Pembroke Pines
— — the suburb the Everglades sits next to.
Not only on a wall.
“A planned city on the inland edge of South Florida, between the coastal strip and the sawgrass. Pembroke Pines grew from a few hundred residents in 1960 to one of the largest cities in the state, and it still keeps an unhurried, residential register that most of greater Miami has lost. The streets run long and straight under royal palms; C.B. Smith Park holds a quiet lake on the western edge. The light here is the flat, generous South Florida light, and the storms come in from the Everglades in the afternoon. — from the studio
Pembroke Pines, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pembroke Pines sits in southern Broward County, about twenty miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale and a similar distance northwest of downtown Miami. Incorporated in 1960 with a few hundred residents, it has grown to roughly 171,000 people, making it one of the most populous cities in Florida. The city stretches west toward the protected Everglades buffer, with C.B. Smith Park and Chapel Trail Nature Preserve holding the inland edge. Elevation is near sea level, and the geography is defined less by hills than by canals, lakes and the long flat horizon characteristic of South Florida's coastal plain.
The weather is humid subtropical, with average July highs near 91°F and January lows around 60°F. Afternoon thunderstorms roll east off the Everglades through the wet season, May to October, often arriving as a wall of cloud over the western neighborhoods before reaching the coast. Hurricane season runs June through November, and the city has weathered direct hits from Wilma in 2005 and brushes from Irma in 2017. The dry winter months are the gentle ones — clear skies, cool nights, and the light that draws northern residents south for the season.
The city is residential first, with the civic life threaded through parks rather than a single downtown. C.B. Smith Park, on the western side off Flamingo Road, offers a lake, a water-play area and shaded picnic groves. Chapel Trail Nature Preserve gives a quiet boardwalk into the Everglades buffer. The Charles F. Dodge City Center anchors the cultural calendar with concerts and civic events. Most visitors come through on the way to the Everglades, Fort Lauderdale beaches or the Hard Rock complex in Hollywood, and the city sits comfortably in that role.