Big Hunting Ground

The area currently known as Cutler Bay, variously known at other times as Cutler Ridge or just plain Cutler, was once known by indigenous peoples as the "Big Hunting Ground". The area was part of the Perrine Land Grant in 1837, wherein congress gave a large alotment of real estate to noted horticulturist Dr. Henry Perrine for scientific endeavors. He was massacred on Indian Key at the outbreak of the 2nd Seminole War.

The area was prized as high ground, standing a full 16 feet above sea level along what is known as the Miami Rock Ridge - a geological feature running from the tip of the penninsula inland to the city of Jupiter. William Fuzzard, a friend of Dr. Cutler who was the first permanent resident of the area, was staying in Coconut Grove in the early 1880's while he explored his surroundings and began building a 2-story home in Cutler. He cut a path between the two locations, eventually widened to a wagon track that would later be known as the Old Cutler Road.

While visiting the Deering Estate, I took the nature tour led by a state park ranger named Andre. Much of our walk traveled the path of the afore-mentioned road (see above left). The tour, brimming with interesting details about the local flora and topography, ended at the site of a Tequesta burial mound (above right) beneath a large oak tree. Andre briefly alluded to the site being disturbed by a man hunting treasure many years prior. Apparently this scoundrel, while not having found anything else he considered to be of value, absconded with two skulls from the mound - which he later lost. It seemed like rather detailed information for an otherwise apocryphal tale, so I was not particularly surprised when, taking the guided tour of the buildings later that day, a second ranger named Max elaborated on the story..

Max went so far as to name the grave-robber as Charles Deering's son - "a self-styled adventurer in search of pirate gold". Deering had two sons - Charles William Case and Roger. Charles William died "without issue" prior to his father...so the suspicion falls toward Roger, though he is described as a sickly lad suffering from tuberculosis from age 17. Nonetheless, his pursuit of dry air led him as far as Egypt and eventually to Albuquerque where he died...so he was at least a traveler if not an "adventurer" and may indeed be the culprit. Information on both sons is scarce at best though I intend to dig a bit deeper.

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.