After W.J. Matheson passed away in 1930, Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote a glowing tribute in the Miami Herald. She described W.J. as a man of “capacious intellect” who was “pre-eminently a builder, whether of great business or great estates.”
Most people on Key Biscayne know that chemist and industrialist W.J. Matheson once operated a coconut plantation here. He had first visited in 1902 at the urging of his sons, who were then enrolled at Paul Ransom’s Pine Knot Camp in Coconut Grove, the forerunner of Ransom Everglades School. W.J. liked what he saw and recognized a golden opportunity. By 1909 he had acquired several tracts in Coconut Grove and the northern two-thirds of Key Biscayne. His holdings on the island, described as “stretching from shore to shore,” encompassed 1,700 acres.
But not everyone knows about the villa that Matheson built on the spit of land now known as Mashta Point. The story goes that W.J. had taken a trip with Arthur Curtis James to the Sudan region in Africa, where he admired the Moorish architecture of houses along the Nile River. By that time, W.J. was spending winters in Coconut Grove, and he wanted a place to entertain guests on Key Biscayne…