Just like Charles Deering, his daughters followed in his footsteps when it came to art collecting. Both James and Charles had very distinct tastes in art and antiques, and by extension, Marion and Barbara also shared some of those tastes.
Since James Deering was never married and had no children, when he passed away in 1925, his older brother, Charles, received a considerable portion of his estate, which subsequently went to his daughters, Barbara Deering Danielson, and Marion Deering McCormick.
Vizcaya displays a marble portrait of Barbara (shown above) to honor the sisters and the work they did to preserve the building. It is largely because of these two women and their husbands that Vizcaya stayed how it was when it was inherited, as most of the collections inside the house remained intact. They surely played a significant role in preserving Vizcaya’s heritage.
The fact that the daughters continued where James and Charles left off is both amazing and remarkable. They preserved Vizcaya from the late 1920s through the late 1940s and early 1950s when they conveyed the main house, gardens, and village to Miami-Dade County, where it became The Dade Art Museum and then the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.
In addition, unlike the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Charles Deering estate remained in family ownership until the 1980s.
