Addison Mizner's Coral Gables & the Biltmore

The Venetian Pool is one of the most unusual public swimming facilities in the United States: a 820,000-gallon municipal pool carved from a coral rock quarry in 1923 by developer George Merrick and artist Denman Fink. The quarry had been excavated to provide the oolitic limestone used to build Coral Gables itself, and Merrick transformed the resulting pit into a fantasy pool with Venetian loggias, waterfalls, grottos, and a sandy beach — filling it with fresh spring water pumped from an underground aquifer. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the pool holds up to 3,000 swimmers and is drained and refilled daily in summer. Esther Williams and other Hollywood starlets filmed sequences here in the 1940s. The surrounding De Soto Plaza and Fountain, designed by Denman Fink, frames the entry with a classical Baroque rotunda that sets the tone for Coral Gables' extraordinarily theatrical Mediterranean Revival streetscape.

The Biltmore Hotel opened in 1926 and instantly became one of the most glamorous addresses in the American South. Its 315-foot tower — modeled on the Giralda tower in Seville, Spain — was for decades the tallest structure in Florida and remains the defining landmark of Coral Gables. Developer George Merrick and hotel magnate John McEntee Bowman built it at a cost of $10 million; opening night drew 1,500 guests and a gala dance broadcast live by radio across America. Al Capone's suite on the 13th floor was the reputed headquarters of one of Miami's most notorious gambling operations, and Olympic champion Johnny Weissmuller — who went on to play Tarzan in twelve films — trained in the hotel's vast pool, then the largest in the continental United States at 23,000 square feet. The hotel served as a military hospital and veterans' rehabilitation center during World War II before falling into disrepair; a meticulous restoration returned it to its original splendor in 1987. Free Sunday morning architecture tours depart from the lobby.

Founded in 1938 and named after botanist David Fairchild — who introduced more than 200,000 plant species to the United States including mangoes, nectarines, and soybeans — Fairchild covers 83 acres along Biscayne Bay in the Village of Coral Gables. The garden holds one of the world's most comprehensive collections of palms (over 2,500 specimens representing 500 species), along with cycads, flowering trees, and rare plants from tropical regions across six continents. The Wings of the Tropics butterfly conservatory releases hundreds of live tropical butterflies in a free-flight greenhouse. Fairchild also hosts an annual International Mango Festival and a chocolate festival celebrating tropical crops. The lakeside walk through the cycad collection — which includes specimens that are among the most endangered plants on Earth — is meditative and scientifically extraordinary in equal measure.

Coral Gables City Hall, completed in 1928, is one of the finest examples of Mediterranean Revival civic architecture in Florida — a three-story building with a colonnaded loggia, a bell tower modeled on Spanish originals, and an interior dome painted with allegorical murals by Denman Fink. It anchors Miracle Mile, a four-block stretch of Coral Way that functions as the city's main shopping street. Unlike most American main streets, Miracle Mile was designed as part of George Merrick's original 1921 master plan for a 'City Beautiful' — and despite decades of suburban competition, it retains an authentic pedestrian energy rare in South Florida.