clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Inside the Oldest Building In the Western Hemisphere, In North Miami Beach

New, 3 comments

Nick Carr, a film location scout with a rather cool blog, Scouting NY, has been on a road trip recently down to our dominions. On one of his stops, he checks out a building almost 700 years older than any other in South Florida: St. Bernard de Clairvaux, the oldest building in the Western Hemisphere, in North Miami Beach.

The cloister of this ancient monastery from Sacramenia, Spain, was purchased by William Randolph Hearst, shipped to the United States, quarantined, had all its stones mixed up, relinquished by Hearst due to financial problems, stored in a Brooklyn warehouse for 26 years, and (finally!) moved to North Miami Beach as a tourist attraction in the 1950s. As Nick Carr points out, it remains eerily, and mysteriously there to this day.

· The Oldest Building In The Western Hemisphere [Scouting NY]

St. Bernard De Clairvaux / The Ancient Spanish Monastery

16711 West Dixie Highway, North Miami Beach, Florida