Most visitors will hit the beaches and the stroll along Art Deco buildings in South Beach. Or perhaps they’d hop on a boat to view celebrity homes and if lucky, bump into suntanned Hollywood stars or the rich and famous. But I was drawn to visit this Spanish Monastery in an obscure place in North Miami Beach area. I was driven by my Miami-based friend who has not in fact visited this site the last 30 years she’s lived here.

There was a sprawling garden even before the Romanesque and pre-Gothic monastery was reconstructed here. Reconstructed, yes. The original site was in Sacramenia, Spain in 1133. That marks it a good 360 years before Columbus discovered the New World. Originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the Monastery was renamed to honor the famous monk Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Cistercian monks lived in the Monastery for 700 years until a social revolution broke out in the 1830’s. The cloisters were then seized and sadly converted into a granary and stable.

Then came William Randolph Hearst. This media tycoon bought the cloisters and outbuildings in 1925. Stone by stone, the structures were dismantled, numbered, packed and crated in hay, and transported to USA. Unfortunately, hoof and mouth disease broke out in Segovia and the 11,000 wooden crates were quarantined, broke open, and the hay burned. But the stones were not replaced back in their original numbered boxes before being stored in a warehouse in New York where the stones remained for the next 26 years!

Meanwhile, Hearst ran into financial woes and it was only a year after he died in 1952 that the collection was again sold, and then resold in 1964. A wealthy philanthropist finally purchased the cloisters for the Episcopal diocese and the Monastery has since remained here with an active Episcopalian congregation. Now popular for weddings, photo shoots and as locations for film and TV shoots, it has been maintained very well to be enjoyed by visitors. The Museum Shop houses some antique decors from the original structures such as a series of corbels, coat of arms, bas reliefs, altars and religious statues. Worth a visit, if you ask me.

Lest I forget, the first time we visited (yes, we went twice) we even met this flamenco dancer posing, posturing and dancing in the gardens. Olé!