Boca Rococo: How Addison Mizner Invented Florida's Gold Coast

By Caroline Seebohm

Book Overview

The rollicking tale of the artist, adventurer, and visionary whose innovative architecture transformed Palm Beach and whose dramatic rise and fall mirrors the larger-than-life excesses of the 1920s. Addison Mizner's Mediterranean-style mansions-with their stucco walls, tiled roofs, and Moorish accents-are much-admired Florida icons. InBoca Rococo, renowned author and biographer Caroline Seebohm introduces the flamboyant genius behind these pastel palaces. Mizner was a leading San Francisco society figure in the 1890s, joined the Alaska Gold Rush, traveled to China, and made his way to an exploding turn-of-the-century New York. No formal training but huge natural talent established him as architect of the rich and famous. The getaways he designed made Palm Beach America's most elegant resort-and fed his dream of developing a "Venice-on-the-Ocean" in nearby Boca Raton. Mizner's plans ended with the collapse of Florida's real estate boom. He died in 1933, broken and bankrupt. Drawing on a huge cache of untapped materials-including measured plans and an unpublished autobiography-Seebohm restores Mizner to the pantheon of great architects and flamboyant Americans.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609605151
• ISBN13: 9780609605158
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter Publishers
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Addison Mizner Biography

This 2001 biography of architect Addison Mizner will be of most interest to those already familiar with his work. Not to be confused with a monograph, there are relatively few illustrations with only a small number of his buildings shown. But most of the images come from family archives and may be previously unpublished. The focus of the book is on the architect's colorful life and includes the background of his parents and siblings. His father's stint as a diplomat in Central America when Addison was a teenager is beneficial in explaining the influence of Spanish architecture. Also, the work as a young assistant to San Francisco architect Willis Polk and his friendship with New York architect Stanford White, who also sometimes included furnishings in his scope of work, gave helpful background. Readers interested in the great architect's work might be less interested in the many pages devoted to Alaskan phase of his life. In addition, the text devoted to his younger brother, Wilson, a sometime pimp and opium addict who later became part owner of the legendary Brown Derby restaurant, might have been better edited. Indeed, the whole book, which often repeats facts, could have benefited from a tighter text. None-the-less, those interested in the genius who helped form the image of Palm Beach, Florida, with the still-exculsive Everglades Club and many picturesque mansions, will enjoy this book.

A great read...

I found myself always wanting more of this book. The author has done a great job presenting the life of Addison Mizner. The starting point is interesting. Caroline Seebohm discovered a cache of records from the architect's office. What she failed to mention and may not know is that these records were split sometime after the death of Addison so there is another book to be written!