George Merrick, Coral Gables, and the Biltmore

While speculators flipped bare lots downtown, George Merrick was dreaming of something far grander. On his family's old plantation southwest of Miami, Merrick set out in the early nineteen twenties to build an entire planned city, which he called the City Beautiful. He named it Coral Gables, and it was incorporated in nineteen twenty five.

Merrick demanded a single harmonious style, Mediterranean Revival, with red tile roofs, coral rock walls, and grand ceremonial entrance gates designed by his uncle, the artist Denman Fink. He turned an abandoned coral quarry into the enchanting Venetian Pool, and laid out an elegant shopping street called Miracle Mile. His masterpiece opened in January of nineteen twenty six, at the very peak of the boom.

The Biltmore Hotel, designed by the same firm that built the Freedom Tower, rose around a bell tower more than three hundred feet tall, again inspired by the Giralda of Seville. It had one of the largest hotel swimming pools in the country and drew the wealthy and famous from across America. During the Second World War the Biltmore became a military hospital, and it served as a veterans hospital and medical school for decades before finally returning to grand hotel life.