Ken Griffin plans to move William Jennings Bryan's 1913 house to Vizcaya

A house on a bay cliff

Ken Griffin, the Citadel founder, plans to move William Jennings Bryan's 1913 bayfront house to Vizcaya at his own cost and open it to the public. A magazine claimed in 1914 that the house's builder had copied a Coconut Grove home, the federal historic file says.

Why it matters: Griffin bought the estate that holds the house, Villa Serena, and a newer house beside it in 2022, Miami Today reports. County records put that sale at about $107 million in September 2022. If the move is approved, Miami-Dade would own the house and Vizcaya would run it, at no cost to the county. Griffin has pledged a separate $5 million for its care.

Miami-Dade commissioners voted 11-0 on Oct. 20 to approve Vizcaya's master plan, with the move in it, and to let the mayor's office negotiate the terms. The house would open to the public for the first time in 112 years, the county resolution says.

Mrs. Bryan picked the land

Mary Baird Bryan chose the site on a 1912 visit, riding a sightseeing bus through Brickell's Hammock. No other site had "the natural beauty of this cliff, so I had that part surveyed and purchased it," she wrote. The land drops 12 feet down a limestone bluff to the water.

Bryan, Woodrow Wilson's secretary of state, bought an axe to help clear the hammock. "That is what I came here for, to work and to rest," he said. The Bryans were "fervent prohibitionists": guests, President Warren G. Harding among them, got grape juice and fruit punch.

The builder and the copy

"The architect for Villa Serena is not known," the National Register file says. Bryan reportedly drew the first plan. A May 1914 Architectural Record article claimed that the builder, J. Roy Swanson, copied Robert W. Gardner's design for Four Way Lodge, Arthur Curtis James's Coconut Grove house.

The two are the first known reinforced concrete buildings in Miami, the file says. Villa Serena has four corner towers around a courtyard, and its chimneys are capped like two-story birdhouses. Its green tile roof was restored in 2011.

A near teardown, then a museum lawn

In 2007 the house was listed at $12.9 million, and a buyer who planned to tear it down backed out after the City of Miami moved to designate it a historic site. Adrienne Arsht, the philanthropist whose $30 million gift renamed Miami's Arsht Center, bought it that December to restore it.

Vizcaya, built by James Deering from 1913 to 1916, was Villa Serena's neighbor on the bay; the county owns it and a nonprofit trust runs it. Historian Paul George, then HistoryMiami's resident historian, said in 2022 that moving the house would strip its historic context: "It's just crazy." Charlotte Donn, speaking for Vizcaya, said it is thrilled the effort is advancing, Hoodline reported.

Sources we read

Miami-Dade County legislative record, file 261164, and the County Attorney's supplement for item 11(A)(8), Oct. 20, 2026. Miami-Dade Property Appraiser sale record. National Park Service, National Register registration form for the William Jennings Bryan House, listed Jan. 20, 2012. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Nov. 7, 2025. Miami Today, Sept. 9, 2026. Hoodline, citing the Miami Herald, Oct. 22, 2026. The Real Deal, citing the Miami Herald, Dec. 18, 2022. Forbes profile of Ken Griffin. Community Newspapers, Dec. 1, 2025.