodorye Tour at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Miami

Villa Vizcaya is one of Miami's most famous landmarks, and for good reason.  Whether you like homes, interior design, gardens, historic homes, historical artifacts, or waterfront villas, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is sure to have something for everyone.  Vizcaya is named for the Bay of Biscay's Spanish region of Vizcaya as Vizcaya is on the West Atlantic's Biscayne Bay.  The home was the winter estate of Mr. James Deering, a wealthy heir, from 1916 to 1925, the time of his death.  Located on Biscayne Bay, the villa offers impressive waterfront views, as well as Italian Renaissance gardens and elements of Baroque and Mediterranean Revival manifested in the home's interior.  In fact, it contains one of the most significant collections of Italian furniture in United States.  It is currently owned by Miami-Dade County.

The villa was built primarily between 1914 and 1922, with the construction of the elaborate Italian Renaissance gardens and the village continuing into 1923. Vizcaya is noteworthy for adapting historical European aesthetic traditions to South Florida's subtropical climate.  Paul Chalfin is the man responsible for the interior design and the idea of incorporating the antiquities inside the home.  He also gave the rooms their garish names.  Speculation exists as to the relationship between Chalfin and Deering, as some would consider the home's interior to be rather feminine.  Speaking of the home's interior, no photography of any sort is permitted inside the home.

The house was designed to take full advantage of the location on Biscayne Bay, and the sun, by incorporating the Courtyard, the main area of the house, which originally opened to the sky.  Mr. Deering's balcony looks out to the bay, and the house faces the direction of the bay as well.  The north façade contains the swimming pool that emerges from vaulted arches at the undergroung level of the house. The south façade opens onto the formal gardens with enclosed loggias on the first and second floors.  The many rooms emphasize 15th through early 19th century European decorative art and furnishings. The eighteenth century was the main inspiration, including styles ranging from the Rococo to the more linear Neoclassical style.

Outside are not only the Secret Garden, the intimate Theater Garden, the playful Maze Garden and the once-watery domain of the Fountain Garden, but also the David Kline Orchidarium, containing many different species of Vanda orchids.  The views of the bay are magnificent, and there is a beautiful Venetian barge of carved stone in the bay, which serves as a breakwater.  There is also a visually stunning gazebo, and a footbridge.  Both Vizcaya's exterior, its gardens, the footbridge and gazebo aremextremely popular locations for weddings and other special events, such as quinceañera (15th birthday), and photography of such events.

Vizcaya is also where President Ronald Reagan received Pope John Paul II on his first visit to Miami and the 1994 location of the important 'First Summit of the Americas' convened by President Bill Clinton.  If Vizcaya looks familiar to you, it is because it has provided the setting for many films, such as Tony Rome, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Any Given Sunday, Bad Boys II, Airport '77, Haunts of the Very Rich, The Money Pit, and Iron Man 3. The music video for The Cover Girls' song "Promise Me" from 1988 was filmed at Vizcaya.  The music video for New Edition's song "I'm Still In Love With You" from 1996 was also filmed at Vizcaya.