Hot on the heels of the much publicized 42 Star Island Drive preservation battle, another Miami Beach landmark estate is on the chopping block, this time a 1935 federal style red brick house by famed architect Maurice Fatio at 5446 North Bay Road. In his day, Fatio was so successful that he was voted the most popular architect in New York at age 26, and Cole Porter supposedly said "I want to have lunch on Maurice Fatio's Patio" (or "I want to live on Maurice Fatio's patio" depending on your source). Like all of the great but endangered Miami Beach houses that have been dropping like flies lately (three of which were recently swept away for one rambling behemoth) it is not historically protected, and will most likely never be, if the current "Lord of the castle" single family residential property laws on the Miami Beach books don't change.
Although the house still seems to be on the market, the owners are applying to replace it with a very contemporary house by architects Choeff + Levy. The city has already sent the architects back to the drawing board with the complaint that the new design is a carbon copy of another house nearby (not so coincidentally also designed by them). Whether the Fatio house bites the dust or not is anybody's guess, but we're not crossing our fingers.
· 42 Star Island Drive coverage [Curbed Miami]
· 5446 N Bay Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33140 [Zillow]
· Wayne Boich Jr. House coverage [Curbed Miami]
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