04 May 2024

Miami

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Once more unto the Beach

After years of neglect, Miami has recaptured its super-cool crown from the days of Miami Vice, and the A-list stars are rushing back, says Frank Barrett

1 The famous Miami Beach view 2 Hotel Fontainebleau pool 3 There's no shortage of glamour

CAMERON Diaz and New York Yankees star Alex ‘A-Rod’ Rodriguez have proved to be manna from heaven for the world’s paparazzi. One minute their relationship is top secret - the next, they’re flaunting themselves. First they’re snapped smooching on the beach in the swanky Mexican resort of Cabo San Lucas; then they’re on show in Miami Beach.

If you had been dining at upmarket steakhouse Prime Twelve in Miami Beach, you might have been slightly surprised to spot former US President Bill Clinton sitting down with Cameron and A-Rod.

To give some idea of the meeting of minds here, imagine Tony Blair chumming up with Posh and Becks at Le Caprice. The fact that the Clinton/Cameron summit took place in Miami Beach, however, illustrates how the Florida resort – which has enjoyed more ups and downs than Jennifer Aniston’s love life – is in the midst of an upswing.

From Dannii Minogue to Beyonce and Jay-Z, the celebrity press has been filled with a parade of star names who have been wintering at the ‘Beach’. During their Florida visit, Beyonce and Jay-Z were regular diners at Cheeseburger Baby, the oldest cheeseburger joint on South Beach.

The place has sensationally got its mojo back

It’s much cheaper and far more ‘down with the kids’ than Prime Twelve. Recent sightings at Mac’s Club Deuce on 14th Street include Matt Damon and Kate Moss, who clearly enjoy the place’s studied ‘divebar feel’ and approve of the record selection on the unusually well supplied juke box. There are a number of reasons behind Miami Beach’s sudden revival.

One of the key factors has been the reopening of the Fontainebleau after its recent billion - dollar makeover. Located several blocks north of South Beach, it was once the favourite Florida hang-out of the Rat Pack.

It was also where Shirley Eaton memorably suffered a fatal dose of goldplating in the 007 film Goldfinger. After its heyday, the hotel endured some long dowdy decades – the last time I visited, in the Nineties, the carpets were emitting a noxious odour.

But the place has sensationally got its mojo back. It attracts a stellar elite from the likes of President Obama to Christina Aguilera and Kim Kardashian, who both recently booked in for a friend’s hen party.

The arrival of the ultra-trendy W Hotel chain has also played a significant role in repositioning Miami Beach further up the social scale. When it opened 18 months ago, it was claimed that the property set ‘a new standard for a contemporary lifestyle experience’.

The hotel does indeed ooze glamour. For its pool area, for example, the designer took inspiration ‘from the many beautiful gardens found in Provence’. On a sunny weekend afternoon, locals are practically fighting each other for sunloungers.

‘You know what I hate about Venice,’ I heard one young rich girl tell her friend in between sips of a lethal-looking cocktail: ‘It’s so crowded. It’s so false.’ ‘Yeah,’ replied her friend, ‘Europe is so not worth it.’

The ‘trendiest hotel in America’

The huge effort and expense that went into the W's design were intended to produce a hotel that could serve as a global flagship for the W brand. In less than a year, however, the W South Beach has been overtaken by the newer W in Fort Lauderdale, 30 minutes’ drive north from South Beach, named by one website as the ‘trendiest hotel in America’ (they mean this nicely, by the way).

But judging by the dozens of Ferraris and Maseratis being valet-parked the weekend I was there, the W in South Beach will take some time before it’s displaced from the number one spot for Bright Young Things looking for a pool to pose beside.

The hotel’s Mr Chow restaurant is another place in which to be seen. The W is more than 90 per cent full for much of the year - which helps explain its room rate of around £500 per night.

For your money you’ll be relieved to hear that every room guarantees a sea view - the best view, however, comes from the hotel’s ‘Extreme Wow’ suite which will set you back a little under £4,000 per night. The stand-out development here is the Soho Beach House developed by Nick Jones, the man behind Soho House and Shoreditch House in London.

The new property enjoyed a star-studded opening attended by the likes of Michael McIntyre. Immediately adjacent to the Fontainebleau, the Beach House has taken shape on the site of the historic art deco Sovereign Hotel.

It boasts 50 guest rooms, a groundfloor drawing room with a grand piano, a 100ft pool surrounded by lush gardens, a tiki bar and an outpost of Cecconi’s, which attracts the celebs in West Hollywood. On the second floor is a club bar, a homage to Forties Cuba that features vintage wood-panelling, antique tiles and an antique ceiling.

Nearby are digital screening room and a signature Cowshed spa. The South American-influenced guest rooms on the upper floors boast antique furnishings and rainforest showers. On the top floor is the library-like club lounge and yet another pool and bar, this one stocked with double sun loungers and breathtaking sunset views.

As long ago as the mid-Eighties it was recognised that Miami had a wealth of distinctive architecture worth saving - and the TV show Miami Vice, with Don Johnson, played its part in pointing it out.

Series producer Michael Mann was so horrified at the dilapidated appearance of the resort’s Art Deco hotels - built in the thirties and Forties to accommodate garment workers from the North whose union had won them the right to paid holidays - that he bought cans of paint and handed it out free to beachfront hotels to smarten up their facades.

One of the most surprising things about Miami Beach is that while it has the reputation for decadence and louche living, it is surprisingly strait-laced.

It is surprisingly strait-laced

Sure, there may be plenty of bars where wild behaviour is tolerated but there are limits. When I travelled to Miami with Richard Branson for the inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic’s Florida service in 1986, he caused something of a furore locally by bringing a bevy of Page Three models, each of whom he inevitably picked up and dropped in the swimming pool on the first night.

The next day the models returned to the pool for a spot of sunbathing and proceeded to remove their skimpy tops. Within minutes the manager arrived to assure them that such behaviour was quite beyond the pale. Things have changed little.

Today the Delano hotel’s racy reputation in the Beach is built upon the fact that it is the only hotel in Miami, perhaps in the whole of America, that permits topless sunbathing. Genuine Miami vice…

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