Parks & Recreation Department
Parks & Recreation Amenities 'People Like Working Where They Like Living' RECREATION • Number of Parks: 22 - Seven active playgrounds. Ten passive parks, five open space green areas. • A $10 million redevelopment of the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center has been completed with physical and educational programs for all ages, including state-of-the-art sports fields, a community theater, cooking, kilns, toddler rooms, and teens' lounge. • Number of Tennis Courts: 33 Public • Number of Golf Courses: 2 public; 1 private. The Biltmore Golf Course is a Donald Ross, 18 hole, par 71 public course and the Granada is a 9 hole public course, which is the oldest operating course in Florida. • Country Clubs: 2 • Fairchild Tropical Garden - largest tropical botanical garden in the continental US - 83 acres. • Matheson Hammock Park and Marina - full service deep water marina, miles of walking trails, bike paths, beach and picnic shelters. CORAL GABLES: A LUSH TROPICAL PARADISE Coral Gables is named the City Beautiful for many reasons, a primary one being its wealth of greenways, open spaces, waterways and parks that truly make it a garden city. Perhaps no city of its size in the world has inspired so many books and articles, all lauding the subtropical beauty of George Merrick’s planned community. Coral Gables is home to a world-renowned tropical garden, a seaside county park, a lush university campus, scenic canals, historic entrance gates, a landmark pool, landscaped roadways, picturesque golf courses and manicured city parks. Thirty percent of the land in the 14-square-mile city is recreational and open space. That generous amount of green space includes: • Fairchild Tropical Garden, 10901 Old Cutler Rd., telephone 305-667-1651: One of the world's preeminent botanic gardens, it boasts extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees and vines. Established in 1938, the 83-acre garden offers a variety of programs in environmental education, conservation and horticulture. A narrated tram tour takes visitors through the lush and extensive garden. The garden was designed by renowned landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, a member of the Frederik Law Olmsted partnership, and the leading designer of South Florida parks during the 1930s. An international leader in tropical plant research, Fairchild plays an important part in preserving the biodiversity of the tropical environment. • Matheson Hammock, 9601 Old Cutler Rd., telephone 305-665-5475: contains 600 acres, 350 of which are natural areas for the public to enjoy. The Miami-Dade park is an excellent example of a mangrove swamp, an essential part of the South Florida ecological system. Matheson has a nature trial that winds through the mangroves, a marina, scenic picnic areas and a noted restaurant housed in a coral rock structure. The lagoon pool, a man-made facility with soft sand, is a popular spot for waders and children. The park ends at beautiful Biscayne Bay and provides spectacular views of the Miami skyline to the north and beautiful vistas of Miami Beach and Key Biscayne to the east. • University of Miami: The campus itself is known nationwide for its palms, shade trees and greenery. There are many green spaces and grassy lawns to explore at UM. John C. Gifford Arboretum is a gem with more than 500 plants, many of them tropical and flowering. Trails cut through the oasis and signs tell the stories of the alluring plants. Lake Osceola is another treasure nestled within the University of Miami campus. • Waterways: "Forty Miles of Waterfront" was a familiar slogan in Coral Gables Corporation advertisements for the master planned city. Developer George Merrick brought in gondolas to ferry people from the Biltmore Hotel to the blue waters of Biscayne Bay. The gondoliers are gone, but canoeists, kayakers and boaters know that a spectacular eight-mile waterway cuts west from Biscayne Bay to the intersection of Cartagena Plaza.  It then curves north, paralleling Riviera Drive on its way to the Biltmore Golf Course. It also connects the waterway’s western loop through the University of Miami Campus and the Mahi Waterway. The Coral Gables Waterway of today has limestone walls that rise up to 20 feet or more at the crossing beneath the LeJeune Road bridge. • The Venetian Pool, 2701 De Soto Boulevard, telephone 305-460-5356, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 820,000-gallon swimming pool was built in 1923 from a coral rock quarry. The pool is fed with cool spring water and is surrounded by two waterfalls, coral caves and grottos. Denman Fink and Phineas Paist transformed a rock pit into a world-famous pool adorned with grand buildings, vine-covered loggias and shady porticos - "the world’s most beautiful swimming hole". • Golf Courses: The city has two golf courses that are open to the public and prized for their verdant open space. The Granada Golf Course, the oldest 9-hole course in Florida, is located in the heart of Coral Gables and serves far more than golfers. Its expansive greenway is marked by huge banyan trees and is lined with some of the most historic homes in Coral Gables. The city-operated facility is popular with walkers and joggers. The Biltmore Golf Course is a city-owned course that provides hundreds of acres of green space with the historic Biltmore Hotel as a backdrop. The private Riviera Country Club extends the vast open space south to the University of Miami’s greenbelt. • Roadways: One could argue that virtually every street in Coral Gables is a grand boulevard. With palms, banyans, gardens, fountains and other greenery, the City Beautiful truly is a tropical paradise. Coral Way and Bird Road -- its two major east-west roads -- are scenic thoroughfares accented with stately homes, significant public buildings and a wondrous tree canopies. Alhambra Circle has landscaped urban spaces and takes drivers on a curving tour through the city, past fountains, waterways and Mediterranean architecture. Granada Boulevard is a splendid north-south parkway through the City Beautiful. Ponce de Leon Boulevard crosses a unique urban space known as Ponce Circle as it makes its way south through the Central Business District. Old Cutler Road, heading south from Cartagena Plaza, evokes a warm image of Old Florida as it passes estate lots and delivers drivers to the vast green spaces at Matheson Hammock, Fairchild Tropical Garden and a large preserve of land along Snapper Creek that reaches east to the bay - and will someday be developed as a county park. • City Parks: Green space and recreational activities abound in parks that range from large facilities with multipurpose fields - such as the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center - to the pocket urban spaces, such as Merrick Park. Tennis courts and green space can be found at the William H. Kerdyk Biltmore Tennis Center and Salvadore Park Tennis Center and Playground. In all, there are 22 parks: seven active playgrounds, 10 passive parks and five open space green areas. Also, the Coral Gables Branch Library has a butterfly garden thanks to the Coral Gables Garden Club. The newly-created Freedom Plaza features a bronze bust of Cuban orator, statesman and poet, Jose Marti. Dozens of other public parks add to the city’s emerald necklace. It’s Not Just Miami, It’s Coral Gables.... Those Who Know, Know The Difference