One of my earliest childhood memories was looking eastward from my home in Winter Haven, Florida, towards Cape Canaveral. The Cape was sixty miles away, but I had an unobstructed backyard view across Lake Otis to witness the launch. Perched upon my father’s shoulders, who was standing on an exterior balcony, we saw the intense-yet-tiny light appear on the horizon. It slowly ascended. About a minute later, a powerful sound wave rolled in from across the flat Florida landscape. The noise continued across the lake and our grassy lawn. The house shook. Around me, the windows and sliding glass doors shuddered violently as the noise of the rocket made itself known; an unforgettable experience for a five-year-old.
Decades later I would figure out that I had witnessed the 1975 launch of an Apollo rocket. With public interest and dollars depleted, this rocket was not destined for the moon. Instead, it rendezvoused with a Soviet space capsule orbiting high overhead. The Apollo-Soyuz mission would be the final mission of the Apollo Program and America’s last manned spaceflight until the Space Shuttle program began in 1980. That event, however, instilled within me a lifelong appreciation for anything related to space. To this day I remain an avid fan of spaceflight, astronomy and space exploration. It would be a different type of ‘space’, however, that would soon gain my attention and inflect my trajectory in life.
The house that shook around me as I watched the lift-off is worth mentioning. A few years earlier, my parents commissioned a local architect, Gene Leedy, to design our family home. I was the youngest of five children and was born about a year after the home was completed. Our house on Lake Otis was a structure of pre-cast concrete columns and beams with cantilevers, frighteningly long spans, internal courtyards, intimate nooks, walls of glass, soaring ceilings. From a very young age I was unknowingly set on a trajectory to become an architect.
Leedy was one of a handful of architects that comprised the Sarasota School of Architecture. The Sarasota School was a movement that advanced a regional style of post-war architecture that emerged on Florida’s barren west coast. Known for his exceptional gregariousness and his pioneering use of pre-cast concrete, Leedy would amass an impressive portfolio of projects across the state. In 1960 he moved his practice from Sarasota to Winter Haven, which at the time was a sleepy Central Florida town surrounded by pristine freshwater lakes and citrus groves.
Modernism now had a foothold in Winter Haven as Leedy’s designs began popping up across the area. Leedy eagerly adopted pre-cast concrete as his ‘material of choice’ and continued to refine his signature style. Most notably was his brazen use of the pre-cast “double tee” slab. This construction material is more commonly used by the industrial and transportation sectors. Leedy, however, perfected a sophisticated method to combine these raw structural elements with walls of glass to create exceptional buildings.
In addition to my childhood home, Leedy’s portfolio includes an impressive array of other private residences, office buildings, City Hall, the Police Station, the Fire Station, the Garden Club, and the Chamber of Commerce. From my perspective as a young child, it appeared that he designed almost the entire town. One of his more expressive designs was the Lake Region Yacht and Country Club, which was designed in association with Paul Rudolph.
Paul Rudolph was considered the father figure of the Sarasota School of Architecture. His early work includes a treasure trove of early modernist homes set upon the undeveloped barrier islands protecting greater Sarasota. In 1952, The Architectural Review (London) declared that the most exciting architecture in the world was being done in Sarasota by a group of young architects. Rudolph’s bold experimentalism resulted in a unique collection of homes that were beautifully adapted to both their site and climate. Examples of these include the Umbrella House, Harkavy House, Deering Residence, Healy Guest House and many others. Rudolph also left behind a series of noteworthy unbuilt designs before eventually relocating his practice to New York where he took on much larger international commissions.
Unquestionably, Rudolph’s and Leedy’s works impressed upon me the importance of regional modernist architecture. It is from these early influences that I attribute my appreciation for site-driven and climate-driven architecture.
When I was about ten years old, my father purchased a beach house on Casey Key, a skinny barrier island just south of Sarasota. The home was located on a beautiful stretch of white sand beach along the Gulf of Mexico. Casey Key is one of the few islands in the area that consisted primarily of single-family homes. There were a few little ‘mom & pop’ motels on the island, but none of the large condo towers or any commercial stores that are typically associated with Florida coastal development. Casey Key was home to several notable mid-century modern homes, including few designed by Paul Rudolph. The well-documented Cohen Residence and Deering Residences were located on the island. The house that my father had purchased, however, was a decrepit, rat-infested structure of unremarkable provenance. Somewhat coincidentally, our immediate next-door neighbors were the Leedys, who had also purchased a little beach cottage several years prior. The adjacency of our little vacation beach shacks served to further the friendly bonds between our respective families. It also served to further my interest in architecture.
One night, Gene Leedy and his son Ingram invited me to accompany them on a social visit to meet the abstract-impressionist artist Syd Solomon on nearby Siesta Key. Leedy designed a home and art studio for the Solomons around the same time as he was designing my family home in Winter Haven. Both of our homes shared the same precast concrete construction methodology and a similar courtyard layout. It had an extremely strong presence. After a tour of the house and studio, Syd autographed a print of one of his triptychs for me. Being in that powerful space, surrounded by enormous canvases of abstract art created a very memorable moment in my youth.
About five years later, the Solomon Residence succumbed to the forces of nature. Midnight Pass, a natural waterway that separated Siesta Key from Casey Key, slowly migrated north and eroded the beach in front of the house. The Gulf of Mexico compromised the foundations. The home was condemned and eventually demolished.
Gene Leedy’s son, Ingram, and I became best friends, and I was a regular guest at the Leedy Residence in Winter Haven. Their home is a masterpiece of mid-century modern architecture. It is a one-story, concrete block and wood home, built in the 1950s, with walls of glass that open out onto the central courtyard. It really is a jewel and is deserving of historic protection.
Much like Rudolph’s designs for the Revere Quality Homes development, Leedy designed a neighborhood of courtyard homes on a quiet street in Winter Haven. I recall one day when Gene Leedy returned home from work one afternoon and brought with him a few architectural scale models from the office. With his permission, we proceeded to blow them up with M80 firecrackers.
Ingram had his own detached bedroom suite and we would often stay up late into the night programming our respective IBM and Apple computers. In the “morning”, Gene Leedy would always offer us a specially-prepared breakfast around one o’clock in the afternoon.
My early and continuous exposure to these very cool buildings in Sarasota and Winter Haven had already provided me with the early foundations of an architectural education. However, at the time of my enrollment at the University of Florida I did not immediately declare architecture as my field of study. It would take almost two years of pursuing studies around other interests including business, political science and Russian language before realizing that I really wanted to be an architect.
The UF College of Architecture was a really remarkable building. Immense piers of exposed concrete support an arced, glass-enclosed studio level. Below, an open courtyard was balanced by additional studios that formed a terraced volume. Each studio had its own private balcony and all of the building’s circulation was on the exterior. It was a great climate-driven and site-driven design. My introduction to this particular building renewed and reawakened my interest in architecture. I now knew with an unwavering certainty that I would be an architect. I instinctively realized what an important, albeit subliminal, role that architecture had played in my life. My constant exposure to the works of Leedy and other Sarasota School architects had shaped my destiny.
Upon graduating from UF, I returned to Winter Haven and embarked on an internship with Gene Leedy. I was an intern with very little practical experience; however, I was able to create ‘pen and ink’ presentation drawings of Leedy’s projects. During this internship, John Howey, a Tampa architect, was completing his book about the Sarasota School of Architecture. Leedy arranged for me to spend two weeks working on drawings for the book at Howey’s office in Tampa. During this time, I gained further insight on the Sarasota School (a term, by the way, that Gene Leedy is credited with coining). Howey gave me drawing assignments that included a variety of homes designed by Leedy and Rudolph. It was especially rewarding to produce drawings of my childhood home on Lake Otis and have them published.
One of the best aspects of my internship was the instruction Leedy provided me in the field of architectural photography. Leedy customarily shot all of his own projects with his own camera, and he convinced me to purchase a similar Sinar 4x5 ‘view camera’. It’s an imposing piece of engineering with a shiny armature and lots of knobs. Eventually, I was taking my own photos of Leedy’s work as practice assignments. Some of the most visually stunning images resulted from complicated time exposure shots. The aperture would intentionally be kept very small, and the lens would remain open for several minutes. This strategy was particularly effective for capturing the cobalt skies at dusk. I learned invaluable skills ranging from the artistry of composition to the technical aspects of actually getting the image onto the 4x5 transparency film. This was long before the digital era. It always involved an agonizing wait for the film to be developed. Hopefully, a few of the shots would be winners.
Ezra Stoller was considered one of the leading architectural photographers of the 1950s and 1960s. He photographed much of Paul Rudolph’s early work. One of his proteges, Alexander Georges, shot some of Leedy’s projects and eventually taught Leedy the basics of architectural photography. From that point forward, Leedy photographed his own work. At the beginning of my career, I photographed a few of my own projects including the Rock House and the Tanner Residence. But as the digital era advanced, my Sinar became more and more obsolete. Finding the appropriate film even became a challenge. Eventually I turned the photography over to the professionals. Whenever possible, I love being onsite during the shoots. I’ve been fortunate to have many talented photographers document my firm’s work including Claudia Uribe Touri, Claudio Manzoni, Robin Hill, Paul Warchol, Calder Wilson, Bruce Buck and others. The importance of enticing photography cannot be underestimated.
During my time at Leedy’s office I was involved with several of his current projects which included the Merrill Lynch Office Building (Winter Haven), McCormack Residence (Tallahassee) and the Garcia Residence (Anna Maria Island). His design of the President’s House at the University of South Florida, however, I recall with the most excitement. The President’s House is unmistakably Leedy with a pre-cast concrete structural system. Unlike his early buildings with a raw aesthetic, the entire structure is painted white.
Against the advice of Leedy, I pursued my Master of Architecture degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Leedy was pushing me to attend graduate school at the University of Florida; they’ll screw up my head at Columbia,” he said. Nonetheless, I was thrilled to have been accepted by Columbia and was ready to embark upon a new adventure.
Not long after I got settled into my apartment on the Upper West Side, Leedy arranged for me to meet Paul Rudolph. Bert Brosmith, another architect from the Sarasota School era, was hosting a cocktail party at his home in Pound Ridge, New York. Gene recruited me to photograph Brosmith’s home and I was invited to stick around for drinks afterwards to meet Rudolph. Rudolph was legend. After so many years of hearing stories about him and admiring his work, I finally had the opportunity to meet him in person. After the party, Paul gave me a ride back into New York. During the drive we had plenty of time to converse about architecture in general. He was very skeptical about the advent of the computer and its impact on design. In particular, he was wary about a computer’s ability to create beautiful drawings. Paul died about two years later and I’m convinced he would have been blown away by the emergence of advanced computer rendering technologies. The jury is still out, however, as to whether the computer renderings of today will be revered in the same way that Rudolph’s ink drawings are now celebrated.
Between my first and second years of graduate school at Columbia, I secured an internship in London with Zaha Hadid. Bill MacDonald was my professor during my first semester at Columbia. He had been a classmate of Zaha’s at the Architectural Association in London about a decade prior. Apparently, my design work had impressed him, and he recommended me to Zaha. Serendipity had stepped in, and I unexpectedly found myself presented with an opportunity to work at one of the most progressive architecture firms in the world.
At the time, Zaha Hadid was widely regarded a paper architect. Her highly theoretical work had resulted in much acclaim, yet she suffered from the stigma of not having much “built” work. In fact, by 1996 only five of her designs had actually been built. It was in this professional context that I arrived in London for my summer internship. My plan was to stay in a hotel near her office for a few days while I secured summer housing. That task was more difficult that I had anticipated. I was finally able to find a “flat” in the South Kensington area of London. In New York, it would have been described as a “third floor walkup”, as there was no elevator. With its abundant floral wallpaper and upholstery, I assumed it must have be owned by a little old lady. It wasn’t quite the hip bachelor pad, I was hoping for but it felt safe and was in a nice neighborhood. My daily commute took about forty-five minutes, but the novelty of the London Underground made it go quickly. Zaha’s office in Clerkenwell was located in a former school. In 1996 there were only about five or six people working in her office. I was told to bring my own computer, so I schlepped my Macintosh 9500 across the Atlantic. I would become the first to use the computer as a design tool at Zaha’s firm. I had only completed one semester of Intro to CAD at Columbia, but I was looking forward to introducing my newfound skill set to the office. At the time, a 3D modeling program called FormZ was my preferred software.
I was assigned to work on the Millennium Bridge competition which had just come into the office. The firm was invited to submit entries for the pedestrian bridge to cross the River Thames and link the Tate Modern Gallery with St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ultimately, the design by Sir Norman Foster would win the competition and be built.
During my first week I was also assigned to some manual labor. There was a storage warehouse on the south side of the Thames that housed Zaha’s archive of architectural paintings. They were enormous canvases that would fetch millions today if sold. I spent two days moving her artwork out of one storage unit and into another.
My internship with Zaha was very brief. It was only supposed to be for two or three months, however I quit after only a few weeks. I did not like the manner in which she interacted with her staff. She was always polite with me but there were some employees that regularly got an earful.
Most of the staff had become immune to her demeanor and simply told me “Oh, that’s just Zaha.” But it began to wear on me. From a moral standpoint I decided that I did not want to be a part of that culture. My co-workers were shocked when I told them that I was going to leave. Apparently, nobody had quit before. I had made my decision, though, and the next day I called Zaha on the phone and informed her that it wasn’t working out for me.
I looked for a new employer for a while until I realized that visa requirements would make that an impossibility on short notice. So, I remained in London for the next couple months and used it as my base of explorations for short jaunts to France, Wales and Scotland. In the fall I returned to New York and continued my studies at Columbia University.
During the next two years I learned as much from the city as I did from academia. Adapting to an urban life forced me to mature quickly and I developed a great deal of confidence along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed the studio culture at Columbia and took every opportunity to advance my design and presentation skills. The digital design skills that I acquired at Columbia were in high demand and I was honored with the GSAPP’s first-ever Electronic Media Prize. Looking back, I probably would have been hired by almost any firm that I chose to pursue.
During my third and final year at Columbia, Gregg Pasquarelli and I were enjoying some cocktails at a bar on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. He explained that he was starting his own firm with his wife and a few other friends as partners. The firm would be called SHoP as a creative derivation of the initials from the partners’ last names. The lowercase “o” was simply intended as a void. In fact, early iterations of their business cards had an actual hole in the card. Gregg further explained how one of their first projects would be the Manhattan Museum of Sex, or MOSEX.
MOSEX was to be a ‘high brow’ museum dedicated to the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality. It was rumored that Monica Lewinsky’s dress would be the main attraction of the inaugural collection. The museum’s founders had already obtained a site on Fifth Avenue. It was a small, corner property with an existing five-story building. The plan was to renovate that building as a ‘temporary’ museum space while funding was raised for the new building.
Upon graduation, Gregg offered me a position at SHoP. I was torn. My intuition was guiding me back to Florida and towards the creation of my own firm, but Gregg’s offer was too good to pass up. I would be SHoP’s first employee, and I would be working on MOSEX. Eventually we agreed upon an arrangement in which I would live in Miami and commute to New York every other week.
The SHoP partners had come up with the design concept for MOSEX and it was my task to advance the project using an advanced modeling software called SoftImage. A year prior I had traded in my Macintosh computer for a wonderful machine made by Silicon Graphics. My “SGI 02” was a powerhouse for advanced modeling. Over time, the design for MOSEX became more refined and received a prestigious Progressive Architecture award in 1999. Our design was never realized due to a falling out among the museums’ founders. Ultimately, they simply renovated the existing building and opened a much smaller version of the museum which still exists today.
After about eighteen months of commuting between Miami and New York on a bimonthly basis, I decided to focus on the goal of establishing of my own firm. I resigned from SHoP and remained in Miami full-time while I completed my Architectural Registration Exams. Soon, with license in hand, I was ready to forge my own path within the profession of architecture.
My first projects were simple renovations, additions and small homes. One my first projects was the renovation of a “crack house” in an impoverished area of Coconut Grove. Through these relatively simple projects I was able to amass the experience necessary to accept larger and more complex commissions with confidence (and competence).
In 1999, while on an afternoon jog through the leafy streets of Coconut Grove, I discovered the site on which the Rock House would eventually be constructed. The one-acre site had a small two-bedroom cottage which was completely surrounded by an almost impenetrable landscape. I instantly fell in love with the site and its tropical foliage which included an impressive Florida Strangler Fig (Ficus Aurea), Royal Poincianas, Royal Palms, Live Oaks, and exuberant stands of giant bamboo. In fact, a tree survey indicated over three hundred trees were jammed onto this one-acre parcel. I purchased the property and not long afterwards I moved into the cottage with my soon-to-be wife, Tamara. We lived on the property for several years while we slowly cleared out the invasive trees and began to envision the designs for a new house.
The Rock House, which I designed for my own family, presented the first real opportunity to express my architectural creativity. The initial design for the Rock House was heavily influenced by my recent years at graduate school. Ultimately though, it was my exposure to the Sarasota School that resonated more strongly with me than the avant-garde designs of Columbia, Zaha and SHoP. Intuitively, I felt that the tenets of the Sarasota School offered a much more practical and authentic design strategy.
While Sarasota and Miami are technically located in the subtropical latitudes, the modernist architecture of each city hints at more equatorial locales. Both cities are more readily identified with heat and humidity rather than cool winter nights or the occasional freeze. The tropics conjure up opportunities for exotic living and Florida architects willingly inflect their designs accordingly.
Philip Hiss was an important catalyst of the nascent and yet-to-be-named Sarasota School movement. Hiss, an architect himself, was also a developer, photographer, anthropologist and chairman of the Sarasota School Board. He was also a world traveler and especially intrigued by the Balinese culture. His fascination with the architecture of Bali influenced the young architects in Sarasota. As a direct result, concepts of tropical design infused the Sarasota School and became the foundation for the area’s regional modernist design.
Coconut Grove, Miami’s oldest neighborhood, celebrated an even greater tropical ambience. Part of this tropical inflection can be attributed to the impact of one its more notable residents, David Fairchild. Fairchild, a renowned botanist and explorer, is credited with introducing a large number of tropical plants and trees to South Florida in the 1920s and 30s. His former estate in Coconut Grove, The Kampong, is now a part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). The NTBG is a Hawaii-based institution dedicated to tropical plant research, conservation and education. The Kampong is the only mainland garden of the NTBG; its other four gardens are located in Hawaii. So, as the Sarasota School architects were making their imprint on Florida’s west coast, like-minded architects in South Florida were also advancing “tropical modern” architectural concepts. Inspiring architecture by Alfred Browning Parker, Rufus Nims and Jorge Arango can be found in the greater Miami area. Their designs reflect the same regional-modernist concerns that were manifesting in Sarasota.
The Florida mid-century modernists all viewed architecture primarily as a means of providing shelter and comfort from the oft punishing climate. Thus, deep overhangs and breezeways became design tools to protect people from the sun and rain, while encouraging and even amplifying ventilation. As the architecture strives to offer respite from these elements, the buildings themselves gain attributes which are both practical and stylistic.
At the same time that I found myself re-engaging with the ideas of Florida’s mid-century modern architects, Tamara and I had the opportunity to travel to Bali. I was able to experience and appreciate firsthand the concepts that Phillip Hiss clued into decades earlier. Specifically, the Balinese designs of architects Geoffrey Bawa, Cheong Yew Kuan and landscape architect Made Wijaya burst onto my radar and furthered my enchantment with tropical architecture. Inspired and energized, the design for the Rock House came into focus.
Miami is partially situated upon a ridge of oolitic limestone. Oolite, as it is more commonly known, is the bedrock of Miami and rises to a height of eighteen feet above current sea level. This rock ridge makes itself most evident in Coconut Grove. For all of Miami’s short history, architects and builders have been incorporating oolite into their designs. The widespread adoption of this local building material has given Coconut Grove a special sense of place. It was without question that the Rock House would be built with oolite…and lots of it!
The “parti” for the Rock House could not be more straightforward: it is a simple stone house protected by a detached roof canopy. Much like Rudolph’s Umbrella House of 1953, the Rock House relies upon its roof canopy to shield it from the intense tropical sun and frequent downpours. However, programmatically it has more in common with Bawa’s Villa at Batu Jimbar, as the roof canopy allows for an occupiable, open-air living space.
Clearly, the structural expression of the Rock House is a derivation of a lifetime to exposure to the work of Leedy and the Sarasota School. It is impossible not to compare its roof canopy to Leedy’s Ellison, Dormon, Sands or Solomon Residences. The pre-cast concrete “double- tees” were so pervasive throughout Leedy’s entire career that they undoubtedly became a part of my architectural subconscious. Additionally, one can does not escape the simple conclusion that Leedy’s Strang Residence (Winter Haven, 1969), in which I was raised, had the most profound effect on me.
In the case of Leedy, the repetition of structural elements became the defining architectural elements of his buildings. Long-spans and cantilevers appealed to Leedy’s quest for “bold architecture” while also addressing issues of practicality, economy and efficiency of construction. Structure and shade became synonymous.
In lieu of precast concrete the Rock House features structural steel columns and joists. However, it’s not the choice of material but the repetitive effect of the structural members that continues the lineage of Leedy. It is worth noting that decades earlier, Paul Rudolph also demonstrated the same effect with wood outriggers in the design of the Harkavy House in Sarasota.
The Rock House was completed in 2004 and catapulted my firm onto South Florida’s architecture scene. It has since become one of Miami’s most iconic residences. Most notably, the home was cast as a drug lord’s jungle lair in the 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice. Sometimes luck plays an important role in a successful career. For me it happened when Hollywood producer/director Michael Mann drove by the house in a convertible. About a month prior, a woman knocked on our door and introduced herself as a ‘location scout’ for the upcoming film adaptation of ‘Miami Vice’. In the eighties, Miami Vice was a popular television series starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as the detective duo Crockett and Tubbs. Back then, Miami was a lot grittier. South American drug money was pouring into the city, and Miami had a dark underside. South Beach looked more like a decrepit Beirut as it had fallen under severe neglect.
Ironically, it was that decades-long period of neglect that saved many of the city’s Art Deco buildings and resulted in the Miami Beach Architectural District. Thus, with this backdrop of crime and decay, Miami Vice roared into pop culture. Fashion, especially, was affected. This was the era of fast cars, pastel t-shirts and linen sport coats. The film adaptation would star actors Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Michael Mann insisted upon shooting the entire film “on location” (in the field). Since there would be no scenes shot in Hollywood production studios, ‘location scouts’ descended upon South Florida in search of viable filming locations. Hence the knock on my door when I was asked if I would consider allowing the Rock House to be used for the film.
“Absolutely,” I said.
The location scout lingered for about thirty minutes taking photographs of the house and property. Then she departed and told us that she would be in touch. The production crew was anxious to begin shooting, she said, so they should make up their mind regarding locations very quickly.
After a couple weeks with hearing no news, I called the location scout to inquire if the Rock House was going to be in the movie.
“Sorry,” she responded, “Michael Mann passed on it.”
Needless to say, I was disappointed with that news. It would have been a great and unconventional method to publicize the Rock House and bolster my credentials as a young architect. The next day, the location scout unexpectedly called me.
“You are not going to believe this, but yesterday I was driving through Coconut Grove in a convertible with Michael. We were on our way to another location. He happened to look up at just the right time and saw your house. He exclaimed, ‘there it is, that’s our drug lord house’. I didn’t want to tell him that he had already seen the file on your house and rejected it. When working with Michael, it’s best for him to discover things on his own. “
A technical scouting visit was scheduled two days later. A large bus pulled up next to the Rock House and a large contingent of production staff swarmed all over the house. Michael Mann walked the property envisioning scenes and camera angles. In his small coterie, he had a person recording all of his observations and verbal notes.
“When Michael Mann walked to a new spot, a person would stand at his previous location and document exactly what Michael was saying from that precise location. Other technical staff were assessing how to accommodate other logistical concerns associated with a major film production.”
Where can the trailers, lights, food-service trucks park? Are the neighbors nice? How long will we need to prep the site?After the technical scout visit was completed, it was verified that the Rock House would work from a logistical standpoint. It would become the South American hideaway of the film’s drug lord, Archangel de Montoya. Coconut Grove does not immediately conjure up sandy beaches and coconut palms. It’s a different part of Miami with an inherent wildness to it. Parts of the Grove really do feel like an overgrown jungle. This is what attracted Michael Mann to the notion that the Grove could convincingly represent South America. I would go on to learn that the house would be spectacularly positioned next to the Iguassu Falls somewhere on the border between Paraguay and Argentina (more on that later). But for now, Tamara and I were very excited about the whole idea that our home would be in the film.
As it turned out, they only needed our house for two days of actual shooting. However, they needed about a week beforehand to “prepare” the house and then a couple days afterwards to “strike the set”, which is industry jargon for cleaning up after themselves. In addition to ‘renting’ our home, they also agreed to cover our accommodations for two weeks. They suggested to put us up in the nearby Ritz Carlton in Coconut Grove. But with a baby and a toddler, Tamara and I thought that even the nicest hotel room could get a bit cramped after two weeks. So, instead the production company agreed to put us up in a condo on Key Biscayne, a barrier island a few miles away with beautiful beaches.
The actual shoot was still a few months away, but the anticipation began to build. I was curious about how exactly the planned on using the home. More specifically, I was curious about what changes, if any, would be required to transform our family home into the lair of a drug lord. Eventually, a meeting with the production manager and location supervisor was scheduled to review their ideas. They asked for the AutoCAD plans of my home. They were going to build a computer model of the home as part of an aerial special effects sequence. Sounded cool to me!
Then came an unusual request. They wanted more rock on the Rock House. Unbeknownst to them, I ran out of money during construction and was unable to afford all of the stonework that I had originally envisioned. There were several portions of the home that remained uncovered with stone. I was quite embarrassed about the situation. I tried, with limited success, to hide these areas with ivy and banana trees.
I walked around the house with the production manager who explained that Michael wanted to have the ‘art department’ create a faux stone veneer made out of painted Styrofoam. It would only be on a few of the blank portions, and they would then remove it after the shoot. As the production manager showed me a sample of this very convincing fake rock, I suggested that it might actually be cheaper if they applied real stone and then just left it up there.
“You wouldn’t mind,” he asked.
“Not at all,” I said, “but it would be unbalanced if you only did these several areas. I would prefer if you went ahead and put rock on all of the unfinished portions.”
And with that my house was complete. The original stonemason, Randford Stewart, was able to provide a proposal that met with the approval of the decision-makers. The clock was ticking, but Randford was able to get the rest of the stonework up quickly. The stonework wasn’t the only big request from Hollywood. Apparently, our enormous Strangler Fig tree was not big enough; they wanted to enlarge the tree. They proposed a strategy to enlarge the girth of the already massive trunk or at least give the illusion of a larger tree.
The augmented tree would serve as an impressive backdrop to the master bedroom of the film’s drug lord. This is where it got more interesting. They proposed building a set for a new master bedroom on our second-floor terrace. They showed us the artist’s renderings of the space. It was an impressive room that would be glassed-in, furnished and temporarily air-conditioned. The bedroom scene would be the longest scene shot at the house, although there would be several other shots that included our kitchen, dining and living rooms.
There was another concern regarding our neighbors’ house, a portion of which was visible from the second-floor terrace. It was a historically-registered two-story home that did not quite belong in Paraguay. They had already made a deal with the homeowners, who gave them permission to cover their home with a camouflage tarp. Other neighbors also found other ways in which to participate in the economic bonanza, such as offering their yards for parking or food tents for the crew.
So, at the agreed-upon moment we moved out and headed for the condo in Key Biscayne. Over the coming days, our home would quickly transform into a full-blown movie set. Construction workers built the second-floor bedroom using 2x4s and plexiglass. Others attended to the quirky task of enlarging the tree. Tons of sound and lighting equipment were moved into our real master bedroom. I could not help myself from stopping by the house every few days to take a look at the progress. Meanwhile, a storm was brewing.
2005 had already been a very active hurricane season and yet another one was brewing in the Atlantic. This particular one had formed quickly and unexpectedly. It was taking aim at South Florida. A mandatory evacuation for all barrier islands went into effect. Just as soon as we had settled into our temporary living arrangements on Key Biscayne, we were being forced to evacuate. With few viable options, we decided to go home and live like a drug lord for a few days until the hurricane passed.
The production crew gave us the ‘okay’ to stay there until work resumed. So, Tamara and the kids and I got comfortable among the jaguar skulls, modern South American art pieces and other exotic decor. The hurricane only had minor effects on South Florida with lots of wind and rain. The potential was there for some serious damage to the hastily assembled production set, which was not required to meet normal building codes, but thankfully this storm only brought down some tree branches. The morning afterward the filming was back on schedule.
Michael Mann invited me to attend the actual shoot; an invitation for which I was very appreciative and anticipating. A Spanish actor, Luis Tosar was cast as the villain. Chinese actress Gong Li was his female love interest. Strangely, neither of them spoke English and I recall the sound technicians being frustrated with the challenges of capturing their dialogue. Regardless, it was still quite exciting to be on the production set during the first night of filming.
While it took them over a week to build the sets, they all came down in two days. Immediately thereafter I was back in the house with my family, and it was back to our normal routines. Several months later my wife and I were invited to the east coast premiere of the film on Miami Beach as guests of the director. We were seated right behind Michael Mann. The Rock House appears about forty-five minutes into the film. Before this moment, I had no idea how our home would be depicted. With a musical track by the Scottish band Mogwai blaring, an aerial sequence revealed the house sited among a dense rainforest and jaw dropping waterfalls. Holy shit: it was a drug lord house!
The movie was not ultimately the box office success that was anticipated. However, the film was heralded for its cinematography and direction style. For me personally and professionally, Miami Vice came out of nowhere and provided an unexpected shot-in-the-arm for my fledgling architecture firm. Many years after the movie’s release I would still have people ask me if they could come see the waterfalls in my backyard.
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My early work in Coconut Grove underscored and reinforced the ability of Florida architecture to absorb highly tropical influences. The Rock House, Latterner Residence and The Kampong relied heavily on the use of local stones such as keystone and oolite. These natural materials, paired with steel and concrete, offered an unexpected dose of authentic modernist expression that countered the ersatz Mediterranean-Revival architecture that dominated the state. Each of these projects successfully resonated with their immediate surroundings in ways that heightened the authenticity of both their architecture and their landscape.
As new commissions arrived, there was an unmistakable shift in the work of the firm. The Douglas Residence, Biscayne Bay Residence, Camp Biscayne Residence and Lake House saw the adoption of the white, rectangular frame as an architectural strategy. In so doing, they demonstrate the shaping of ‘shelter’ within a shell-like form that acts as both structure and enclosure. Robert McCarter eloquently describes this in his academic essay, Shell and Shelter.
The design of Lake House (Winter Haven, 2011) is likely our firm’s first realized expression of this concept. The home is a confident expression of modern architecture that leaves behind any trace of vernacular influences. The home also departs from classical modernism and the early tenets of the Sarasota School of Architecture through the act of minimizing overt structural expression.
The shell of Lake House is an elongated, rectilinear frame that is clearly expressed in white stucco. Nested within this shell are secondary volumes that relate to specific programmatic requirements. These ancillary volumes are clad in Resysta, an innovative product made from rice husks, mineral oil and salt. Upon completion, the home represented the largest residential application of Resysta in the United States and furthered our exploration with sustainable materials.
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Decades prior, Paul Rudolph and Jorge Arango were exploring these exact same concepts. Rudolph’s design for the Finney Guest House (Sarasota, 1949) and Arango’s Villa May (Miami Beach, 1964) both depict rectangular frames floating above the Florida landscape. Our unbuilt design of the Camp Biscayne Residence (Coconut Grove, 2012) exemplifies how design strategies from the previous century can be advanced into this era. Miami is particularly well-suited for the advancement and refinement of the ‘frame’ concept. This was likely due to the emergence of poured- in-place concrete as South Florida’s default construction methodology. Whether necessitated by outstanding structural performance during hurricanes or the result of cheap labor by undocumented workers, the use of poured concrete proliferated during the last decade of the twentieth century. A concrete roof slab easily enables the profile of a ‘frame’ to be minimized, resulting in a more refined architectural expression. After the Lakehouse project, we continued to advance variations of the shell or frame-concept in projects such as the Biscayne Residence (South Florida, 2012), Peribere Residence (Miami Beach, 2014), Hucker Residence (Coconut Grove, 2015), Bass Residence (Coconut Grove, 2016) and Bolsterli Residence (Mountain Lake, 2016).
Our more recent projects have seen the introduction of vertical ‘fins’. These elements are derivative of Rudolph’s solar-control strategies demonstrated in his Deering Residence (Casey Key, 1956-58) and Milam Residence (Ponte Vedra, 1961). Aside from the sun-shading aspects of the fins, they provide an additional degree of scale and privacy to the homes. In some instances, they provide structural support.
Our unbuilt Mola Residence (Ft. Lauderdale, 2014) was the first [STRANG] project to adopt the fins and were used in conjunction with a surrounding frame. The striking aesthetics and impact of the Mola Residence confidently nudged the firm towards an unapologetically modern course. Many new projects such as The Rain Garden (Winter Haven, 2015), Janoura Residence (Miami Beach, 2017), Tuckman Residence (Fort Lauderdale, est. 2018), Tarpon Bend Residence (Fort Lauderdale, est. 2019), Wildwood Residence (Coconut Grove, est. 2019) and Berkowitz Residence (Coral Gables, est. 2019) employed various combinations of the frame and randomized fins. Additionally, we were commissioned to design a collection of two-story homes for the Cadus Corporation. These homes were on scattered sites in different municipalities across South Florida. The fins became the cohesive “look” for the collection of nine homes.
Rain Garden and The Fairchild Grove (Coconut Grove, est. 2019) represent the firm’s foray into the multifamily sector. Rain Garden offered the first new downtown housing option for Winter Haven’s residents in over twenty-five years. Unsurprisingly, the last downtown multifamily project was designed by Gene Leedy. The Fairchild Grove is our first boutique condominium building. It will feature twenty-six units spread over six floors. Unlike many of the ubiquitous white and generic condo towers populating Miami’s skyline, our design incorporates a much warmer material palette that complements the lush landscape of Coconut Grove. Similarly, recent projects in Miami Beach, The Bahamas and The Florida Keys continue our signature palette of local stone and warm woods.
In 2018, my family and I relocated to Sarasota, Florida to embark upon a new chapter of our lives. I am inspired to now be living in the cradle of Florida modernism. Undoubtedly, the work of [STRANG] will continue to take cues from the enduring legacy and ongoing relevance of the Sarasota School of Architecture.
