Matthew Perlman stands with Lego structures he builds at his Palm Beach Gardens home.
W r i t t e n & P h o t o g ra p h e d by C a n d i c e Te m p l e
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atthew Perlman remembers when Palm Beach Gardens was comprised of one-lane streets, and the tallest building in town was the Holiday Inn. In 1972, he moved from New Jersey with his mother and two sisters to become a resident of the Gardens. He loved the small town feel and he has never left.
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SIGNATURE CITY: City of Palm Beach Gardens
For a few decades, Perlman made his living working in construction. Finding his true purpose later in life, he has gone from raising steel beams and perfecting the artistry of forklift operation to a different kind of construction medium. Since 2015, he has been working passionately with Legos to create what he has aptly named “Palm Brick Gardens.” A lifelong Lego enthusiast who once owned over 200 Star Wars Lego sets, he was inspired by a fellow builder he found online to bring his focus down to earth. He sold his Star Wars collections and used the money to reinvest in Lego City Kits. Since then, he
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has used thousands of Legos to create detailed cityscapes. Some come from his imagination and some are inspired by the things he sees in the community around him. “I try and build a lot of the buildings that are here in the City. Sometimes I want to build things like they were in the old days.” Often blending the present with the past, Perlman constructs buildings and scenes with meticulous detail on the inside, as well as outside. The design for the Palm Brick Gardens hospital is patterned after the design of the Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center of yesteryear. Through the
