CORAL GABLES

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

Coral Gables’ founders imagined both a “City Beautiful” and a “Garden City,” with lush green avenues winding through a residential city, punctuated by civic landmarks and embellished with detailed and playful architectural features.  Known as The City Beautiful, Coral Gables stands out as a planned community that blends color, details, and the Mediterranean Revival architectural style.

INTERNATIONAL 

From its inception, Coral Gables was designed to be an international City, and is now home to more than 20 consulates and foreign government offices and more than 140 multinational corporations.  As early as 1925, City Founder George Merrick predicted Coral Gables would serve as "a gateway to Latin America."  To further establish international ties, the City has forged relationships with six Sister Cities: Aix-en Provence, France; Cartagena, Colombia; Granada, Spain; La Antigua, Guatemala; Province of Pisa, Italy; and Quito, Ecuador (emeritus).

HISTORIC 

Coral Gables, The City Beautiful, stands out as a rare pearl in South Florida. It is a cohesive community built on a grand scale that blends color, detail, and  the Mediterranean Revival architectural style to create harmony with the environment. Early city planners and visionaries were influenced by the aesthetics of the City Beautiful Movement that swept across America in the early 1900s. Inspired by the works of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed New York’s Central Park, The City Beautiful Movement encouraged the use of wide tree-lined avenues, monumental buildings, winding roadways, green space, ornate plazas, and fountains. All these elements of style have been and continue to be incorporated throughout the City.

The City continues to promote a Mediterranean architectural aesthetic by offering incentives for buildings designed in this style, paying tribute to George Merrick's initial designs that were largely based on the Andalusia area of Spain.  Many properties in the City are on the National Register of Historic Places, and more than 1,000 properties are on the Coral Gables Register of Historic Places.  In addition, the Biltmore Hotel is a designated National Historic Landmark. 

The Coral Gables hospitality industry is positioned to support the high-end leisure and corporate traveler, and also has many prominent restaurants boasting more than 100 cafes and restaurants.

In addition to exciting college sports available to attend, such as the UM Hurricanes football, baseball and basketball games, the City offers 22 parks with seven active playgrounds as well as 33 public tennis courts.  There are two public and two private golf courses, as well as hiking and bike paths, the Matheson Hammock Park and Marina, and the Venetian Pool, which was named by  Travel & Leisure  magazine among the top "World's Coolest Pool."

Excellent municipal services, high quality of life, convenient access, responsible growth and a diversified economy make Coral Gables a highly desirable place to live, work and play.