The Mandarin Oriental. Photo by George Apostolidis
The Guide: Miami
November 1, 2005
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A residence on North Bay Road designed by Luis Pons. Photography by Eric Laignel. (Click image to enlarge.) Design
Two styles prevail in Miami: sprawling Mediterranean villas and innovative contemporary homes. Since many estates are second homes, greater risks are taken with design. And the boundaries between interior designer and architect are more blurred. The best in modern comes from architects such as Alison Spear, Rene Gonzalez and Luis Pons. Spear, who has offices in Miami’s Design District as well as Manhattan, developed her understanding of urban architecture from her early days at big-league firms Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago and Arquitectonica in New York. Her past clients include Jay McInerney, Francis Ford Coppola and Andre Balazs. Also in the Design District, Pons combines his skills as an interior designer, architect and landscape architect to deliver full-service contemporary designs that draw on mid-century modern. Gonzalez’s designs reflect his understanding of the luxury of light, space and minimal ornamentation, which is appreciated by such commercial clients as the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Miami Art Museum, as well as residential clients who are often art collectors.
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Landscape architecture for this Indian Creek home is by Robert Parsley. (Click image to enlarge.) For more estate-oriented architecture, seek out the assistance of Ramon Pacheco, Jorge Hernandez, Barry Sugerman and William and Phyllis Taylor, who are best known for their Mediterranean masterpieces, but are versatile enough to segue into modern. Pacheco’s commissions have varied from Addison Mizner revivals in Coral Gables to mission-style ranches near the Everglades. Hernandez, a professor at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture, is influenced by both the Jeffersonian classicism he studied in school and the Bauhaus building in Cuba that he grew up in. A native of Miami, Sugerman has earned more than 160 awards and international commissions during his 40-year career. Most of his projects are in South Florida, but he has traveled extensively for clients such as The Silence of the Lambs author Thomas Harris and a former president of Honduras. The Taylors are perhaps the most traditional and adept at creating large-scale estates with historical integrity. The husband-and-wife team has 20 years of experience and a wealth of architectural knowledge that stylistically ranges from British Colonial to Provençal.
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