Vizcaya's villa architecture is a composite of different Italian Renaissance villas.

The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Dearing. The early 20th-century Vizcaya estate also includes extensive Italian Renaissance gardens, native woodland landscape, and a historic village outbuildings compound. The landscape and architecture were influenced by Veneto and Tuscan Italian Renaissance models and designed in the Mediterranean Revival architecture style. The estate's name refers to the northern Spanish province Vizcaya, Vizcaya, in the Basque region along the East Atlantic's Bay of Vizcay. Records indicate Dearing wished the name also to commemorate an early Spaniard named Vizcaya who he thought explored the area, although later he was corrected that the explorer's name was Sebastián Vizcano. The estate property originally consisted of 180 acres of shoreline mangrove swamps and dense inland, native tropical forests. Being a conservationist, Dearing cited the development of the estate portion along the shore to conserve the forests. This portion was to include the villa, formal gardens, recreational amenities, expansive lagoon gardens with new islets, potager and grazing fields, and a village services compound. Dearing began construction of Vizcaya in 1912, officially beginning occupancy on Christmas Day 1916, when he arrived aboard his yacht Nepenthe. In 1910, interior decorator Elsie de Wolff introduced Dearing to Paul Chalfin, a former art curator, painter, and interior designer, who became the project's director. The villa's museum contains more than 70 rooms of distinctive architectural interiors decorated with numerous antiques, with an emphasis on 15th through early 19th century European decorative art and furnishings. Amongst the furnishings are ceramics, the originals of which were shipped from England in 1912, but sank along with the Titanic. Luckily, Dearing had taken out insurance and had them replaced. Vizcaya was built with an open-air courtyard and extensive gardens on Biscayne Bay. As such, the estate has been subject to environmental and hurricane damage, the latter notably in 1926, 1992, and 2005. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 devastated the greater Miami area, including Vizcaya. The estate's historic rose garden was destroyed after saltwater seeped in, decimating the roses and preventing growth thereafter. On March 22, 1971, three individuals from New York City stole approximately $1.5 million in artworks and silver items from the Villa Vizcaya, some of which were of historical value. On the first floor, several reception rooms, the library, the music room, and the dining room surround the courtyard. The second floor housed Dearing's personal suite of rooms and guest bedrooms, as well as a breakfast room and the kitchen. The interiors of the main house were meant to suggest the passing of time and the layered accumulation of artifacts and memories. The rooms were designed around objects acquired in Italy and assembled into new compositions by Vizcaya's artistic director Paul Chalfin. At Vizcaya, the reference to the past was coupled with an enthusiastic embrace of technology, modernity, and comfort. Regardless of its Baroque appearance, Vizcaya was a very modern house. Many are surprised to learn that it was built largely of reinforced concrete, with the latest technology of the period, such as generators and a water filtration system. Vizcaya was also equipped with heating and ventilation, two elevators, a dumbwaiter, a central vacuum cleaning system, and a partly automated laundry room. Every object contributes to the decorative context of the room in which it resides. As such, the objects and interiors played an important role in determining the architecture of the house. Chalfin was an expert in Italian furniture and interiors, and the rooms in the main house reflect his interest in different periods of history. The 18th century was the inspiration for Vizcaya, ranging from the asymmetrical and highly inventive Rococo to the more linear and austere neoclassical style. Chalfin also wanted to evoke the style of different Italian cities, and so Vizcaya has rooms inspired by Milan. Chalfin was not interested in historical consistency, and he was skilled at integrating new elements of his own design into old artifacts, creating eclectic ensembles. Vizcaya was, after all, designed as a vacation house, and the decor is consistently playful and whimsical.