Project: Royal Palm Cottage Addition  

Architecture: TROPICA
Landscape Design: TROPICA 
Interior Design: TROPICA 
GC: iBUILD
Landscape Installation: TROPICA 

Status: In Design
Design: 2026
Build: 

Location: Coconut Grove, Miami 

Text: Our office is beginning construction documents for another restoration and addition to a historic Coconut Grove cottage. Each of these treasured wooden homes from the early 1900s carries a distinct character and history that we believe deserves careful continuation into the present rather than erasure. As expectations for larger homes continue to reshape Miami, many of these cottages, which represent an important part of Florida’s architectural heritage, are being demolished in favor of oversized speculative houses detached from the history of the place.

We are interested in a more archaeological approach: uncovering, preserving, and amplifying the qualities that make these cottages so deeply tied to Coconut Grove’s identity. Rather than treating the existing structure as an obstacle, we see it as the foundation and memory of the project.

This renovation preserves the entirety of the original cottage’s walls and interior rooms. The owners hoped to add a second floor with generous ceiling heights while extending the home into a large garden. By removing the existing roof and replacing it with a slightly taller structure, essentially a cottage within a cottage, the project more than doubles the home’s square footage while maintaining the scale and spirit of the original building. The new wooden structure is conceived to allow the historic cottage to remain legible within the larger composition. Between new and old, a new wrap-around porch space is created to enjoy the garden.

To preserve the domestic scale of the house, the new facade is designed as a trellis for climbing vines, allowing the architecture and garden to merge over time into a single living structure.