Nothing runs like a Deering

Yesterday I visited the south Florida estate of Charles Deering, son of tractor baron William Deering. Following Deering Harvester's merge with the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company to become International Harvester in 1902, Charles became the chairman of the board. He was retired by 1910.

The estate was originally the site of a cottage built by Dr. Samuel Richmond, said to be a surveyor for Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast Railway, in 1896. Richmond chose the small seaside village of Cutler (founded by Dr. William C. Cutler in the early 1870's) to build his home based on its proximity to the projected route of the railroad. As the FEC inched ever closer, Richmond added a three-story rooming-house in anticipation of accomodating weary travelers. The railroad's final path was over two miles away and while the Richmond Inn did play host to a few visiting dignitaries like Mr. Flagler, Cutler's handful of inhabitants began migrating to greener pastures.

Deering started buying up the town in 1916, converting Richmond's hotel into his winter home. In 1921, he decided to make the Cutler estate his year-round home and built a stone house in the Mediterranean Revival style alongside the converted hotel. The walls of the house are 18 inches thick, built to withstand even the most powerful hurricane. Having survived the Chicago Fire of 1871, Deering lived in fear of similar calamity and had all the stone house's doors encased in copper. He also ran water pipelines throughout the 444 acre estate to facilitate fire-fighting should the need arise. The Stone House was likewise built without a kitchen or dining room. All these activities took place in the adjacent Richmond House lest a smoldering morsel from a dinner plate create a raging inferno within the poured-concrete bunker.

Charles was an avid collector of fine art, filling his home with works by Spanish masters like Goya, El Greco and Velasquez. He was especially fond of works by Catalan modernist Ramon Casas, who sketched the portrait of Deering above. His collection, when appraised in 1922, had an estimated value of over $60 million - over three quarters of a billion in today's dollars. Following his death it was donated to the Art Institute in Chicago by his daughters.

Built during the prohibition era, the Deering manor was constructed with a feature extremely rare in south Florida architecture: a wine cellar. Carved deep in the limestone caprock, Deering's private stock was secreted away behind an actual bank vault door, hidden by a bookcase on hinges.