Estate history

The Revenue Act of 1862 included an inheritance tax, which applied to transfers of personal assets.

In 1864, Congress amended the Revenue Act, added a tax on transfers of real estate, and increased the rates for inheritance taxes.

Richmond Cottage, built in 1896

In 1898, a federal legacy tax was proposed to raise revenue for the Spanish-American War.

In 1900, an addition to the home was built and then opened to the paid public as The Richmond Hotel – the first hotel between Coconut Grove and Key West.

Cutler, established around the Perrine Land Grant Township, had an infrastructure including a post office, coastal road and docks, but failed to thrive when in 1903 Flagler’s East Coast Railroad plans were relocated further inland.

In 1916, Deering purchased and renovated the Richmond Inn, the area’s only lodging facility, and established it as a winter home for himself and his wife Marion, adding additional support structures to establish a self-sustaining homestead.

Stone House, built in 1922

In 1929, landscape architect William Lyman Phillips of the Olmsted Brothers firm began to design the gardens and the placement of the house.

Later, the Tax Reform Act of 1976 consolidated the estate and gift tax into the same tax schedule.

The Cutler Fossil Site, excavated in the 1980’s, revealed a Paleo-Indian shelter and bones of mega fauna from the Pleistocene Era when sea levels were considerably lower.

The exemption amount is adjusted for inflation each year; it reached $1 million in 2002, and is now at $11.7 million.

Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Bulletin, 2007

For the 2019 tax year, if an estate’s worth less than $11.4 million, no federal estate taxes may apply.1

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