But through trial and error, Chalfin and Deering arrived at solutions that worked beautifully.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

Hojo has all but erased its founder, restaurateur and hotelier Howard Deering Johnson, from its name.

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To that list we should add the client, an industrialist named James Deering.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

But that is not to minimize Chalfin's contributions: Deering later said that he "was responsible for 90% of the beauty" at Vizcaya.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

But Deering wanted the house near the bay, and the team put the villa in a mangrove swamp right on the water.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

Not all the plants that Deering wanted could thrive in Miami.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

It was on Chalfin and Deering's travels in Italy that they met Suarez -- a Colombian-born landscape designer who learned his trade by restoring Italian gardens.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem

Chalfin introduced Deering to Hoffman, a talented architect in New York who had the skills to put the rooms envisioned by Chalfin and Deering into a beautiful, coherent whole.

WSJ: An American Renaissance Gem