Richard René Silvin is an American retired corporate executive, turned author and lecturer, who is best known as an expert on Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, Palm Beach society architect, Addison Mizner, the 1930s French Line flagship, SS Normandie, and the history of Mar-a-Lago.

Addison Cairns Mizner was an American architect whose Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style interpretations left an indelible stamp on South Florida, where it continues to inspire architects and land developers. In the 1920s Mizner was the best-known and most-discussed living American architect. Palm Beach, Florida, which he "transformed", was his home, and most of his houses are there. He believed that architecture should also include interior and garden design, and set up Mizner Industries to have a reliable source of components. He was "an architect with a philosophy and a dream." Boca Raton, Florida, an unincorporated small farming town that was established in 1896, became the focus of Mizner's most famous development project.