The two halves of Miami's sublime Vizcaya, with the villa and gardens on one side and the farm village (and formerly the farm) on the other, are linked across South Miami Avenue by coordinating gate lodges that were recently the recipients of a restoration by architect Richard Heisenbottle. These are highly ornate gateways to each realm that both include, multi-level buildings. They included functional spaces for the estate as well as, in the western lodge, a residence for the chauffeur. That lodge incorporated an archway over the driveway and easy access to the garage, where Vizcaya's vehicles were kept.
Just as the eastern lodge is patterned after the entrance to a Mediterranean villa, the western lodge evoked the entrance to a very old walled mediterranean town. The exteriors were as illusionistic and baroque as the rest of the great estate, but go inside and the interiors are perhaps the most surprising for their normalcy. With hardwood floors, fireplaces, built in cabinetry, and casement windows, they are certainly nice, but the illusion of being in a far off seaside Italian villa is gone, and instead you're in well-appointed rooms built by a benevolent master for his help, in 1920s Miami, which is exactly what these buildings really were.
· Vizcaya Museum and Gardens coverage [Curbed Miami]