Vizcaya Museum and Gardens

Built between 1914 and 1922 as the winter residence of industrialist James Deering, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is a National Historic Landmark located on Biscayne Bay in Miami. The estate includes a Main House with 34 decorated rooms filled with 15th through 19th-century antique furnishings and art objects, ten acres of formal gardens, a rockland hammock (native forest), and a mangrove shoreline. Open daily, except Tuesdays, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Vizcaya offers visitors a glimpse into the opulent lifestyle of the early 20th century and the natural beauty of South Florida. For more information, visit their official website at https://vizcaya.org/.

Planning your visit

Vizcaya is what happens when an industrialist with unlimited money decides to build a European villa on a Florida mangrove shore. James Deering, of the International Harvester fortune, constructed it between 1914 and 1922 as a winter residence, importing entire rooms, ceilings, doorways and fireplaces from European houses and assembling them into something designed to look centuries old from the day it opened. The main house holds 34 decorated rooms of fifteenth- to nineteenth-century furnishings; the ten acres of formal gardens run down to Biscayne Bay, where a carved stone barge sits offshore as a breakwater.

The estate also preserves native landscape — a rockland hammock forest and mangrove shoreline — which makes it one of the few places in Miami where the pre-development ecology is still legible next to the excess. It is a National Historic Landmark, open daily except Tuesdays, and hurricane damage means sections occasionally close for restoration.

Bookable options include entry tickets and villa tours covering the house and gardens with the history of its construction. More unusual formats approach it from the water: stand-up paddleboard and kayak tours from Hobie Beach that take in the estate's shoreline and the stone barge from the bay, which is how the house was designed to be seen. Miami film and television location tours include Vizcaya, given how often it has been used on screen. Current options are shown below.