Sofia
The best houses in this city were already built. They just needed someone to listen.
Where it started
Sofia grew up in São Paulo drawing floor plans of every apartment her family rented. They moved to Miami when she was twelve, into a 1925 bungalow in the Grove with a banyan in the yard.
What they wanted
She wanted her name on a skyline. She studied architecture, joined a big firm and worked on glass towers.
The wall
Her design for a waterfront building won the commission. The partner presented it, and his name was the only one in the press.
The moment it clicked
That same month a developer bought the bungalow next to her mother's to tear it down. Sofia spent a weekend measuring every original beam and window in it, and it was the happiest she had been in years. She wanted to save buildings, and nobody else was going to do it.
The new path
She left the firm and offered to restore the house at cost if the buyer would keep it standing.
The hard part
The city permit office lost her plans twice, and the first restoration ran four months late.
The breakthrough
The house sold for more restored than the lot was worth empty. Two more owners on the street called her the next week.
Today
Sofia restores 1920s houses across the Grove under her own name. She works on site under the banyans most afternoons, and the Coconut Grove frame lives on the dashboard of her truck when it is not on her face.
This is Sofia's locked face. Every photo and video of her starts from it, so her look stays the same everywhere her appears.
Camila
Andre
Mateo