JP: How did you come to live here on South Miami Avenue?

AP: I’ve been here about 25 years; it’s amazing how time flies.

JP: Can you talk about the change in the neighborhood and the significance of the area?

AP: I bought it primarily as an investment and I needed a place to live, too.

JP: What year was this? 1988?

AP: Yes. Everybody thought I was crazy and thought I was going to get raped and maimed and killed. Previously, I had purchased a house in the Gables, north of Coral Way, back when it was supposed to be declining and it had gone up in value about 15 times in the years I lived there. So I decided to try to do it again. I grew up in Miami and this used to be a very fine neighborhood next to the mansions that were on Brickell. This was before the condos. At some point, I’ll probably sell this. I’m hoping to so it again one more time but I’ll keep quiet where I have in mind.

JP: That sounds smart.  I know that I read somewhere that downtown is very dear to your heart because you grew up not far from here.

AP: I started my life in Riverside in Little Havana, then we moved to Miami Shores when I was nine. My father was a lawyer in downtown Miami and so I used to go downtown all the time. I worked at Burdines downtown when I was in college and then at the History Museum when it moved there, so all my life I have never stopped going downtown. And now, I am good friends with Downtown Development Authority people and I’m delighted it’s on the up.

JP: Do you feel like we’re doing enough to preserve the history as we’re developing?

AP: No, I never think we’re doing enough. Just like Miami’s development cycle, Miami’s preservation cycle kind of goes like this too. If you want to get me really irritated, just tell me that Miami has no history or there’s nothing here worth saving because it’s all too young and that will really get me going.

JP: Are there any preservation projects that are really near to your heart where you feel like we did it right?

AP: Oh yeah, my first child, I say in preservation, is the Barnacle. That was primarily done because my good friend Bob Graham got the State of Florida to purchase it. I did my master’s thesis on Coconut Grove and that’s where I met Mary Monroe, the daughter-in-law of Ralph Monroe who built it in 1891. She was living there and she wanted to save it. Bob Graham got involved and the next thing we knew we saved it. … Simpson Park is where I say my body will go down in front of the bulldozer. That is extremely important; I love the built in environment, but I also like the natural environment.

JP: Recently you wrote how lucky you are to be born and grow up in Miami, and can you talk about what makes you feel so lucky?

AP: It makes you very tolerant, it makes you very accepting of new things. Some of my old time buddies say, “Oh I want to go back to the old Miami” and I say, “which old Miami do you have in mind?” I think I have probably lived in seven or eight Miamis and I like all of them.