Qualla: Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain

Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elisa Rolle, CC BY-SA 3.0. George Merrick had a problem with the name. His family's plantation house, built from local coral limestone and roofed with coral-colored Ludowici tile, had been called "Coral Gables" since the early 1900s. When Merrick began transforming the surrounding land into a planned community during the Florida real estate frenzy of the 1920s, he kept the name - and then built an entire city to match it. Mediterranean Revival architecture was mandated from the start. Streets curved instead of following grids. International villages showcased Italian, French, and Dutch South African styles. A quarry was turned into the Venetian Pool. The vision was so thoroughly Spanish that King Alfonso XIII of Spain awarded Merrick the Order of Isabella the Catholic. By 1926, the city had netted $150 million in sales. Then the boom collapsed. But the city Merrick built survived.

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Image: Elisa Rolle | CC BY-SA 3.0

Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain: A Developer's Romantic Vision

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit betty del rio, CC BY-SA 4.0. Merrick was a real estate developer from Pennsylvania who arrived in South Florida and saw not swamp but Spain. Coral Gables historian Arva Moore Parks documented how Merrick described his vision as "a most extraordinary opportunity for the building of 'Castles in Spain.'" Formal...

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Image: betty del rio | CC BY-SA 4.0

Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain: The City by Design

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Luis Villa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Merrick planned Coral Gables with a precision unusual for 1920s Florida development. The downtown commercial district was deliberately designed to be only four blocks wide but more than a mile long, with Miracle Mile bisecting the business core. An electric trolley system connect...

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Image: Luis Villa | CC BY-SA 4.0

Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain: The University and the Economy

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In 1925, roughly simultaneous with the city's founding, the University of Miami was built on land west of U.S. Route 1, about two miles south of downtown Coral Gables. By fall 1926, its first class of 372 students enrolled. Today the university is the city's largest employer with...

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Image: Public domain

Coral Gables: George Merrick's Castles in Spain: Preserving the Dream

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit B137, CC0. Coral Gables passed its first preservation ordinance in 1973, as the city's founding structures from the 1920s began reaching their 50th anniversaries. Further ordinances in the 1980s established the Historic Preservation Board, and the 1990s brought a dedicated Historical Resour...

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Image: B137 | CC0