USA Guide
Florida
Villa Vizcaya
In 1914, south of downtown, farm-machinery mogul James Deering blew $15 million on recreating a sixteenth-century Italian villa within the tropical jungle. A thousand-strong workforce completed his Villa Vizcaya in just two years. Deering's madly eclectic art collection, and his desire that the villa should appear to have been inhabited for four hundred years, result in a thunderous clash of Baroque, Renaissance, Rococo, and Neoclassical fixtures and fittings. The fabulous landscaped gardens, with their many fountains and sculptures, are just as excessive.
Address: 3251 S Miami Ave
Opening time: Daily 9.30am–4.30pm; free house tours every 20min
Price: $12
Telephone: 305/250-9133
Website: www.vizcayamuseum.org