📍Casa Casuarina, 1116 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139, USA
1992 – 1997“I grew up in Reggio Calabria, at the toe of Italy, with my older brother Santo and my little sister Donatella. My mother, Francesca, was a successful dressmaker, and her atelier on Via Tommaso Gulli, near the cathedral, was my playground: I made puppets from the scraps of silk and wool that fell from her cutting table, and at nine I designed my first dress from those same scraps. The ancient Greek and Roman ruins of Calabria, the colour of the sea and the light of the south went into everything I made. I built my fashion house in Milan, and in April 1992 I bought Casa Casuarina on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, a Mediterranean Revival house built in 1930, because South Beach had that same southern energy. I spent years restoring and extending it, adding a garden, a new wing and a swimming pool lined with gold and more than a million mosaic tiles. It was my favourite home, full of friends, music and colour, and it was on its front steps that my life ended in July 1997. The house now welcomes guests as a hotel, with my mosaics still glittering in the pool.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today