Coral Gables
George Merrick laid out Coral Gables in the 1920s with a code that specified Mediterranean Revival architecture, coral rock walls, banyan-lined avenues and a set of grand entrances — a real estate promotion that survived the bust and became a working city of fifty thousand. The Venetian Pool, carved from a coral quarry and filled daily with spring water, is the strangest municipal swimming pool in America.
Why go
America's first fully planned city — designed as a Mediterranean composition from 1921. The Venetian Pool — a swimming pool cut from a coral quarry and refilled with spring water daily. Banyan-lined avenues — a street plan built around trees, plazas and grand entrance gates. The Biltmore — a 1926 hotel with a tower copied from the Giralda in Seville.
The character
George Merrick inherited a fruit farm and turned it into a city. From 1921 he laid out Coral Gables with an architectural code specifying Mediterranean Revival — stucco, barrel tile, arcades — hired artists to design entrance gates and plazas, planted the avenues, and financed it with one of the great promotional campaigns of the American 1920s, complete with William Jennings Bryan speaking from a platform in the Venetian Pool. The 1926 hurricane and the crash ended the boom and nearly ended Merrick, who died running the local post office.
The city survived because the code did. Coral Gables still enforces its architectural standards through a board of review, still numbers its houses on plaques rather than signs in places, and still looks like a single design a century on — about fifty thousand people living inside a real estate advertisement that became a real city. The University of Miami is here, so is a serious business district, and the whole thing sits under a canopy of banyans that make it ten degrees cooler than the rest of the county.
Places of character
Venetian Pool — 1923, carved from the quarry that supplied the city's stone, with caves, waterfalls and coral walls. Biltmore Hotel — 1926, with the Giralda tower, an enormous pool and a lobby you can walk into. Miracle Mile — the retail spine, recently rebuilt with wider pavements and more trees. Merrick House — the family's coral-rock farmhouse, where the whole idea started. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — eighty acres of palms and cycads at the southern edge; among the best in the world. Vizcaya, Coconut Grove — a 1916 Italianate villa on the bay ten minutes away, and the region's other great house.
The way to do it
Swim in the Venetian Pool, which is the point and takes a morning. Walk Miracle Mile and the residential streets under the banyans. Give Fairchild a half day. And use Coral Gables as the civilised base for Miami — it is fifteen minutes from downtown and thirty degrees quieter.
One perfect day
Coffee on Miracle Mile, then the Venetian Pool when it opens, swimming in spring water between coral walls before the families arrive. Walk the residential streets under the banyans to Merrick House for the origin story. Lunch of Cuban food on the edge of the city. Afternoon at Fairchild among the palms, or Vizcaya on the bay if the house appeals more than the garden. Back for a drink in the Biltmore's lobby under the ceiling. Dinner in the Gables, and a walk past the lit entrance gates that Merrick built to sell the place.
Grand hotels
The Biltmore — 1926, once a hospital and a campus, restored and still the largest hotel pool in the country. Thesis Hotel — a modern hotel by the university, for people who want the city without the period.
When to go
Best expression: December to April — dry, warm and the banyans at their best. Consider: the shoulder weeks of November and May for lower rates and the same weather. Avoid if possible: August and September, humid and in hurricane season.
The frame
Ideal stay 2 nights · Minimum 1 night · Best arrival by air to Miami, fifteen minutes · Airport MIA, 12 km · Walkability excellent under the trees · Best without a car possible with the free trolley