Published in the August, 2015 edition of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

James Deering, a slight, silver-haired man in a white linen suit and little round glasses, sits in the bright loggia of his Venetian-style mansion in Coconut Grove and watches a crowd of tourists wandering through his home. Servants move among the visitors, preparing for a dinner party later in the evening. They set the walnut table in the Renaissance dining room, bring the shine to a collection of gold-rimmed china, and set up the bowling alley, billiard, and smoking rooms.

But the modern-day tourists can’t hear the clinking of dinnerware. They can’t see the dapper gentleman or his servants. Deering and his staff at Villa Vizcaya have all departed this world. Today they’re just specters of a long-gone era, a lingering presence in the Gilded Age home that is now a popular museum.

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