Miami Chic Hotels

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Miami Beach lifeguard stands are snazzy and sorta deco. Not that you'll be looking at the stands on Miami Beach, but if you do, they take on the colorful personality...

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Boating marina in Miami Beach.

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South Beach. It’s a tropical paradise where star power and international design come together in a delicious, whimsical way. The best part -- you don't need to be a celeb to stay at these star-worthy hotels.

Miami Beach. It’s a place where famous artists and designers put their signatures on 1930s art deco boutique hotels, using unique recipes of modernism, minimalism, color, whimsy, retro and vintage to create eclectic one-of-a-kind retreats and party destinations.

But you don’t have to throw down $500 a night on a room (although that has obvious rewards) to enjoy their creations. There are no velvet ropes keeping you out of opulent hotel lobbies or many star-filled clubs, just possibly a lack of nerve. Strap on some confidence along with your heels and take a walk on the glamorous side of South Beach where some stars come to work as well as play.

Star-Studded Sensations

There’s celebrity behind the Cardozo Hotel. Gloria Estefan and her husband and producer Emilio Estefan Jr. own the restored 1939 boutique hotel overlooking fashionable Ocean Drive.

Unlike the minimalist-style and crisp and vibrant colors so common in the hotel district, the Cardozo has the warmth of coffee and the romance of Old World Havana. Tones of cream and black dominate the décor and international cultures are subtly blended.

The hotel’s popular Cardozo Bar and Grill serves Italian cuisine. Posters of movies filmed at the hotel line the hallways. African prints decorate some of the 43 guest rooms, which have cherry hardwood floors, wrought-iron beds and black leather furniture. Ocean-view suites sport animal prints and king-size beds are fit for divas.

Estefan isn’t the only musician to apply her creativity to the world of high design in South Beach. Rocker Lenny Kravitz shows his sense of style at the hot Miami nightclub, the Florida Room, inside the famed luxury Delano on Collins Avenue.

Kravitz Design Inc. designed everything from the Swarovski-crystal chandeliers to the high-waisted waitress uniforms. Playing on instruments of his first love, Kravitz incorporated a clear Lucite replica of his family piano for the piano lounge. The club gets its name from his aunt’s Florida room, a place where he hung out as a child in the summer and listened to music.

Folks like Lance Armstrong inaugurated the first floor speakeasy-style lounge, making it an instant celebrity hotspot, much like the hotel itself, which has epitomized South Beach swank since it reopened in 1995 with white drapes billowing throughout its palatial lobby. Tim Andreas (designer with the architecture firm Banjo) updated the guest rooms with white-on-white décor and added splashes of green.

While Kravitz enjoys his place at the Delano, actor Robert DeNiro dabbles in dining at the Delano’s sister Miami hotel, Shore Club. DeNiro is part owner in chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s famed Nobu. A sibling of one of New York’s hottest restaurants, the Delano’s Nobu is the place for sushi on South Beach. The hotel, which also has suspended white drapes in its lobby, attracts a star-studded crowd and those who can afford the very best.

World-renowned architect David Chipperfield applied his minimalist trademark to the elegant hotel rooms and the decadently luxurious penthouse with a private lap pool. The resort’s sexy Skybar explodes with color, primarily reds, and intricate Middle Eastern designs. With four large areas, there’s space for star-gazers as well as stars.

The 1930 Spanish revival mansion offers 10 lavish guest suites, including Versace’s former bedroom and rooms that once accommodated Madonna, Princess Diana, Elton John and many of his celebrity friends.

Star Designers

While some actors and musicians have found a new niche in design, many designers have reached celebrity status. And perhaps there is no designer more famous in South Beach than the late Gianni Versace. His former home is an exclusive hotel, restaurant and events space. Located in the thick of South Beach, The Villa By Barton G. is more Moorish castle than home, but for $795 (and up) a night you can stay.

The 1930 Spanish revival mansion offers 10 lavish guest suites, including Versace’s former bedroom and rooms that once accommodated Madonna, Princess Diana, Elton John and many of his celebrity friends. Along with lavish accommodations, guests get a personal butler, personalized amenities, and access to two private lounges and the famous Thousand Mosaic Pool. 

Mainstream America may know his name from Target stores, but there’s nothing bourgeois about The Hotel of South Beach that Todd Oldham designed. The stylist playfully combines his signature use of color and minimalism with hints of the hotel’s original Buck Rogers-era design. Green and blue striped umbrellas canopy tables in the tropical Wish garden patio restaurant. Cushions splashed blue and white pick up the colors of the tile fountain centerpiece.

What truly sets the boutique oceanfront hotel apart, however, is its rooftop pool, not only because it’s one of the few South Beach hotels with one, but because Oldham’s use of periwinkles, greens, and whites around it blends with the turquoise ocean on the horizon, making it an almost surreal Miami stopping point. You might overhear a celebrity rapper writing lyrics by the pool or glimpse a supermodel getting a massage behind the billowing curtain of a poolside cabana. At night, the rooftop heats up around hotel’s crowning neon landmark – a rocket ship-like spire. The small open-air Spire Bar, its floor striped orange, hot pink and cream, is the place to see and be seen while overlooking bustling Collins Avenue. In January 2010, the hotel added 20 oceanfront rooms, with two 2-bedroom suites, all also designed by Oldham.

The Tides South Beach has its own reality TV celeb designer. Kelly Wearstler, a former judge on Bravo’s “Top Design” reality show, recently redressed the elegant hotel in her eclectic beach chic, saying her inspiration was 21st-century luxury juxtaposed with casual elegance, all the while honoring the city’s inherent beachfront spirit.

That inspiration translated into a combination of art deco Hollywood glamour, modernism and natural beach elements – coral, shell, and organic designs. Taupe-colored statues are perched like Oscar awards on either side of the modern glass bar, and romantic curves seem never ending. Retro, rounded tufted leather sofas, circular chairs, egg-shaped “senator chairs,” and curvaceous end tables soften the lobby’s golden formality. A variety of faux turtle shells cover the neutral walls of its elegant La Marea restaurant and giant beach seashells are the lamp bases in guest rooms.

One of the hotel’s endearing attributes, however, is that you don’t have to be a celebrity to be treated like one. Every overnight guest gets a personal assistant.


European Style

While celebrated American designers have brought glamour, color and sometimes playful sensibilities to South Beach’s boutique hotels, the European influence has increased in recent years.

Polish interior designer Barbara Hulanicki, who now lives in Miami, was a natural fit to redesign the landmark Kent Hotel. A former fashion designer in London who dressed Twiggy, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and a long list of other fashion plates of the ‘60s, Hulanicki, through her store Biba, developed a bold, vibrant style that carried over into the hotels she now designs.

At the Kent, her style translates into a playful mixture of retro and modern and bright colors, which she uses to lift moods and make large spaces more intimate. In the lobby is a mixture of pistachio and cream colors played against brown leather furniture. Most guest rooms are an intense hue of lavender with light wood furniture. The most unique guest room is the Lucite suite, where plastic furniture, vintage and new, mixes with metallic fabrics and pink-and-lavender walls for a fun Jetsonian look.

The Pelican Hotel also has a sense of whimsy. From its overflowing sidewalk café, it looks like dozens of others along Ocean Drive – awnings canopy the sidewalk, pulsating electronic music keeps the customers awake and a maître d’ – with sleek hair and cutting-edge fashions – hangs by the entrance.

Inside it’s a different story, literally. Each of the boutique hotel’s 30 rooms has a different pop culture theme, unique recycled decor and a clever name, making it the most eccentric hotel in South Beach. Swedish designer Magnus Ehrland collected the decor piece by piece from estate sales, flea markets and thrift and antiques stores all over Florida. There is the “With Drill” room, where a steel hose reel has been converted into a table as a tribute to labor.

The hotel is owned by Diesel, the hip Italian fashion conglomerate that has a companion boutique just around the corner.

Flirtatious fashion binds minimalist style, space-age furnishings and water features of the Clinton Hotel designed by French architect and designer Eric Raffy. Just a block away from the hubbub of South Beach’s Collins Avenue, the refurbished 1930 hotel is generally more modest than the Delano, Shore Club or Tides. It offers an intimate respite from the crowds along with the luxuries of poolside cabanas and guest room balconies that appear to float atop reflecting pools.

Raffy gave the lobby the most drama with bright periwinkle suede modern furniture. In the guest rooms, he used whites and neutrals for a more dramatic impact of selective color – a cobalt blue bottle and rotating bedside lights.

A cast of neon blue in the elevator and along the dark periwinkle hallways lends to the hotel’s overall saucy sensibility. Desk chairs are topped in white leather and laced down the spine. Wall mirrors tease with laced corset strings.