Charles Deering (July 31, 1852 – February 5, 1927) was an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist.

Charles's successful stewardship of the family firm left him with the means and leisure to indulge his interests in the arts and natural sciences.

His activities and benefactions in the US were centered on Chicago and Miami; he also aspired to found an art museum in Spain.

His father was a successful businessman then engaged in real estate speculation and the manufacture and sale of woolens.

[2] In 1856, Charles's mother died, and, the following year, his father married Clara Barbour Cummings Hamilton, a cousin of his late wife.

Obtaining a midshipman's warrant, he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he graduated second in the class of 1873.

Deering devoted the rest of his life to art collecting and to the creation of several estates in the United States and Europe.

Deering dreamed of creating an art center in Spain,[9] and in 1910 he had the Palau Maricel built with the help of the artist Miquel Utrillo in Sitges, a town just south of Barcelona.

[11] In addition, Deering's own large and many-sided collection of Spanish art and decorative objects would be on display.

[12] One of his commissioned works, Serenity, is on display in Washington, D.C., and was dedicated to Deering's lifelong friend and Naval Academy roommate, William H.

He hired the great Chicago landscape architect Ossian Cole Simonds to lay out the grounds.

[16] Around this time, Deering made the acquaintance of botanist David Fairchild and allowed the US Department of Agriculture to establish an experimental station on 25 acres of his property.

[17][page needed] Deering correctly foresaw that development would soon engulf the Buena Vista property, and by 1913 he had begun buying land further down on the coast, along Old Cutler Road.

[19] Meanwhile, his brother James built an estate, Villa Vizcaya, on Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove.