[Photos by Silvia Ros]

Last Thursday, the historic Vanderbilt Mansion on Fisher Island, heart of the Fisher Island Club, emerged from an extensive restoration, part of a $60 million upgrade of the hotel and club facilities, for a gala theme party like a grand, old dowager queen, pristine and glowing. The house was originally designed by Maurice Fatio for Rosamond and William K. Vanderbilt II, who famously traded Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher a yacht for seven acres of the island. The restoration is by Richard Heisenbottle, with interiors by Hirsch Bedner & Associates. Curbed photographer Silvia Ros checked out the restored mansion and grounds.

On that original seven acres, later extended to 13, Vanderbilt commissioned Fatio to design a somewhat small, but magnificent house, replete with many outbuildings including a cottage for his stepdaughter Rosemary and a large boat slip for his other yacht, the 264 foot long Alva, probably named after his mother, Alva. Vanderbilt would then name his Fisher Island estate Alva Base. Two more cottages were for the servants, a larger building housed the crew for the yacht, and finally there was an airplane hangar. The cottages now make up hotel rooms and suites, and the hangar is now the spa. · Fisher Island coverage [Curbed Miami] · Historic Vanderbilt Mansion gets a new life on ultra-private Fisher Island [Miami Herald