Casa Amado

455 North County Road

Palm Beach, Florida 

Amado means "beloved"

The home was featured in the November 2014 issue of the Architectural Digest.

Addison Mizner built Casa Amado for Charles Alexander Munn, a social arbiter known as "Mr. Palm Beach".  The 23,000-square-foot property remained in the Munn family until 2000.  In 1919, Charles built Casa Amado where he lived with his wife, Mary and their four children and twenty servants.  His brother built a home next door which made these homes the second and third homes designed by Mizner.  Charles was a founder of the Everglades Club and among the first officers and owners of the Gulf Stream club.  He also helped to found the Seminole Club and the Poinciana Club of Palm Beach. 

Charles, his siblings and children intermarried with some of the oldest, wealthiest and most socially connected American families of the twentieth century such as Wanamaker,  Pulitzer and Kellogg.  

Charles Alexander Munn, Sr.

Munn was tagged by others as "Mr. Palm Beach", "The Grand Seigneur" of Palm Beach and "The Last Gentleman".  He consistently appeared on best-dressed lists and is credited with popularizing the official uniform of the social set:  blue blazer, ascot and flannel trousers.  When Munn died many family papers and photographs including the guest register from Amado's legendary parties were donated to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County where Charles was a member of the Advisory Board.

Pucker Up

Amado's storied guestbook is the ultimate kiss and tell page turner!

A 1941 spread of names from the Amado guestbook records not only the signatures of its visiting guests, but also their preferred shade of lipstick! At the top left corner is the name, Millicent Hearst (1882-1974).  She was the wife of media tycoon, William Randolph Hearst.  Millicent Veronica Willson Hearst was a vaudeville performer in New York City whom Hearst admired and married in 1903. They were married from 1903-1951.  

Specifically, a 1937 New York Times article notes that Charles a. Munn hosted a dinner party in Palm Beach where his guests included "Mr. and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst".

Mary and Charles divorced in 1930, but he continued the house parties without her and Amado's 80-page guestbook endures as a treasure.  Inscribed by 20th-century tycoons, aristocrats and fourth wives with boldface signatures and cupid's bow lipstick imprints, it is the ultimate kiss-and-tell page turner of guestbooks. 

Pages of signatures including those of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (top left column) from a visit in April 1941.

Rose Kennedy's lip print (bottom left corner).

  🎉  inside the party palace 🎉 

Mizner proclaimed the Spanish Revival style in the region in the 1920s.  Palm Springs may have midcentury modern, but Palm Beach has Mizner Mediterranean.  The charismatic Addison Mizner was one of the most famous architects in America in the 1920s.  Though he was not formally educatedin architecture, Mizner trained under Willis Jefferson Polk, the San Francisco designer who oversaw the construction of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the 1915 World's Fair before moving to New York where he mingled with the wealthy.  

The apex of Mizner's career wouldn't begin until 1918 when he visited the town of Palm Beach for his health at the suggestion of his friend, Paris Singer.  Until his arrival, the buildings of South Florida were simply pastel versions of wooden structures found in the North.  Not one to fit into the mold, Mizner started designing buildings in the Spanish style, based on nis experiences in Spain and in Latin America.