Boca Raton's Camino Real inspired by ....

 

Camino Real entrance to
Boca Raton Resort and Club
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory 1971

In 1925 newspapers reported on the work of Mizner Development Corporation in lofty language. Words reflected the dreams - and efforts - of architect Addison Cairns Mizner (1872-1933) for a grand resort community in Boca Raton.

Part of that dream was Camino Real, a road leading to the proposed project. His inspiration for the road entrance was the Botofogo in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

... an embryonic plan was conceived by Mr. Mizner which included the installation at Boca Raton of one of the finest boulevards in North America – “Camino Real,”
... This street is now being graded and leveled and already more than four miles of it are ready for paving. It will be shaded by thousands of royal palms, its center will be a series of lagoons.

The Mizner Development Corporation fell into bankruptcy in the fall of 1926, but not before a toned down version of Mizner’s dream, the Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn, today’s Boca Raton Resort and Club, opened (February, 1926). It sits at the east end of the palm tree-lined Camino Real, a beautiful but subdued rendition of Mizner's original plan.

1926 Cloister Inn

Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Sources:

Miami Tribune, Oct. 22, 1925

Miami News, Dec. 28, 1925

Miami Herald, Feb. 21, 192

Tags: Boca Raton Hotel, Boca Raton Resort and Club, Camino Real in Boca, Addison Mizner, Boca Raton history

Before Boca Raton Resort and Club, the Cloister Inn

 

Cloister Inn 1926
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory 

Addison Mizner (1872-1933) set his sights on Boca Raton in 1925 after eight years in Palm Beach – years in which he significantly influenced the architecture of that resort community.  Boca promised artistic freedoms he could only dream of while designing for the wealthy.

The 1920s were roaring, promising opportunities to those ready to seize them. Mizner and his brother Wilson (1876-1933) formed the Mizner Development Corporation in 1925 to promote Boca Raton, a town newly incorporated (August, 1924). With 17,500 acres in their grasp, they raised $26 million in the first six weeks of land sales. Lots jumped in value from a few hundred dollars to $100,000. "I am the Greatest Resort in the World," ads for the town proclaimed.

Boca Raton Hotel 1970
Florida State Archives

The centerpiece of their new resort town was the 100-room, $1.25 million Cloister Inn.  He claimed it reflected the atmosphere of Mediaeval [sic] days in architectecture," harking back to monastic days of the 13th century. Whatever Mizner couldn’t import to decorate and design with, he made in his terra cotta factory in West Palm Beach. Some pieces, many aged artificially by Mizner himself, remain at today’s Boca Raton Resort and Club (renamed "The Boca Raton in 2022)

Built on the shore of Lake Boca Raton, Cloister Inn opened Feb. 6, 1926. Some say it was the most expensive hotel ever built. Operated by Ritz-Carlton management, the rambling, red tile-roofed hotel drew notables such as the duPonts, Vanderbilts, Elizabeth Arden, composer Irving Berlin and a roster of Wall Street moguls.

Mizner Development Corp., National Register
of Historic Places
From City of Boca Raton 

The Boca Raton dream began to crack before the hotel opened. Florida’s decline was quietly predicted by a Wall Street wizard January, 1926. By year’s end, the boom went bust.  The hotel closed and Addison Mizner returned to Palm Beach where he died in 1933. His brother Wilson scrambled to Hollywood, California to operate a restaurant and to start a new career as screenwriter. He died a few weeks after Addison.

The Mizner dream ended but its influence did not; Boca Raton’s architecture and exclusivity are vestiges of the Mizner vision. The Cloister Inn is the nucleus of The Boca Raton (Boca Raton Resort and Club).

Cloister Inn from Lake Boca Raton 1926
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Sources:

Miami Herald, Nov. 8, 1925

Kinney, Henry. Once Upon a Time: The Legend of the Boca Raton and Club. Boca Raton. Arvida Corporation, 1966.

Johnson, Stanley. Once Upon a Time: The story of Boca Raton.  Boca Raton: Arvida Corporation, 1974.

Tags: Boca Raton Resort and Club, Addison Mizner, Boca Raton history, Florida history, Florida in the 1900s, 

Wilson, the other Mizner: Playwright, wit and would-be Boca Raton developer

Wilson Mizner 1922

By Jane Feehan

Palm Beach and Boca Raton bear the imprint of Addison Mizner’s distinctive architectural style, but few today know that his brother, Wilson (or Bill) Mizner (1876-1933) was recognized during the early 20^th-century for his singular wit.

Be nice to people on the way up because you’ll meet them on the way down has been attributed to Bill Mizner, though some claim Walter Winchell said it. 

Wilson Mizner also penned several plays. The Deep Purple, and The Grey Hound were among his successes. He was known as the life of the party … “wherever he went, he whooped it up,” wrote a columnist for the Palm Beach Post.

He shared with brother Addison an exuberance for Boca Raton's prospects. Wilson was popular; many overlooked his shady dealings to promote the new resort town. For awhile the money flowed. But it ended for the brothers in late 1926, less than a year after they opened the Cloister Inn - the hotel that eventually became the splendid Boca Raton Hotel. The inn closed; land sales dropped and the boom popped like a balloon in the hot sun.

Wilson left for California to take solace in writing movie scripts. He died two months after Addison passed away in Palm Beach. A friend said of Wilson: When he died, the whole world must have stopped laughing.

_______

Sources:

Kinney, Henry. Once Upon a Time: The legend of the Boca Raton Hotel. Boca Raton: Arvida Corporation, 1974.

Palm Beach Post, April 23, 1933

Miami News, Mar. 30, 1936

1943 April 2, Milwaukee Journal, Famous Wisecracks From Wilson Mizner [From the New Yorker Magazine], Page 18, Column 6, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Google News Archive

Quote Investigator

Tags: Florida history, Boca Raton history, Addison Mizner