Coral Gables, FL
1200 Anastasia Ave, Coral Gables, FL
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Coral Gables was developed beginning in 1921 by George Merrick as one of the most fully realized examples of the "City Beautiful" planning movement in the United States, laid out with consistent Mediterranean Revival architecture, wide boulevards, and elaborately themed entrance gates and plazas built specifically to evoke the look of a Spanish or Italian coastal town rather than a typical South Florida suburb. The Biltmore Hotel, opened in 1926 as the centerpiece of Merrick's development, remains one of the most architecturally significant hotels in Florida, its distinctive tower modeled on the Giralda bell tower in Seville, and the hotel's pool has at various points held the title of the largest hotel pool in the continental United States. The University of Miami's main campus sits within Coral Gables, giving the city a genuine college-town presence layered on top of its planned-community architectural identity, and city zoning codes still enforce Merrick's original Mediterranean Revival design standards on new construction nearly a century after the city's founding. Coral Gables's combination of one of the most architecturally consistent planned communities in the country, a historically and architecturally significant flagship hotel, and a major research university campus has made it one of the most distinctive and consistently desirable suburbs anywhere in the greater Miami area.
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