James
Deering joined his family's Deering Harvester Company in 1880. The
company was bought out in 1902 by J.
P. Morgan and merged with McCormick Reaper Company to form
International Harvester, the largest producer of agricultural machinery
at the time. Deering functioned as the vice president of
the International Harvester company until his retirement in 1909.
In 1910, motivated by poor health, he decided to buy land
in Coconut Grove south of Miami and just north of his brother's estate.
It was on this site that he and his design collaborator Paul Chalfin
created Villa Vizcaya. Chalfin, who was trained as a painter, was
introduced to Deering in 1910 to assist in the interiors of Deering's
Chicago home.
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The
estate's
landscape master plan and formal gardens were designed by Colombian
landscape designer Diego Suarez. When Chalfin and Suarez began
designing the gardens, limited information about the new tropical
landscape, including how to negotiate
mosquitoes, land crabs, hurricanes and high water, had to be gathered
from locals, many of whom had only recently arrived in South
Florida.
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| The Rose Garden, one of two principal gardens
documented for this
project, presented a problem from its inception due to siting and
its proximity to Biscayne Bay. The Rose Garden is one of a series of
small
gardens that stretches out along the mangrove hammock along the bay.
Deering’s interest
in flowers and his desire to provide a proper setting for his Italian Bassano di
Sutri fountain helped inspire a plan that would generate ongoing
concern over its viability, as found in letters between Deering and
Chalfin. By the end of 1914 it appears that the overall plan for the
garden was set. |
The
Marine
Garden and Peacock Bridge are located southeast of the primary axis of
the
formal garden directly off of the Rose Garden.
Since access to the villa was primarily by
water, the boathouse and causeway figured as two of the
earliest site improvements south of the casino and villa. It
would only be a matter of time before a shorter route from the
boathouse necessitated the need for a more direct link to
the villa and formal gardens. Additionally, the Marine Garden
served as the primary link to the groves and outer islands to the
south of the formal gardens. It also served as a
tank for fish where villa guests could catch their dinner.
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