From The Archives

HISTORIC WATERFRONT 1925 CAPTAIN’S HOUSE

Built in the time and style of the legendary Palm Beach-Boca Raton architect, Addison Mizner, the Captain’s House consists of a master house, connected by a large Mediterranean courtyard to a separate guest apartment.

Mediterranean eclectic—the style brought to Florida from his native California by Mizner, defining the distinctive Palm Beach and Boca look forever—dominates the vision of this unique home’s anonymous architect, believed to be an apprentice member of Mizner’s architectural studio. Dreaming and building at the height of the 1920s Florida Fantasy boom years, Mizner’s apprentice spared no detail of breeze-friendly layout, hurricane-resistant stucco sturdiness, or museum-worthy design detail.

The master house is entered from a gated courtyard, featuring elaborate wrought iron work, through a vestibule scaled to lead guests to the “wow” moment calculated by Mizner for the mansion entryways of Palm Beach. Here, the great room vaults to a pristine pecky-cypress peak with a magnificent wrought iron chandelier worthy of the great room of the Boca Resort on which it is modeled.

A working stone fireplace with ecclesiastical (and demonic!) detail balances vaulting vertical windows looking out to the water from a croquet tournament lawn, down an 8-foot grade to the Intracoastal Waterway. Original pilings documented by 1947 Arial photographs make building a new dock easy and efficient.

The downstairs is completed by matching loggias—one for dining, one for library or Florida room use—by an exquisite jewel sitting or bedroom with full bath, and by a kitchen that has been lovingly preserved with original cypress bead-board faced cabinets and hardwood shelves supported by cast iron brackets, period refrigerator and range (complemented by discreetly placed contemporary appliances), and a wine room with its own courtyard entrance.

Up gorgeously polished wooden stairs turning at a large southern-exposed window landing, the home’s owners have a private suite with two bedrooms, separate full baths, and a terrace with a view to the water and year-round verdure guaranteed to make every morning a wake up call to Life. Closets in both bedrooms, in the upstairs hall, in the downstairs vestibule and bedroom/sitting room provide room for storage appropriately scaled to the period.

A sunny proliferation of double French doors, original arced casement windows, and new Anderson double-pane windows with contemporary code hurricane shutters, sturdy and easily installed, make the main house as open to the Florida flora and gentle morning light as a doll house without walls.

But the walls are stucco, set on a sturdy Dade County pine foundation like the best houses of the period. No wonder no hurricane—including those of 1926 and 1928—left a mark or made a dent in this august icon of the Age of Quality.

A thick hand-mudded Spanish barrel tile roof, matched by handcrafted Saltillo terra-cotta tile and period oak floors inside, testify to excellence, experience, and durability combined with grace. Brand new no-noise high-tech, high-efficiency ductless air conditioning zoned separately throughout the house contrasts dramatically with random paw prints and chicken footsteps preserved forever on the floor’s tile work. Gargoyles on roof corners and classical statuary create a distinctive, dramatic reminder that no house is like this one.

To provide privacy and peace, the guest apartment releases itself separately from the central courtyard. Built on two levels, it features a complete upstairs living suite: sitting room with stunning water views, bedroom for two, full kitchen and bath, and generous closets for guests or for overflow from the main house.

Downstairs, a quiet, cool bedroom with period bathroom fixtures and full closet admits the gentle sound of a bronze Cupid “releasing himself” into a shell- and bromeliad-bordered reflecting pool. A private patio and paved, meandering walk down to the waterside make the guest building its own little castle. It features the original garage, containing a cedar-lined bonus closet for clothes, and is augmented by a capacious canopy to provide covered parking.

Canopies over outside French doors and windows continue the theme of covered coolness from floor to floor, building to building, in this stunning, human-scaled residence with a grand total of five bedrooms and five baths cloistered around a central courtyard that is an outside living room of its own.

Built in 1930, the adjacent Cottage Estate is protected for privacy by hedges, palm trees and citrus, and three-space, paved parking. Originally a single-family residence, the mini-estate’s main house was made into matching duplex apartments (with fireplaces!) in 1940, the same year its 1930 garage was reborn as the exquisite studio Cottage that gives the property its name.

Period bathroom and light fixtures combine with sparkling new kitchen and washroom appliances to provide three separate sets of living quarters, good for guests and “grandfathered” by the Town of Lantana as revenue-producing rental apartments, each with new central air-conditioning units.

As with the imposing Captain’s House—a piece of 1920s Florida Fantasy exuberance—the Cottage Estate spares no detail of quality or comfort, from high-polished Saltillo tile and authentic Dade County hardwood pine floors to ample Saltillo tiled kitchens and washroom. Here, too, animal tracks in tile floors reflect Mizner whimsy.

History, fantasy, and uniqueness, along with comfort, quality, and class. The Captain’s House and Cottage Estate have them all.