Addison Mizner

Addison Cairns Mizner ( ) (December 12, 1872 – February 5, 1933) was an American architect whose Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style interpretations changed the character of southern Florida, where the style is continued by architects and land developers. Boca Raton, Florida, an unincorporated small farming town that was established in 1896, became the site of Mizner's most famous development project.

The , bon vivant epitomized the "society architect". Rejecting other modern architects for "producing a characterless copybook effect", he sought to "make a building look traditional and as though it had fought its way from a small, unimportant structure to a great, rambling house that took centuries of different needs and ups and downs of wealth to accomplish. I sometimes start a house with a Romanesque corner, pretend that it has fallen into disrepair and been added to in the Gothic spirit, when suddenly the great wealth of the New World has poured in and the owner had added a very rich Renaissance addition." Or as he described his own never-built castle, drawings of which were part of his promotional literature, it would be "a Spanish fortress of the twelfth century captured from its owner by a stronger enemy who, after taking it, adds on one wing and another, and then loses it in turn to another who builds to suit his taste".

As a young man, he visited China in 1893, Of his seven siblings, six of them boys, he was closest to his younger brother Wilson, though his disreputable behavior caused Addison many problems. He had a macaw parrot. and kept as pets a series of monkeys, which often rode on his shoulder; his favorite had a headstone at his grave, identifying him as "Johnnie Brown, The Human Monkey, Died April 30, 1927".

According to Donald Curl, author of Mizner's Florida,

He was just completely outgoing and basically a really good guy. One of the things he was noted for was the kindness toward the people who worked for him and the courtesy he showed them. Some of the other architects of this era were almost the reverse; they saw the other architects as their employees, and they should have nothing to do with the design other than putting it on paper. Mizner was not that way. When the bust began in Florida, he actually helped some of the young architects get established elsewhere.

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The vast majority of Mizner's employees developed an affection for and allegiance to him: "It was a pleasure working for Mizner", one remarked. His father Lansing Mizner spoke fluent Spanish, as did his paternal step-grandfather, James Semple, also a U.S. diplomat in Spanish America. Addison, who became fluent, after some tutoring enrolled at the Instituto Nacional in Guatemala City, "where we learned that boys fought with knives and not with fists". before returning to California in 1890 to study at the Bates School, a boarding school in San Rafael, California. His studies there ended in 1891 because of his brother Wilson's expulsion for misbehavior. He continued his studies briefly at Boone's College in Berkeley, California, with the hope of passing the entrance examination for the University of California (presently the University of California, Berkeley). Either he never presented himself for the examination, or he failed it. a clear reference to the Alhambra, which Mizner visited and commented on. The Mediterranean Revival style Mizner introduced to South Florida was not Turkish or Italian, it was Spanish, specifically of the hottest, southern part of Spain, Andalucía; colonial Guatemala had similar architecture. He taught workmen to make Spanish red roof tiles, appropriate for the climate. A scholar states that Mizner's mature style was "founded upon the architecture of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain",) Streets east of the future Seaboard Coast Line Railroad line (where an "Addison Station" was to be constructed) had Spanish personal names: Ponce de Leon, Gonzalo, Juan, Isabel, Hernando, as well as Montazuma , and Noche Triste. To the west they were to have the names of small Spanish cities: Tarragona, Cordoba, Toledo, Alcante (, for Alicante), Burgos, Palencia, Lucena, the palace/monastery Escorial, and even small towns: Monreal (name of several towns), Munera. The different types of pottery produced by Mizner Industries each had the name of a Spanish city.

The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1904
The Entirely New Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1905
The Complete Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1906
The Altogether New Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1907
The Quite New Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1908
The Perfectly Good Cynic's Calendar (1908)
The Complete Cynic (1910)
The Revived Cynic's Calendar (1917)

This produced such sayings as: "A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's. She changes it more often" and "Many are called but few get up".

Mizner the storyteller

Mizner was a storyteller but not a reliable one. He invented stories, all set in foreign countries and thus in practice unverifiable. One the lack of veracity of which is documented is the tale of his visit with his father and other family members to the ruins of Copán, in Honduras. "No one knew exactly where it was", and they needed "a small army of carriers and machete wielders to cut our way in". John Lloyd Stephens was "the only other white man to set foot on the temple steps in three hundred and seventy years". However, at least six other white men visited and wrote about Copán in the 19th century, not counting the expeditions of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University. His well-informed father, the U.S. ambassador, surely knew about some of these visitors. Mizner also omitted embarrassing information: he said his father retired as ambassador because "father's health broke down",

Much later, Addison said several times that he enrolled "at some point during this time" in the University of Salamanca, in Spain, though the only known detail about his studies there, if they existed, is that he did not receive a degree.

So much as available evidence indicates, he was never in the small city of Salamanca. However, because of its prestigious and mellifluous name, Salamanca was mentioned by Mizner repeatedly.

According to Mizner, the Spanish king, Alfonso XIII, came to his hotel, insisted on seeing him, and gave him paneling from "the private apartments of [fifteenth-century] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in Salamanca." There were no such apartments in Salamanca.
Mizner also said that the entry to the Cloister Inn was through "a large Romanesque arch reminiscent of the entrance gate of the University of Salamanca". which is impossible: San José is at , and is not even close to a navigable river. He embellished it further by adding that they had missed a steamer and had to travel by dugout canoe;) Instead, realizing how many antiquities were available for modest amounts, especially in Guatemala's abandoned former capital Antigua, he began collecting Hispanic antiquities. He purchased an old monastery – the whole building. "The reason I wanted it was that eight of the side chapels of the church were intact and in each stood, thirty feet high, carved wood altars with heavy gilding." He also returned with a book of sketches of the architectural features of Antigua. This was a turning point in his decision to become an architect. Mizner described himself as a "lifelong bachelor", after "a few unsuccessful relationships with women in California and New York". One modern researcher says that "Wilson loved women sexually; Addison cherished their friendship and companionship." One of these "young and handsome" men was Alex Waugh, who accompanied Mizner on buying trips and ended up manager of the antiques and reproduction furniture store for Mizner Industries. When Waugh sent recollections of Mizner to biographer Alva Johnston, they were "quite unprintable". "Jack Roy was a memorable young man whom Addison made manager of his furniture factory despite his having no experience whatsoever in management or any familiarity with artisanship ... Addison met Jerry Girandolle in New York and, after giving him a new Cadillac, also made him manager of the furniture factory [Jack having departed]. Later, Addison was attracted to the young painter he used on the Cosden house, Achille Angeli, 'a strikingly handsome young fellow'." and the main house of the Hitchcock Estate in Dutchess County, New York.

Florida

In January 1918, aged 46, Mizner visited Palm Beach, Florida for his health, at the suggestion of Paris Singer, whose house guest he was. Mizner lacked the talent for making conventional plans and specifications. Everything was done off-the-cuff. Plans for one house were drawn in the sand on the beach. He was a pioneer in developing artificial or cast stone, a combination of coquina shell, lime, and a cement mixture. He also used "woodite", a composite material with a wood component, which could be poured and molded.

Selected buildings

thumb|Everglades Club

thumb|[[El Mirasol (mansion)|El Mirasol (the Edward T. Stotesbury mansion), Palm Beach, Florida (1919, demolished 1950s).]]

thumb|right|"[[La Querida (mansion)|La Querida," the Kennedy family winter retreat, located at 1095 North Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach.]]

An oceanfront Palm Beach estate was once owned by the late John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono Named El Solano. Located on South Ocean Boulevard, popularly referred to as Billionaires' Row, the house is next door to a property owned by author James Patterson, records show.
Mizner designed the Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York, in 1912.
Mizner's first major Florida commission was the Everglades Club, a Spanish-mission-style convalescent retreat built in 1918, that became (and remains) a private club. It stands at 4 Via Parigi (off Worth Avenue) in Palm Beach.
Mizner designed the 37-room El Mirasol ("the sunflower"), completed in 1919, for investment banker Edward T. Stotesbury, head of the town's most notable family of the time. It included a 40-car garage, a tea house, an auditorium and a private zoo. The mansion stood at 348 N. Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, but was demolished in the 1950s.
La Bellucia, at 1200 South Ocean Boulevard, was built in 1920 for Dr. Willey Lyon Kingsley. In 2009 it was Palm Beach's largest recorded sale at $24 million.
Also in 1920, Mizner built a grand Palm Beach estate home called Costa Bella ("beautiful coast") at 111 Dunbar Road for Elizabeth Hope Gammell Slater. Her father was Prof. William Gammell, and her grandfather was Robert Ives of the firm Brown and Ives. In a story published in The New York Times in 1882, her mother was "reckoned the richest woman in America, her property placed at twenty millions or more." Addison Mizner used his primary builder and contractor at that time, Cooper C. Lightbown, who later became the Town of Palm Beach's Mayor from 1922 to 1927.

:In his book Mizner's Florida, author and historian Donald W. Curl noted the home's "massive stone staircase" and that the home was more formal than Mizner's typical work. This formality is seen in such details as the pure Belgian black marble he used in the entrance foyer, and one of the first uses of terrazzo flooring for the 1920s showcased in the palatial dining hall. Furthermore, Curl notes the "stalactite" lighting fixture and gothic tracery for the dining room ceiling. It is believed that Mizner replicated the plasterwork in the dining room from photographs of the Alhambra that he had taken from his travels in Spain. Costa Bella's massive ballroom and dining hall feature grandiose palladian windows and french doors. Hence, historian Curl comments that, "the extensive fenestration created an open and light vacation house." Costa Bella is the quintessential example of Mizner's architectural majesty encompassing all the elements and building materials he is famous for: towering hand-stenciled wood beamed cypress ceilings, coral stone flooring, antique tiles, elaborate decorative columns and corbels, unique light fixtures, stone carvings and stone-carved fireplace mantels.

In 1922, Mizner built the William Gray Warden Residence (Warden House) at 112 Seminole Ave, Palm Beach, which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Another fanciful Palm Beach mansion, Villa Flora, was built in 1923 for Edward Shearson. It stands at 110 Dunbar Road.
La Querida ("the dear one"), apocryphally conflated with La Guerida ("bounty of war"), was built in Palm Beach in 1923 for Rodman Wanamaker of Philadelphia, heir to the Wanamaker's department store fortune. It was later purchased by Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression for $120,000, and eventually would become President John F. Kennedy's "Winter White House". It sold for $70,000,000 in June 2020. It stands at 1095 N. Ocean Boulevard.
As early as 1925, Mizner was commissioned by Dr and Mrs (Lillian) Thomas Dempsey to build a beautiful, diminutive Mediterranean Revival summer home (possibly the smallest structure Mizner ever built). The house has 22' ceilings, enabling the architect to install a "mezzanine-loggia," encircled by the hand-wrought iron railings for which a classic Mizner building is known. The house, at 100 S. Osborne Avenue, Margate, New Jersey (formerly 8704 Atlantic Ave) is on a beach block corner where Atlantic Ave intersects Osborne. (A stone's throw away, another architectural landmark, known as Lucy the Elephant, holds court at the corner of Atlantic and Washington Avenues.) Jeff Rosen of Spielberg Productions, who purchased the home from the Dempsey estate, later sold it to Marsha & Michael Birnbaum of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It has since been purchased and is occupied by auteur-singer-poet Silkë Berlinn.
Mizner's own Palm Beach home was built in 1925. It was called El Solano after the hot, oppressive wind which blows off the Mediterranean Sea in eastern Spain, but also for Solano County, California, his birthplace. Sold to Harold Vanderbilt, the estate was later purchased by John Lennon. It stands at 720 S. Ocean Boulevard.
He designed and built the Riverside Baptist Church in Jacksonville, completed in 1926. Because he promised to build it in honor of his mother, Ella Watson Mizner, the architect refused payment for his services. The church stands at 2650 Park Street, and is Mizner's only work of religious architecture.
The clubhouse for the Wee Burn Country Club in Darien, Connecticut was designed by Mizner in his Mediterranean style in 1926.
A mansion of , with a guest house, was built at 1820 S. Ocean Blvd. for Paul Moore Sr. (completed 1926). After a two-year renovation-and-restoration project, the property was listed for sale in 2018 for $58,000,000.
In 1928, he designed the original Cloister Hotel at Sea Island, Georgia. It was demolished in 2003.
Mizner also built a Mediterranean Revival mansion in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1929, La Ronda. It was demolished on October 1, 2009. Some architectural elements were salvaged.

Mizner Mile

In Boynton Beach, Florida, between Palm Beach and the future Boca Raton, Mizner's first vision of a "comprehensive ocean city" the creation of a fabulous resort at Boca Raton. He claimed that it would offer more than Palm Beach, and was "undoubtedly the most tremendous land development project ever launched in the state of Florida." In an address before 100 salespeople, the architect declared:

<blockquote>It is my plan to create a city that is direct and simple ... To leave out all that is ugly, to eliminate the unnecessary, and to give Florida and the nation a resort city as perfect as study and ideals can make it.</blockquote>

On the first day of selling lots, May 14, 1925, $2 million was sold, with a further $2 million within the first month. There was a traffic jam in front of his Miami office. Mizner ran buses to Boca from Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, and also used seaplanes to transport potential buyers to the site. It was constructed during late 1925 and opened in early 1926,

Mizner's role in the land boom collapse of 1926

Where Mizner was not strong was in planning. He built houses "off the cuff", without plans. He also had no financial plan, and tried to handle finance off the cuff as well. But the facilities he had announced — three golf courses, a polo ground, He lacked "financial sense and business shrewdness." Three other directors and a member of the Finance Committee resigned within days, The Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn opened on February 6, 1926, and Mizner had an elegant dinner for 500 guests, after rush ordering 906 dozen plates, cups, and other items. Geist, a utilities executive, saw to it that Boca got a fine water plant; Mizner was unconcerned about such infrastructure.

Many people lost money through their investments in Boca Raton lots through Mizner; people who had purchased lots with the intention of quickly reselling them, very common during the land boom, There was also an "Edición Imperial", limited to 100 copies, a leather-bound, gold-tooled version with slipcase cover. He designed and directed its creation from 1929 to 1930. The significant new Mediterranean Revival estate's budget was unhindered by the Wall Street crash of 1929. The naturalistic landscape and formal gardens were designed by atmospheric painter and landscape designer Lockwood de Forest Jr. (1850–1932). His water channels are replicas of those at Villa Lante at Bagnaia, near Viterbo in the Italian Tuscany region. Mizner integrated the principal indoor and outdoor rooms by a cloistered arcade with slender columns on three sides of a large courtyard. He linked that to the inclined axis with a pavilion in the form of a Palladian arch on a terraced stone pedestal at the vista terminus. Casa Bienvenida is extant and well maintained to the present day.

The Spanish revival style here draws its forms and elements from medieval sources. Mizner used many high art details not generally found in this area ... while maintaining the Santa Barbara characteristic of pure design. Also in Boca Raton is Mizner Park, an upscale "lifestyle center" with shops, rental apartments, and offices. In March 2005, to commemorate his visionary contributions to both the city and Florida architecture, an statue of the architect by Colombian sculptor Cristobal Gaviria was erected in Boca Raton at Mizner Boulevard and U.S. 1. In addition, Addison Mizner Elementary School in Boca Raton was named for him in 1968.

He was the brother and sometimes partner of businessman, raconteur, con man, professional gambler, and playwright Wilson Mizner, whom Addison termed "my chief weakness and dreaded menace". According to the Introduction by Isaiah Sheffer, three songs from that work were included in the 1996 sheet music album The Unsung Irving Berlin.

In 1951 Theodore Pratt wrote a novel, The Big Bubble, which is a thinly veiled biography of Mizner. In 2014 Richard René Silvin published his book Villa Mizner: The House that Changed Palm Beach, chronicling the life of Addison Mizner though a story about Mizner's own home on Worth Avenue and Via Mizner, Palm Beach: Villa Mizner.

Mizner's Lounge was the name of the tavern at Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa from the hotel's opening in 1988 until 2019. Mizner's Lounge closed on April 12, 2019, to be replaced by a Beauty and the Beast-themed bar and lounge.

Award

The Addison Mizner Award was created in 2013 by the Florida Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art for Excellence in Classical and Traditional Architecture. During the early period of Florida's urban development, the standards of excellence in composition and craftsmanship were defined by Mizner's civic and domestic works in classical and traditional design. The awards are presented yearly in the multiple categories.

Gallery

File: Fred C. Aiken House Main Facade.jpg|Fred C. Aiken House, Boc Paul Smiths, New York (1907). Designed with William Massarene.

File:EvergladesClub.jpg|Everglades Club, Palm Beach, Florida (1918).

File:Rbcfromparkandking.jpg|Riverside Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida (1926).

Image:PalmBeachMemorialPark2.JPG|Memorial Fountain, Memorial Fountain Park, Palm Beach, Florida (1929).

File:La ronda.jpg|La Ronda, Great Hall.

File: ColebrookCT RockHall.jpg|Rock Hall in Connecticut

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Archival material

The Mizner design scrapbooks and his complete library are available at the Society of the Four Arts Library in Palm Beach, Florida and available digitally from the Internet Archive. Material relating to Boca Raton may be found at the Boca Raton Historical Society; many are available on their Web site. A large number of architectural drawings are in the collections of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. Sketchbooks, photo albums, and some letters are at the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California.