James Deering

James Deering (* 1859 in South Paris (Maine), † 1925 aboard the City of Paris ) was an American industrialist and art collector.

James Deering was the son of William Deering of the owner of the agricultural machinery company Deering Harvester, (from 1902 International Harvester ) and his second wife, Clara Hammond Deering. His older brother was the art patron Charles Deering. From 1873 the family lived in Chicago, and in 1900 the Deerings were one of the wealthiest families in the United States. Charles Deering worked since the 1880s in the family business, James Deering studied one year each at Northwestern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1880 also manager in the family business. In 1902, the Bank J. P. Morgan Deering Harvester and the company merged with the McCormick Reaper Company, from which International Harvester, the largest U.S. agricultural equipment company was. James Deering was first Vice President concerning the Group and led three factories in Illinois, but had in 1909 under pressure from JP Morgan retire from the day to day business

The remaining unmarried James Deering devoted himself primarily to his interests as an art collector, world traveler and cultural ambassador. He had homes on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Evanston (Illinois), in New York City, and Paris. Because of its anemia itself Deering but also decided to build a house in the south of the USA. He bought land in 1910 in Coconut Grove, south of Miami, close to the possession of his brother, the Charles Deering Estate. James Deering and his companion Paul Chalfin created here in the sequence Villa Vizcaya '.

Villa Vizcaya was built in 1914-1922 and was inhabited from 1916 in winter. Deering met here friends like John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, as well as movie stars like Lillian Gish and Marion Davies. Deering, who was described as a reserved man with impeccable manners, opened in 1923 its gardens on Sunday to the public. James Deering died in September 1925 on board the British passenger steamer City of Paris on the way back to the United States. In his will he bequeathed among other things, the Art Institute of Chicago Painting by Édouard Manet and Giambattista Tiepolo. Villa Vizcaya fell to Marion Deering McCormick Deerings nieces and Barbara Deering Danielson. These had, since the preservation of the estate was expensive, piecemeal sell parts of the land ownership. Finally, in 1952 Dade County acquired the villa and the rest of the gardens.