It’s not every day that a city reintroduces itself, not through fanfare, but through attention. In Opa-locka, a place whose fantastical origin story has long overshadowed its tangible historic sites, 15 stops across its historic core is transforming the way the city is seen and felt.
The Heritage Trail reframes a place once imagined in minarets and myth, now made newly legible through restoration, storytelling, and design. Walking the trail reveals not only the whimsy of its architecture, but something more urgent: the sense that preserving beauty can spark belonging, and that beauty, in Opa-locka, might just be a beginning.
The trail was spearheaded by Alex Van Mecl, senior project manager at Ten North Group and founder of the Opa-locka Preservation Association, a grassroots effort he began after moving into a historic home in the city. “The original idea behind the association was to connect historic homeowners,” he says, “but it grew into something larger—a desire to bring a heritage program into the downtown district.”
That vision crystallized after Van Mecl and his husband purchased a 1920s Moorish-style house on Jann Avenue. “I was swept away with imagination the moment I started researching the house,” he recalls. Through University of Miami archives, he found the original architectural drawings and learned about the families who had lived there. That curiosity led to an Instagram page, then a website, and ultimately, a movement. Within months of moving in, the house itself became part of the story—hosting more than 16 film and television productions, from music videos to a Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam edition cover shoot.
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The Heritage Trail, introduced to the public in April 2024, is the city’s first permanent historical display. Now, Phase II of the Heritage Trail, is making its debut: a companion piece, which includes a printed and digital map that expands access to the trail’s sites. Supported in part by a grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources and developed with Ten North and the City of Opa-locka, the trail now spans 15 sites, each with redesigned markers and a digital guide in English and Spanish. The trail is open to the public year-round, allowing visitors to explore the city’s architectural and cultural history at their own pace. The map will be officially unveiled on Saturday, Nov. 1, during a public event at the Opa-locka Museum of Art & History, where visitors can meet the map’s designer, receive a printed copy, and participate in downtown activities.
“It’s about permanence,” says Van Mecl. “And helping people understand a sense of place that creates emotional connection.” Ahead of Opa-locka’s centennial in 2026, the project invites new narratives to take shape, grounded in memory, and open to transformation.
When graphic artist Ana Maria Rodriguez was first introduced to Opa-locka, she was captivated not just by its architecture, but by the story behind it. A longtime Miami resident and two-time Emmy-winning co-producer for Univision’s Spanish-language news programming, Rodriguez approached the map with both design and documentary instincts. “What inspired me most was the magical origin of the city,” she says, “born from the imagination of a dreamer who refused to believe in limitations.” That dreamer was aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, who in 1926 founded Opa-locka as a Moorish fantasy, drawing on “One Thousand and One Nights,” a collection of Arabic folktales, for its names, domes, and decorative flourishes.
Rodriguez translated that mythical history into the visual language of the guide. The city is depicted as a constellation of magic carpets floating through a starry sky, with tile patterns from the original train station worked into the layout.
“We wanted the map to be playful and artistic, not just functional,” she explains. “But it was also important to include architectural details that encourage discovery.” She solved the challenge of representing multiple neighborhoods on a single map by using isometric perspective—a technical choice that allowed the guide to feel both expansive and intimate. The result is a guide that invites visitors to explore, not just a city, but a story, stitched together by memory, myth, and texture.
The history behind that fantasy is equally compelling. Opa-locka’s origin story is inseparable from the frenzied development of South Florida in the 1920s. “To sell your subdivision, you needed a unique, attractive style,” explains Paul S. George, Ph.D., resident historian at HistoryMiami Museum. “Mediterranean and its variations dominated, but Opa-locka stood out with its Arabian Nights theme,” he says.
George Merrick leaned into Spanish Mediterranean for Coral Gables, while Miami Shores favored Italianate flourishes. Glenn Curtiss chose something entirely different: minarets and tilework, blending fantasy with futurism in a city unlike any other.
For George, the Heritage Trail and new museum offer more than context—they serve as entry points into Opa-locka’s layered legacy. “They help explain the uniqueness of Opa-locka’s style, and the remarkable ambition of its founder,” he says. That ambition lives on in the preserved facades and reimagined spaces, offering a portal into both the city’s past and its aspirations for the future.
Projects like the Heritage Trail do more than restore facades; they restore continuity. In a city as rapidly changing as Miami, the act of slowing down to preserve, narrate, and walk through the past becomes a form of belonging. For Opa-locka, whose Moorish Revival architecture is unlike anything else in the region, that belonging is also a kind of reawakening. “These landmarks make people believe the city cares about itself,” says Van Mecl.
“It creates a ripple effect—people feel pride, and that pride translates into business, safety, and beauty.” As Rodriguez observes, understanding history becomes “an act of connection, an invitation to feel at home in the ever-evolving place we call our own.” Here, preservation is not nostalgia. It is strategy, imagination, and love made visible.
WHAT: New Heritage Guide and Map Experience (printed and digital), with meet-the-artist event featuring map designer Ana Maria Rodriguez
WHERE: Opa-locka Museum of Art & History, 490 Ali Baba Avenue, Opa-locka
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 1
COST: Free
INFORMATION: (305) 687-3545 and www.discoveropalocka.org
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