Tour Historic Buildings in Coral Gables

With its wide, tree-lined avenues and harmonious architectural style, Coral Gables is one of the most scenic neighborhoods in Greater Miami & Miami Beach. Known as the “City Beautiful,” it owes much of its charm to its founder, George Merrick, who arrived in the area in 1899 at the age of 12 after moving with his family from Massachusetts.

Many of the original buildings, including gorgeous homes, stand today. Here are the most significant structures in historic Coral Gables:

Coral Gables Merrick House

907 Coral Way.

The Merrick family’s original home was a wooden cottage built in 1899 by Merrick’s father on a 160-acre plot that he bought for $1,100. By 1906, the success of the Merricks’ farm allowed them to upgrade their cottage extensively. 

The new house was made with local coral rock (oolitic limestone), leading the Merricks to name it “Coral Gables” and their grapefruit groves “Coral Gables Plantation.” 

Merrick’s mother, Althea, adapted New England architecture to the warm climate of South Florida long before air conditioning became common. The adaptation included a deep overhang covering a porch wrapping around the house, a barrel-tile roof and decorative vents.

Today, the beautifully preserved Coral Gables Merrick House's 14 rooms and carefully landscaped and maintained grounds are open for tours on Saturdays and Sundays. The interior is authentic to 1925 and contains historic photographs plus Merrick family art, furniture and other possessions. 

The 1.3 acres surrounding it have a grotto with many species of fish, a garden of heritage plants and mature trees. 

After you’re through exploring the home, it’s less than a mile up Coral Way to the many bars and restaurants on Miracle Mile. These include Motek (modern Middle Eastern) and Hillstone (upscale American).

Venetian Pool

2701 De Soto Blvd.

The Venetian Pool has fascinating origins. Much of the limestone for the Merrick House and many other Coral Gables structures was mined locally. In fact, the limestone quarry that became the pool was less than a half-mile south of the Merrick House. Convenient, yes, but a four-acre rock quarry isn’t exactly a pretty thing to have in the middle of your new community. Unless, that is, it fills with spring water. So, when the quarry was depleted, Merrick and two members of his team transformed it into a huge, fantastical public pool inspired by the lagoons and palazzos of Venice, Italy, only with water clean enough to swim in.

When the Venetian Pool was completed in 1924, it featured Venetian-style mooring posts and a bridge to a small island, plus a waterfall and a cave-like grotto. It is the only pool on the National Register of Historic Places and, at 820,000 gallons, the largest freshwater pool in the United States. 

It has undergone several major renovations, the most recent of which were completed in December 2025. One of the renovations involved redirecting the pool’s water, which had previously been discarded each night when the pool was emptied, into a holding pond to let it percolate back into its underground source.

The Venetian Pool’s small cafe offers inexpensive poolside food. For casual off-site eats and drinks after a day at the pool, visit the nearby Bay 13 Brewery and Kitchen for light bites and craft beer in an airy space, or grab pastries and coffee from the award-winning Bachour bakery just a five-minute drive away.

Coral Gables Congregational Church

3010 De Soto Blvd.

Because Merrick was the son of a minister in the Congregational Church, a church was high on his list of things to build in his new city. Coral Gables Congregational Church, now called Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, was founded in 1923 and is the oldest public building and organization in Coral Gables. Merrick donated the land for the church and dedicated it to his father, but it was not designed by Merrick’s core team. Architect Richard Kiehnel drew it up in the Spanish Colonial Revival style that Merrick chose for Coral Gables. The design was influenced by a cathedral in Mexico.

For another kind of experience, drive five minutes to the flagship location of Sanguich, home to one of the best Cuban sandwiches in all of Miami.

Alhambra Water Tower

Intersection of Alhambra Circle, Greenway Court and Ferdinand Street

Merrick’s advertising pitch for his planned community called it “A City Without a Scar.” He could turn a rock quarry into a pool reminiscent of Venice, Italy – so a structure as necessary but uninspiring as a four-story-tall steel water tank in 1924 became a lighthouse with Moorish design flourishes.

The tower was named, grandiosely, after the famous Islamic palace and fortress complex in Granada, Spain. It was used as a water tower until 1931, when Coral Gables began buying water from the City of Miami. Citizen protests saved it from demolition in 1958, leading the City of Coral Gables to pay a token sum to purchase it for preservation.

The Biltmore Miami – Coral Gables Hotel

1200 Anastasia Ave.

Merrick’s ambitions for his new city made a hotel a priority. He teamed up with businessman John McEntee Bowman’s luxury hotel company, Biltmore. The design job went to the New York architecture firm Schultze & Weaver, which had already drawn up The Biltmore Los Angeles. The 26-story tower at The Biltmore Miami – Coral Gables hotel is modeled after the Giralda Bell Tower of the Cathedral of Seville in Spain. Merrick and his team made a grand affair of opening the hotel in January 1926, bringing in 1,000 VIPs on two special trains to enjoy polo, golf, tennis, a casino, a large swimming pool, horseback riding and even fox hunting.

During World War II, the hotel became an Army Air Forces Hospital and, later, a Veterans Hospital, which it remained until 1968. The City of Coral Gables acquired it in 1972 under the Legacy of Parks Program and the Historic Monument Act. In 1987, after the hotel had sat vacant for nearly 20 years, the city finished restoring the property as a 286-room luxury hotel and office complex.

It closed again in 1990 as the U.S. entered an economic recession, but it received a 10-year, $40 million renovation of its guest rooms and public spaces after the Seaway Hotels Group took over the operation of the hotel and golf course in 1992. The project restored the original Mediterranean architecture with Italian, Moorish and Spanish Influences, including hand-painted frescos on barrel-vaulted ceilings, travertine floors, marble columns and lush courtyards and gardens.

The hotel has a great variety of dining and cocktail options, including the Italian-inspired menu and lushly planted courtyard setting at Fontana and even a traditional afternoon tea, complete with a harpist.

Books & Books

265 Aragon Ave.

To assure residents that Coral Gables offered top medical care, Merrick added the Coral Gables Medical Center in 1927 for physicians’ offices. It has two wings connected at the front by an arcade with arches that enclose a courtyard. In 2001, it became home to a location of Books & Books, an independent bookstore with a cafe.

Coral Gables Library

3443 Segovia St.

Speaking of books, the Coral Gables Library is another historic building of note in the City of Coral Gables. Founded in 1927 by the Woman’s Club of Coral Gables, the stately coral rock building with terracotta tile flooring is a five-minute drive from Books & Books.

Coral Gables City Hall

405 Biltmore Way

The center of Coral Gables’ civic leadership from the day it opened until today, Coral Gables City Hall was built from 1927 through 1928. Construction was slowed after the Florida land boom that had fueled the city’s rapid growth went bust in 1925 and a devastating hurricane struck the area in 1926. Merrick, however, had not given up his devotion to quality and beauty.

Phineas Paist, the supervising architect of Coral Gables, and Denman Fink, the community’s art director, designed the building using the same coral rock (oolitic limestone) found throughout the community’s most-iconic structures. The inside of its bell tower is decorated with a mural, personally painted by Fink, that depicts the four seasons. Images of young women represent spring, summer and autumn, while winter is shown as an old man.

Five minutes south, The Shops at Merrick Park is an upscale, open-air retail center for a leisurely shopping detour. Find luxury fashions and jewelry alongside major brands like Nordstrom, Anthropologie and J. Crew. Bistro Café is a popular brunch restaurant located just outside the mall.

Historic Villages

Visitors will find Coral Gables' Historic Villages built in architectural styles that can range from shocking to palate cleansing, depending on their knowledge of Spain-infused Mediterranean design cues. Merrick planned to build 14 villages to appeal to buyers who weren’t sold on the city’s predominant style.

Before his long-term hopes for Coral Gables were largely dashed by the hurricane of 1926, Merrick’s crews had built homes in seven styles: Italian, the largest with 17 homes inspired by Italian farm houses; Chinese, eight units behind a gated wall; French Normandy, styled after 15th-century towns in England and France; French Country, homes designed like 18th-century rural estates; French City, drawn like homes in an 18th-century French town; Florida Pioneer, five homes of Greek Revival and Colonial Revival design; and Dutch South African, homes resembling the farmhouses of wealthy colonists.

Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre

280 Miracle Mile 

George Merrick died in 1942 at the age of 52, but the community he founded continued to grow around the core he created. The Miracle Theater, built in 1948, is one of a very few buildings in the community designed in the Art Moderne style. It was one of four movie theaters in Coral Gables when it opened in 1948 with a screening of The Return of October, but today it is an important cultural center.

Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre is the largest self-producing professional regional theater in South Florida and presents regular programs of mainstream and children’s theater. It has a 600-seat main stage and a 300-seat second stage. The theater organization and the city continue preservation work on the historic building.

The theater is in the heart of Miracle Mile and across the street from the Armstrong Jazz House, which offers live jazz every night as well as a New Orleans jazz-inspired menu.

Old Police and Fire Station/Coral Gables Museum

285 Aragon Ave.

The Coral Gables Old Police and Fire Station was another post-boom addition to the city, though it was designed by Phineas Paist and Harold Steward and constructed with coral rock. It was built in 1939 by the federal Works Project Administration. The three bays on the west side of the building housed fire trucks. Above these entrances are sculptures by Theresa Keller, known professionally as Jon Keller, depicting two Coral Gables firemen and a family like those they protect.

Starting in 2008, an extensive renovation and expansion project between the city and a nonprofit corporation transformed the building into the Coral Gables Museum. New spaces include a 3,000-square-foot gallery and a 5,000-square-foot plaza off the main lobby. The museum, which reopened in 2010, displays curated artifacts, photographs, architectural plans, original documents and correspondence from Merrick, historical maps charting the city’s development, and multimedia presentations exploring the birth and growth of Coral Gables. It’s also testament to the city’s commitment to preserving and enhancing its unique architectural heritage.

Next door to the museum is the independent Books & Books store and its cafe. It’s also across the street from Coral Gables Art Cinema, a state-of-the-art theater, which presents first-run and regional premieres of U.S. independent and international features.