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By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist
Guest Blogger

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, a National Historic Landmark in Coconut Grove near Miami, features a main house and 10 acres of formal gardens.

Built by agricultural industrialist James Deering between 1914 and 1916, Vizcaya was designed in the style of European estates that Deering had visited and adapted to the subtropical climate of South Florida.

Deering was vice president of International Harvester.

On European trips, Deering and an adviser purchased almost all of the decorative elements of the home – furniture, light fixtures, doors, and fireplaces. The estate was designed to look as though a family had lived in it for 400 years, with each generation adding furnishings of the period.

Vizcaya cost $22 million to built. Eighty servants staffed the home, and 40 gardeners maintained the gardens.

The Deering family invested in land in the West, and financially supported the development of agricultural machinery to make this land more valuable.

The Deering Harvester enabled farmers to harvest an acre of grain in an hour – a substantial increase in productivity that made commercial agriculture in the West profitable. As more reapers were sold, Deering’s land investments grew in value, and, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Deerings became one of America’s wealthiest families.

By the turn of the century, James Deering owned homes on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and in nearby Evanston, as well as in New York City and at Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. His name appeared in social columns as an active partygoer, traveler, and cultural ambassador, hosting visiting French dignitaries at his homes in New York and Chicago. He never married.

Two of Deering’s nieces inherited Vizcaya when he died in 1925, and they attempted to open the property as a museum. With the financial crisis of the Great Depression, they weren’t successful in their efforts. Deering’s nieces sold Vizcaya to Miami-Dade County in 1952 for $1 million.

Unlike many other house museums from this era, Vizcaya still possesses almost all of its original furnishings.

On a recent hot, muggy, rainy day, I enjoyed visiting Vizcaya with my daughter while I was on vacation.

Although the villa is remarkable, I couldn’t help thinking about how the richness of Vizcaya contrasted to the lives my ancestors lived as farmers who bought farm equipment from International Harvester. My forbearers toiled from dawn to dusk, lived in small homes, and saved little money.

James Deering owned five lavish homes. Today’s wealthy also own many homes, some as many as seven.

As a consumer advocate, I’d like to see income levels rise for working people. Corporate executives often receive enormous salaries, while workers struggle to make it from paycheck to paycheck.

For more information for boomer consumers, see my blog The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide.