AT PARADISE FARMS, KARLA DASCAL IS APPLYING THE SAME VISIONARY THINKING THAT RESHAPED MIAMI’S EVENT INDUSTRY TO THE FUTURE OF WELLNESS AND REGENERATIVE FARMING.
BY ERIN MICHELLE NEWBERG
Few people have anticipated Miami’s evolution as consistently as Karla Dascal. A Miami native and graduate of Pine Manor College in Boston, Dascal first built her reputation by transforming the city’s floral industry. At a time when most clients hired decorators, she introduced the concept of event design, creating immersive environments that quickly attracted South Florida’s most influential developers, including Don Soffer and Ugo Colombo.
“People had decorators,” she recalls. “I shifted the conversation to design. It was an era when everyone believed more was more. I believed less was more.”
That ability to recognize cultural shifts before they became trends has defined every stage of her career.
After three decades designing extraordinary celebrations, Dascal found herself exhausted by the pace of the luxury event world. She stepped away to travel, study with spiritual teachers and wellness experts, and rethink the life she wanted to build. The result was Sacred Space in Edgewater, one of Miami’s first destinations dedicated to wellness, education, community, and conscious living.
“It was a time when Miami barely had yoga studios,” she says. “I started changing the way I ate, reconnecting with the land, and understanding how a holistic lifestyle could transform my own life.”
The journey became deeply personal. Living with diabetes and severe obesity, Dascal credits education, nutrition, and lifestyle changes with restoring her health. That experience inspired what would become the next chapter of her life.
In 2017, she acquired Paradise Farms, one of Miami’s oldest certified regenerative farms. Today, the property supplies chefs, educates the public, and champions regenerative agriculture, a farming philosophy focused on rebuilding healthy soil while producing nutrient-rich food.
“We don’t simply grow food,” Dascal says. “We restore the soil because healthy soil is part of the solution to climate change while producing clean, real food.”
At Paradise Farms, everything is grown without chemicals, and the soil is restored through regenerative practices that strengthen biodiversity. For Dascal, healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people are inseparable.
“When you know your farmer and how your food is grown, you build a relationship based on trust,” she says. “Once you experience truly fresh food, it’s hard to imagine going back.”
Education remains at the heart of the mission. Through the Paradise Farms Foundation, Dascal partners with schools, hospitals, and nonprofit organizations to teach composting, sustainability, and regenerative farming. The foundation has helped establish educational gardens at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital and works with organizations such as Amigos for Kids to introduce children to growing their own food.
