Introduction
Addison Mizner, Visionary Architect is written by celebrated children’s book author Robert L. Forbes and illustrated by Barbara McClintock, an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator. For the first time, the fascinating story of Mizner’s formative years will come to life through this imaginative retelling of Mizner’s life.
Prior to his arrival in Palm Beach, Mizner led a life of adventure—from panning for gold in the Yukon to boxing in Australia—and the book will focus on how his travels shaped his character and architectural vision. Young readers and adults alike will delight in reading about the man who defined Palm Beach style. This exhibit seeks to explore two of the pivotal moments in Mizner’s life and draws upon the archival collection housed at the Foundation.
To learn more about the exhibit and collection, click here.
A selection of illustrations from Addison Mizner, Visionary Architect are displayed below. The publication is available for purchase at the Preservation Foundation’s website.
Credits
Curated by Marie Penny
Designed by Katie Jacob & Amanda Capote
Illustrations © 2023 Barbara McClintock, used by permission of Dunham Literary, Inc.
Archival images & artifacts from the Addison Mizner Collection at The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach Archives.
About Mizner
About Mizner
Addison Mizner was born in Benicia, California, the seventh of eight children. As a young man, he lived in Central America and Spain, experiences that would shape his architectural vocabulary years later. After apprenticing with San Francisco architect Willis Polk, he went on to prospect for gold in the Yukon and eventually made his way to New York. There, he began to develop relationships with clients who commissioned country houses on Long Island. In 1918, he was invited by Paris Singer to visit Palm Beach, where his role as society architect flourished.
During the mid-century, many of his iconic Mizner Mediterranean Revival estates, such as Casa Bendita, El Mirasol, and Playa Riente were lost to the wrecking ball. The destruction of his work later informed the nascent preservation movement in Palm Beach. Today, Mizner’s impact on the built environment can be seen at Via Mizner, the Everglades Club, and the Embassy Club (now the Esther B. O’Keefe Gallery building at the Society of Four Arts) in addition to landmarked private residences.
I never begin to design a home without first imagining some sort of romance about it. Once I have my story, then the plans take shape easily.
1923 (Arts & Decoration)
Into the Yukon
Into the Yukon
At the age of twenty-five, Mizner set out with his brothers William and Wilson to join their brother Edgar for the second biggest gold rush of the century. After six months of travel by steamer and then on foot through punishing conditions, he arrived in Dawson City in June 1898, the basecamp for mining in the Yukon. The brothers inevitability parted ways, but Mizner continued to see the mission through.
Despite the bitter cold, strenuous labor, and trying to stay one step ahead of his fellow prospectors, Mizner’s letters to his mother Ella remain positive and full of his connection to the space around him. He sees the world through the eyes of a poet. No doubt starved for warmth, he describes the warm pink light cast by the sun and the moon smiling down on him. This romantic lyricism pervades throughout Mizner’s journals, memoirs, and correspondence.
Mizner lived many lives, continually forged new ventures, and had the wherewithal to land on his feet. Two junctures in his life were significant moments in Mizner’s hero’s journey and existed on opposite ends of climate extremes: the Yukon and Florida. Mizner established himself in an inhospitable land and not only adapted to its environs but brought life to it. His capacity to dream and his perseverance to realize those dreams are what make Mizner’s story so interesting.
Tropical Alaska
Tropical Alaska
I adapted Spanish architecture to Florida, with color, lots of color. There is a very strong light down there, reflected from the sands, and the ocean glistens, like an opal, with pinks, greens and blues.
1930 (Arts & Decoration)
Twenty years after Mizner’s sojourn into the Yukon, he again embarked upon a new territory. Paris Singer invited Mizner to visit Palm Beach to experience the curative effects of the Florida sun—and Mizner decided to stay for the opportunity, the first of which was to design the Everglades Club. He was faced with the arduous task of transforming an area characterized as jungle, what his biographer Caroline Seebohm called a “tropical Alaska,” into a destination initially intended for wounded officers and later for socialites.
In just eight months, from June 1918 through February 1919, Mizner brought his vision of the Everglades Club to fruition. His knowledge of hardship and the demands of physical labor in the Yukon prepared him for the task of overseeing such a monumental project. Far from Bradley’s Club and Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel, the Everglades Club was unlike anything built on the island at the time. The club set the bar for residential commissions that followed soon after. From humble log cabins and cozy tents to the fairytale palaces of Palm Beach, Mizner knew that the importance of place is etched with details: lush landscape, arcades, wrought iron grillwork, European and Central American antiquities, and his own Mizner Industries pottery and tile.
Additional Illustrations
Additional Illustrations
The Preservation Foundation commissioned these illustrations to depict a scene from Mizner’s memoir when he first arrives on the site of the future Everglades Club.
