all photographs copyright Felicity Rich

In my role as a Trustee of the National Trust I attend three meetings a year and while the meetings themselves are intense and plentiful, we do reap the benefits of visiting stunning historic places in great American cities. This weekend we were in Miami Beach, which seems quite the posh destination, and it is. Thanks to preserving buildings.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

In the 1970s and 1980s South Miami Beach had serious issues of crime and drugs. It also had blocks and blocks of fantastic but run-down Art Deco hotels that had opened in the 1930s when Miami Beach became a vacation destination. A few visionary developers, including National Trust Trustee Tony Goldman, started restoring these buildings and today South Beach draws tourists from all over the world to its beaches and protected, restored Art Deco district.

Friday Tony hosted us on The Hotel rooftop for drinks before we visited another Trustee’s stunning contemporary rooftop condo with views of South Beach.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

There was a great symmetry to this meeting because our President Dick Moe is retiring and this was the site of his first National Preservation Conference in 1992. That was also my first conference, as a staff member of Landmarks Illinois. That was in the wake of Hurricane Andrew and there was much cleanup yet to do but Miami impressed me at the time. It was also sad because this year we lost Floyd Butler, who had founded the Young Urban Preservationists, a way to teach inner-city kids, and he and I had spent much time together in Miami in ’92.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

Thursday we had dined at the home of Arva Moore Parks McCabe, a pioneering local preservationist, who last night related how she came to the Trust in 1973 seeking help saving a house in a historic district and the Trust sent her to Oak Park, Illinois. It worked, and she and others of the Dade Heritage Trust have saved much in the meantime, including a fascinating effort by Trustee Jorge Hernandez and others to save the Miami Marine Stadium, one of the National Trust’s 11 Most Endangered properties last year.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

The Miami Marine Stadium is a 1963 concrete composition that is part of an outdoor marine arena unlike any I have ever seen. The folded slabs of the roof and bleachers projecting over the water recall the most visionary concrete designs of the 1950s and 1960s and even in despair the building impresses.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

Local preservationists have defied the odds and the authorities to make significant progress towards its eventual preservation. We had the honor of touring the site by boat with the architect who designed it as a young man, Hilario Candela.

Then we had a lovely dinner at Vizcaya, the stunning Italianate Deering mansion on the shore in Miami, an over-the-top historic house and gardens that is open to the public and which the National Trust helped local preservationists save from over development a few years ago. The whole place is made from coral stone and there is a massive boat folly across from the terrace that reminded me of Cixi’s folly, the marble boat in the Summer Palace in Beijing. Vincent Scully whom we awarded the Louise DuPont Crowninshield Award in Nashville was there and I got to speak with him.

photograph copyright Felicity Rich

It was interesting to hear Dick Moe and Arva Moore Parks McCabe and others talk about a Miami that “got no respect” from the preservation movement back in the 1970s, because my first exposure to the place in ’92 was all about preservation. How saving and rehabilitating buildings revitalized a community down on its heels and made it an international destination. Almost a generation later, the Miami Marine Stadium presents the same opportunity. Every generation can reclaim its unique and valued connection to place. If it chooses to.

I’m wrapping up a visit to Miami and Miami Beach for work (I know – I love my job) that ended with a spectacular tour of two landmarks of Miami’s past…and the more recent past.

Recently the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed three properties in Miami on the annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.  We visited two of those sites yesterday and they gave first-hand evidence to the wide range of places that make up the American experience.

First up was the 1963 Miami Marine Stadium.  Arriving by boat while listening to the architect – Cuban born Hilario Candela who at age 27 designed this aquatic marvel with its zigzag concourse floating over the stands – was an incredible experience.  It is threatened because the city sees the site as much more valuable for development, even though it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to understand how this wonderful place could thrive again as a civic center for all South Florida.  Watch the video at the end of the post to hear that quintessential South Floridian – Jimmy Buffett – talk about why this place matters.

After a short bus ride, we were transported to Vizcaya - one of the country’s great early 20th century marvels.  This estate was built from 1914-17 by James Deering of International Harvester, and the 70-room house and magnificent gardens are filled with artwork, architectural detailing, and landscape views that are more than the eye can capture in a short visit.  This National Historic Landmark, threatened by nearby high-rise development that would destroy the view from the gardens, has a bright future thanks to the work of so many people who understand the value of saving not only the buildings, but the settings, of great places.  I had the good fortune to have dinner with Joel Hoffman, the Executive Director of Vizcaya, and my colleague Laurie Ossman, who had been the assistant director and chief curator at the site before joining the National Trust.  They told of the hard but satisfying work to fight the development plans, making for a terrific ending to a wonderful four days in Miami.

More to come…

DJB

After a two-year absence I have decided to start exploring the unknown areas of South Florida again. If you know of any great places you’d like me to visit, explore, and photograph like I did for the Haunted Mafia Mansion or Abandoned Nursing Home (check the archives), hit me up through e-mail or on Facebook.

As of now, the two places on my list of must-see locations is the historic Pinewood Cemetery in Coral Gables, which has been around since the 1800s and the long abandoned, covered in graffiti Miami Marine Stadium.

If you’d like to tag along or have some advice, you can find me on Facebook HERE. As for the photo below, it comes courtesy of Google Images when searching for the forgotten stadium, which was wrecked during Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Every year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation publishes a list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places”.  A “Place” is broadly defined enough to include whole communities and towns, districts, individual buildings, and nature sites.  Places of all ages and styles are given consideration.  Making it on the list raises awareness of a place’s plight, with the hope that activism will lead to a happy ending, though it often doesn’t.

This year’s list includes Frank Lloyd Wright’s century old Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL (rendering pictured above).  The building is endangered due to massive deterioration of the structure and interiors.  Besides being the only surviving example of public architecture from Wright’s Prairie period, it is also recognized as the first building in the world built from steel reinforced poured in place concrete – a pioneering technique that is now de rigueur in modern architecture.  Unfortunately, the experimental construction did not include the use of expansion joints to relieve pressure from movement in the building shell.  Hence, the intense cracking and crumbling the building is now a victim of.

Other places on the list include the 12,000’ tall Mount Taylor in New Mexico, which sits on the largest uranium deposit in the country. 

Plus, Miami Marine Stadium that was built in 1963 using an innovative folded plate concrete structure.  The stadium was damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1998 and has sat unrepaired ever since.

The current complete list can be found at the NTHP’s website, or concisely at the AIA.

Do you live near one of these or past places from the list and want to share your thoughts?  Is there value in the preservation of historic places, and how do we reconcile it with the drive to move forward?