A former miner and prizefighter, Addison Mizner was an unemployed architect when he arrived in Palm Beach in 1918. Inspired by the medieval buildings he'd seen around the Mediterranean, Mizner built the Everglades Club , at 356 Worth Ave - the first public building in Florida in the Mediterranean Revival style. The success of the club, and the house he subsequently built for society bigwig Eva Stotesbury, won Mizner commissions all over Palm Beach as the wintering wealthy decided to swap suites at one of Henry Flagler's hotels for a "million-dollar cottage" of their own.

Brilliant and unorthodox, Mizner designed loggias and U-shaped interiors that made the most of Florida's pleasant winter temperatures, while his twisting staircases to nowhere became legendary. Mizner sprayed condensed milk onto walls to create an impression of centuries-old grime and fired shotgun pellets into wood to imitate wormholes. By the mid-1920s, Mizner had created the Palm Beach Style, and he later fashioned much of Boca Raton

Palm Beach

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• Addison Mizner: architect of Palm Beach
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