Boca Rococo
Subtitle: how Addison Mizner invented Florida's gold coast
By: Caroline Seebohm
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 284
ISBN-13: 9780609605158
Subjects: Architecture; Biographies; Biography; Architects; Architectes; History
Description: "When Addison Mizner built his opulent, glamorous mansions along the coast of southern Florida in the 1920s, he perfectly expressed America's growing power and confidence. The lyrical, Mediterranean aesthetic of Mizner's buildings that has come to define Palm Beach and Boca Raton characterizes one of the most extravagant periods in American history, when affluence and celebrity came together in a triumph of excess. Mizner perfectly embodied this flamboyant time.

A beloved and colorful personality, he adored the headlines and they adored him back. His big build and wicked wit made him welcome in the social circles of San Francisco, New York, and Palm Beach. Yet one thing trumped his incorrigible personality. Despite enormous competition from his more conventional contemporaries, Addison Mizner proved to be one of the country's greatest domestic architects of the twentieth century.".

"His is a supremely American story. Reckless and reprobate, embroiled in family conflict, hugely popular with the fashionable set, vilified by critics, lionized after death, amassing huge wealth and then dying debt-ridden, Mizner lived a life that can be counted among the great American epics.

Encompassing the most distant horizons of the American landscape, Caroline Seebohm draws on a cache of untapped materials - including never-before-seen plans and drawings - to place Mizner in the pantheon of legendary American characters.

With skill and expertise, Seebohm reconstructs Mizner's pursuit of immortality through the palaces and villas he constructed and shows us how, thanks to his vision, the splendor and elegance of those buildings have come down to us as a dazzling record of a wild and wonderful period in American history."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-273) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface: Addison's Napkin --; title: Prologue: "What could possibly go wrong?" --; title: California: Blueprint for an Optimist --; title: "I am getting to be a perfect child about you." --; title: "The result was neither pretty or modest." --; title: "I won't have it off!" --; title: "Father is fading very fast indeed." --; title: "An architect of great taste and little money." --; title: "The old pioneer blood of the tribe rose in my brain." --; title: "This is a country for the young, strong and stupid." --; title: "Why not fresco somebody's wall?" --; title: New York: Mansions and Monkeys --; title: "Things are very comfortable here and the service is excellent." --; title: "All down Fifth and Madison, They love our Baby Addison." --; title: "From time to time I had to dip into my savings." --; title: "How rich you Americans are." --; title: Florida: Castles in the Air --; title: "Strange to say, we hit it off at once." --; title: "The place took the town by storm." --; title: "Once I have my story, then the plans take place easily." --; title: "We're going on a buying trip to Spain." --; title: "Each house Addison builds is more beautiful than the one before." --; title: "The Genius of Planners, Poet of Architects, Foremost Thinker of the Future." --; title: "We simply did not have enough money to hold out." --; title: "Stop Dying Am Trying to Write a Comedy." --; title: "The kindest of men, a loyal and generous friend, and a hard worker."