Archive for the 'Homestead' Category

Mid Week News

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on January 9, 2008
in Accident, Bicycle Sharing, Bike Boxes, Electric Car, Homestead, I-95, Local, Manhattan, Miami-Dade County, Paris, Pedestrian, Produce, Tri-Rail and bike lanes
. 0 Comments

Local:

  • Pedestrians don’t belong on 1-95…
  • Yet another person dies trying to bypass a Tri-Rail railroad crossing…
  • Buy local produce! It’s a key part of creating a sustainable society, a great way to keep money in the local economy, and an effective measure to reduce pollution (less overseas and transcontinental shipments…)
  • Get ready for strict water restrictions next year and pretty much every year after that. Anyone else think that perhaps the County should mandate the installation of water saving devices (such as technology which reuses sink greywater for toilet use) for all new construction?

Elsewhere:

  • The return of Urban Parks. Finally!
  • After they created the largest bike sharing network (note the absence of the popular word scheme, its a network, not a ploy) in the world and reintroduced streetcars to their urban landscape; Parisians are now getting ready to embrace electric car sharing service…
  • Collapse of the housing market signals the end of suburban sprawl? James Howard Kunstler thinks so…
  • Bike Boxes, what a novel concept to show drivers they aren’t the only ones on the road. Dual bike lanes and Bike Boxes in NYC are even more progressive…

A Miami Fontainebleau of Sorts

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on January 3, 2008
in Architecture, Charles Sieger, Fontainebleau, Homestead, Miami, Sieger Suarez, UDB and Urban Development Boundary
. 7 Comments
The Fontainebleau Miami is rising. I am not talking about the reinvention of the famous Miami Beach hotel, but rather the sudden emergence of a palatial 14-acre estate on the southwestern fringes of Miami-Dade County. After a brief Miami-Dade property search, it turns out that the home belongs to one of the area’s top skyscraper designers; Charles Sieger, designer of the urban 50 Biscayne, ultra luxurious Apogee condominium in SOBE, and revolutionary Portofino tower, among other projects. It is a paradox to see one of the area’s top condominium designers, a proponent for urban life I would assume, build a sprawling mansion on land situated outside of the urban development boundary.

The house itself is set back quite a distance from the street. I drove by recently catching this glimpse, perplexed that a house in this area could be built with such a short setback. I turned around and drove by again, realizing that this was only a “guardhouse” of sorts and that the “real” mansion lay somewhere behind a few acres of well manicured gardens, obelisks, and fountains. This area is no stranger to oversized palaces as we noted back in April in a post, which incidentally featured a picture of the entrance to this estate.

I assume the home is modeled after the famous Fontainebleau in Fontainebleau, France, the same location where Charles Sieger studied in 1968 at the Ecoles D’Art Americaines according to his resume.