Florida’s Everglades
There are no other Everglades in the world. -Marjory Stoneman Douglas Miami was built upon a reef. The reef died and turned to rock, hundreds of miles of rock, cracked and crazed and looking like it’s been through war. Each jag and crevice can shelter plant and animal life, all in turn nourished by […]
The Florida Grand Opera
The arts struggle for funds in Miami. Good theaters have closed. Even the superlative Miami City Ballet had to part with their beloved Villella over finances. We Miamians are notoriously cheap when not buying bottles at LIV. The Florida Grand Opera is happy, then, to enjoy support from a wealthy group of donors called the […]
Charles Deering Estate
Some years ago, the late Walter Ferguson, himself a Miami landmark, sat enjoying an early spring breeze, reminiscing about Miami before the boom. The conversation turned to the Deering brothers and the two estates they built. Someone asked Ferguson if he thought there’d ever be another Vizcaya. The latter smirked and sat back in his chair, “listen here.” He leaned […]
Chopin Competition
Miami hosts the most important piano competition in America, and nobody even bothers to charge admission. Nobody charges because aside from a few hundred stalwarts, nobody bothers to go. The crowds at Art Basel, a week dedicated not so much to culture as to its parody, grow like an outbreak of Ebola Zaire; the crowds at Ultra, a […]
Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables
She is the center of life for much of the neighborhood: residents eat at her restaurants (one of which contends each year for the title of Miami’s Best); they drink at her bars and swim in her pool; they exercise at her gym and play tennis on her courts; they spend mornings on her golf course and nights in her ballrooms and live theater.
Bulla Gastrobar
A couple years ago, Bulla was called Por Fin, which roughly translates to “at last”. Some say it was a reference to Pep Guardiola’s bringing Barcelona to the top of La Liga. Others say it referred to the Spanish National Soccer Team’s then-rising star. Still others, that it was a jab at the City of […]
Fairchild Tropical Gardens
Not everyone is ready for a day in the swamp; happily, David Fairchild, botanist and early Miami resident, joined Col. Robert Montgomery, Everglades champion Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and landscape architect William Phillips to build an unusual treasure in southern Coral Gables, 34 hectares of tropical and subtropical gardens built with plants brought in from all […]
Wayside Market
I’m told there was a time children played outside. I don’t mean a time they were driven to soccer at the appointed hour, but rather a time we let a child walk out the door and look for friends, for games, or maybe just for a spot under a Southern Elm. Deep in an affluent […]
Big Cypress
Not all of the ‘Glades is swamp. The vast and wild parts of the state that draw their life from the waters of Okeechobee are more than one wide, slow river of grass; about nine different unique ecosystems compete for water and sun, each kept in balance by subtle differences in altitude, water level, and […]
Swine Table and Bar
In a part of town more renowned for Old World elegance, Swine brought a new, young feel. Gables residents immediately fell in love with the Memphis-inspired quasi-hipster, quasi-electric-blues feel of the place, one that served Southern-ish dishes in a high vaulted room of distressed wood and industrial accents. On some nights, the wait was several […]