Author Description

Miami Beach, Blueprint of an Eden is the story of an extraordinary time and place. It is the concurrent stories of two families placed by destiny in a position to tell them well: the Wolfsons and the Okas. The authors fathers were each mayors of Miami Beach, one in the 40s and one in the 50s and early 60s. Their mothers were prominent first ladies. Their exhaustive family archives provide a rich cultural, architectural, political, social, botanical, stylistic, gastronomic, geological and poetic history of an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time. The soul of the book is a dia logue between the authors via letters and narrati ve text. The heart of the book is its sumptuous photographs, architectural blueprints, memorabilia, sheet music (that can be played on a piano), native poetry, maps, drawings, and recipes - everything that gave rise to the contemporary phenomena that is Miami Beach.