elements implemented in Cuban limestone stonework with Floridian coral architectural trim and planted with sub-tropic compatible and native plants that thrived in the habitat and climate. Palms and philodendrons had not been represented in the emulated gardens of Tuscany or Île-de-France. In 1910, interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe introduced Deering to Paul Chalfin, a former art curator, painter, and interior designer, who became the project's director. He assisted and encouraged Deering to collect art items, antiquities, and architectural elements for the project. Chalfin recommended the architect F. Burrall Hoffman to design the structure and facade of the villa, garden pavilions, and estate outbuildings. In 1914, during a visit to Villa La Pietra in Florence, Deering and Chalfin met Colombian landscape designer Diego Suarez. Suarez, the designer of the landscape master plan and individual gardens, trained with Sir Harold Acton at the gardens of Villa La Pietra. Vizcaya's villa exterior and garden architecture is a composite of different Italian Renaissance villas and gardens, with French Renaissance parterre features, based on visits and research by Chalfin, Deering, and Hoffman. The villa facade's primary influence is the Villa Rezzonico (it) designed by Baldassarre Longhena at Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Vizcaya is sometimes referred to as the "Hearst Castle of the East". Vizcaya Museum also features Gilded Age technology. There are old doorbells, a dumbwaiter, and a rotary-dial telephone. Vizcaya's telephone system was the first in Miami-Dade County. Deering died in September 1925, on board the steamship SS City of Paris en route back to the United States. After his death Vizcaya was inherited by his two nieces, Marion Deering McCormick, wife of Chauncey McCormick, and Barbara Deering Danielson, wife of Richard Ely Danielson. Over the decades, after hurricanes and increasing maintenance costs, they began selling the estate's surrounding land parcels and outer gardens. In 1945, they sold significant portions of the Vizcaya property to the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, to build Miami's Mercy Hospital. comprising the main house, the formal gardens, and the village were retained. In 1952, Miami-Dade County acquired the villa and formal Italian gardens, which needed significant restoration, for $1 million. Deering's heirs donated the villa's furnishings and antiquities to the County-Museum. Vizcaya began operation in 1953 as the Dade County Art Museum. The village and remaining property were acquired by the county during the mid-1950s. In 1994, the Vizcaya estate was