A Miami Fontainebleau of Sorts

January 03rd, 2008 | Category: Miami Transit Blog

The Fontainebleau Miami is rising. I am not talking about the reinvention of the famous Miami Beach hotel, but rather the sudden emergence of a palatial 14-acre estate on the southwestern fringes of Miami-Dade County. After a brief Miami-Dade property search, it turns out that the home belongs to one of the area’s top skyscraper designers; Charles Sieger, designer of the urban 50 Biscayne, ultra luxurious Apogee condominium in SOBE, and revolutionary Portofino tower, among other projects. It is a paradox to see one of the area’s top condominium designers, a proponent for urban life I would assume, build a sprawling mansion on land situated external of the urban development boundary.

The house itself is set back fairly a distance from the street. I

drove by recently catching that glimpse, perplexed that a house in that area could be built with such a short setback. I turned around and drove by again, realizing that that was only a “guardhouse” of sorts and that the “real” mansion lay somewhere behind a few acres of well manicured gardens, obelisks, and fountains. This area is no stranger to oversized palaces as we famous back in April in a post, which by the way featured a picture of the entrance to that estate.

I assume the home is modeled after the famous Fontainebleau in Fontainebleau, France, the same location where Charles Sieger studied in 1968 at the Ecoles D’Art Americaines according to his resume.