Barbara Deering Danielson, together with her husband Richard Danielson (1885–1957) and sister Marion Deering McCormick, maintained the estate for several decades after James Deering’s death.

In the 1930s Barbara and Marion invited Vizcaya’s original Artistic Director Paul Chalfin back to prepare the estate in hopes of opening Vizcaya as a museum. But after two hurricanes (1926 and 1935), the effort was too difficult and expensive to achieve. In 1951 Miami-Dade County acquired the house and gardens; Barbara and Marion donated the art collection, furnishings, decorative objects and garden sculpture. Vizcaya opened as a public museum in 1953. The nieces conveyed the Village to the county in 1955.

Barbara Deering Danielson

12/16/1888 - 11/27/1982