A True Artist: Phineas Paist & the Early Architecture of Coral Gables

“A True Artist,” that’s how renowned architect Richard Kiehnel referred to his colleague Phineas E. Paist (b. August 28th, 1873 – d. May 2nd, 1937) in his obituary, published in Florida Architecture and Applied Arts magazine of 1938. Paist began his career as an architect in Philadelphia, attended ateliers in Paris, traveled throughout Europe, making plein-air sketches of buildings and plazas, and worked as an associate architect on the Villa Vizcaya project in Miami before George Merrick hired him as Supervisor of Color for the Coral Gables Corporation in 1923. The exhibition will illuminate the substantial contribution that Paist, a multi-talented architect, artist, colorist, and supervisor made to the early architecture and development of the city of Coral Gables.

Coral Gables has been lauded as one of America’s finest early 20th-century planned developments. This is due to the considerable attention given to the city’s visual appearance by Merrick, founder and master developer of Coral Gables, in his vision to create an entirely planned city, a “City Beautiful.” During the hectic building activity of 1925, Merrick became concerned that his development team’s artistic vision would suffer in the rush to build. They searched for an architect they felt could help maintain the quality they sought and found just the right person in Paist, whom they considered had “the soul of an artist.” He was added to the development team by Merrick so that his dream city was built to the highest standard of aesthetic quality. In a 1924 article in The National Builder magazine, Paist explained his ideas on color and stucco, which will be reproduced and displayed in exhibition panels. To ensure his dream was realized, Merrick appointed Paist as Supervising Architect in 1925, a position he held until his death in 1937.