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Central Florida’s Villa Aegea

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Fifteen years ago, I was asked to design a city in central Florida, a city of 48 square miles with access to sea and air and rail and superhighway, and I accepted the invitation, for several years working diligently on the project.  There is much to tell, much more not to tell, because the fellows are yet in process of fundraising, et cetera, and, well, confidential proprietary, trade secrets and the rest prevent sharing.  Can say, AEGEA, a city of Attractions and Entertainment in a Global Exhibition of Architecture, if built, will reorder the world.

101 Villa AEGEA, Line, Sea View, Plan and Elevation, First Floor, Michael Curtis, architect

So that you might see the context of the house (shown here), must say that the city’s core surrounds an inland sea, something of an Aegean Sea around which are snuggled the world’s primary cultures, each culture comfortable with its neighbor, alike a United Nations though without that organization’s atheism and modernist socialism.  In fact, each culture is Classively unified by traditional Latin placenames, Asia to Africa to Britannia to America, each culture continuing from its essence without Progressive interruption.

This house, celebrating its ten-year anniversary, is the largest in its style, the Aegea Style, part ancient Greek, part Mediterranean Vernacular, part Hellene of XIX Century Athens.  You will notice that it is seated upon a waterfront, that it features a water-gate with several stalls for pleasure craft and an extended dock for waterborne visitors.  What cannot be seen are the low hills rising behind, each hill sporting several villas, not unlike the easy rise and fall of a Tuscan landscape.  Neighboring the Villa Aegea are other Classive villas each with a unique prospect, some harbored, some upon a peninsula, some upon small islands, a few of which are connected by bridge.

101 Villa AEGEA, Line, Elevation, Basement, Second and Third First Floor, Michael Curtis, architect

After an easy space, smaller villas, houses, and townhouses as each community draws closer to its civilization’s essence, its community center, and there the heart, the soul, the products and arts of each culture, full in commercial potentiality.  Beyond this, I cannot say.

You will notice that the Villa Aegea is grand in the way of mansions, public where it will be, private where it wants to be, grand for effect, intimate for pleasures both friendly and personal.  And there is space for service, events suitable to a maker of culture.  There is a Great Room with ceremonial stair, performance balcony, and sea vista.  There is a soaking pool for party and relaxation, a lap pool for exercise, and there is a veranda, and patios and fountains.

101 Villa AEGEA, Line, Plan and Elevation, First and Second Floor, Michael Curtis, architect

There are several bedrooms, a study, studio, and library, a game room sufficient for billiards, an observatory with kitchen and bar and high views that the beauty of sea, hills, and lights of the distant entertainments (central feature of AEGEA’s core) might be fully appreciated, fully enjoyed.  At 648 square feet, the master suite is larger than my first home, both more serviceable and more convenient with connecting provisions and commercial kitchen.  The maid and butler too will each enjoy a suite, and these accessible by service stairs.

At sea-level, the wine cellar, family room, theatre, and gymnasium, the gymnasium opening through double doors to the lap pool and the sea beyond.  The boat house is spacious as a boathouse wants to be, what with waiting to assemble, boarding and returning to the televised game at the kitchenette-bar, waiting for the next crew in outing.  And you will notice that the fireplaces are large, the ceilings high, the windows generous, that the structure serves as decoration, that adornments are simple, honest, that interiors are natural and materially rich, that the pure white exterior, as at Akrotiri, allows the blue to show itself in beauty, the gold-bronze to admit its value.  And, as at Akrotiri (now Santorini) fresco, a few fine things properly placed, statuary and pictuary and furniture (details not shown here), as at the Villa Kerylos, Beaulieu-sur-Mer.

Villa Kérylos, Emmanuel Pontremoli, Theodore Reinach, Gustave Louis Jaulmes and Adrien Karbowsky.

101 Villa AEGEA, Elevation, Line, Michael Curtis, architect

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For more on AEGEA, Attractions and Entertainment in a Global Exhibition of Architecture, see “Aegea Style” at The Beautiful Home.

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101 Villa AEGEA, Plan & Elevation, Color, Michael Curtis, architect

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