Much-needed restorations to begin at Vizcaya: James Deering's historic bayfront palace, Vizcaya, has begun to show its age, but a planned $50 million renovation should restore its luster.

Nov 19, 2008 (The Miami Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- TIF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- To the casual visitor, the magnificent palace of Vizcaya appears today much as industrialist James Deering left it upon his death in 1925.

But closer inspection reveals the bayfront house and its famed Italian gardens, owned by Miami-Dade County taxpayers, to be much the worse for wear:

While the house itself is in solid shape, the glass canopy installed over the courtyard 22 years ago to protect priceless furnishings leaks profusely. So do many of the windows and doors. Some column surfaces have cracks. Outdoors, 150 statues and architectural elements Deering brought from Europe -- some hundreds of years old -- are badly deteriorated, a few literally falling to pieces. Fountains no longer work.

And that's just what's visible. Electrical, fire-suppression and security systems are sorely inadequate and require upgrades or replacement.

That's the bad news.

The good news: They are doing something about it.

On Wednesday, Vizcaya and county officials will break ground on the first $13 million phase of a planned $50 million renovation of the weather-beaten National Historic Landmark that will not only reverse years of wear but also, backers hope, expand the museum's scope and appeal.

Along with new wiring and mechanical systems, restored statuary and revitalized gardens, the project will open new areas for visitors -- including the back-of-stairs servants' quarters, with original furnishings, as well as a restored historic shoreline and beach. Access for the disabled will be improved.

A new cafe and shop will replace the old ones, which were destroyed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, in the house's basement. The basement will be restored for the first time in decades to the way it looked when it served as Deering's billiards and smoking rooms. (The bowling alley, alas, won't come back since the space is needed for the new cafe's kitchen.)

Years in the planning, the renovation -- to be paid for by $50 million in bonds already approved by voters, as well as federal and private grants -- is but the first step in an ambitious plan that would considerably expand the museum's reach.

In the long term, museum administrators hope to rejoin the house and gardens with the Vizcaya Village across South Miami Avenue -- the 11 buildings and grounds that once housed Deering's cars, workshops and staff and provided fruits and vegetables and dairy for Deering's estate.

Those buildings, which once served the county parks department as a maintenance yard, are now vacant. Eventually, Vizcaya administrators hope also to reclaim the site of the Museum of Science, slated to move downtown, and replace it with a visitors' center, a public green and underground parking -- work that would require additional millions.

"The completed plan would bring the whole back together and make it a more dynamic experience than ever," said architect Richard Heisenbottle, co-author of the master plan.

First things first, however.

The renovation work, which has already begun, will focus in part on badly overdue, nuts-and-bolts repairs, said Vizcaya Executive Director Joel Hoffman.

Vizcaya is a big site with big needs, and, as he put it, "tons of deferred maintenance."

"Something like this doesn't survive on its own," he said.

Contractors have already begun making structural repairs in the basement and restoring original windows. A new conservator spent the summer taking stock of the statuary collection's condition. Grants totaling $1 million from the federal government and the Tiffany & Co. Foundation will pay for restoration of statuary.

The palace's gatehouses, meanwhile, will be restored for use as staff offices, permitting the opening of the modest servants' quarters that now house Vizcaya administrators to the public for the first time.

The idea, Hoffman said, is not only to bring Vizcaya closer to what Deering built, but also to provide a window into the house's daily life, as well as the broader history surrounding it -- its impact on the development of early Miami, its natural setting of mangroves and hardwood hammock, its place in the history of design and architecture. About1,000 people, for instance, worked on its construction in the 1910s, including Italian and Bahamian craftsmen and laborers, many of whom settled in Miami.

"It's much more than one very rich man's house." Hoffman said. "We are more than a pretty place to visit, but a way of learning about the history of Miami, the history of architecture and design, the surrounding natural environment, and their relationship to one another."

What visitors see today is only a portion of what Deering built. Vizcaya originally encompassed 180 acres on both sides of South Miami Avenue, including a vast lagoon and gardens on the site now occupied by Mercy Hospital and LaSalle High School. That portion was sold to the Catholic church by Deering's heirs.

The family transferred Vizcaya and the original furnishings to Dade County in 1951 for $1.4 million. Part of the gardens, orchards and farm village on the other side of South Miami Avenue were demolished for construction of the Planetarium and science museum.

Historically, there has been little county money to operate the museum. Over the years, Vizcaya grew increasingly dependent on weddings, debutante balls and corporate shindigs to pay the bills -- more than 200 events a year by the time Hoffman was hired, in part to revitalize the institution, in 2004. The events have caused considerable wear and tear, even as some basic maintenance and repairs were put off, Hoffman said.

The number of events has been cut in half, Hoffman said, but Vizcaya remains dependent on the income.

Meanwhile, he would like to increase attendance, now at about 150,000 a year, in part by giving locals reasons to return. Locals now make up only 20 percent of that figure. Thus there are plans for exhibition galleries and artist studios in a renovated Vizcaya Village, as well as expanded capacity for school groups.

Another focus will be refurbishing the grounds: Replanting gardens, where many of the original greenery, like the rose garden, has faded or failed to thrive in the subtropical, bayside climate. Invasive species will be removed from the mangroves and a small beach reopened.

At the north flank of the house, workers will partly undo a recently installed orchidarium that has also not fared well. It will be restored closer to its original shape as a small garden that fades into wild, untended bush beyond.

One big question still unresolved is what to do about the leaking, cracked glass canopy over the courtyard. Controversial when it was installed because the enclosure and its heavy support beams markedly changed the look and feel of Vizcaya, the canopy may have to be replaced -- but current hurricane codes may require even heavier supporting elements, Heisenbottle said.

"The challenge is to design something that is less heavy-handed but offers more protection," he said.

Other challenges abound, Heisenbottle said: Figuring out what is causing some floor finishings to buckle up, for example, or how to get the pipes that feed the garden fountains working again, and how best to replant the gardens in a way that replenishes them while hewing to the original vision of Deering's designers.

"This work is critically important," Heisenbottle said. "But one of the great things about this building is that it was built so very well that it's in excellent condition, old as it is for Miami."

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