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11 mh04 GLAMOUR, GLITZ MINGLE WITH CORPORATE TOUCH 10/31/2004
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2004, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, October 31, 2004 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Metro & State PAGE: 1B LENGTH: 128 lines
ILLUSTRATION: color photo: Linda Blair and Manny Curbelo (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY LYDIA MARTIN, lmartin@herald.com
GLAMOUR, GLITZ MINGLE WITH CORPORATE TOUCH
For a Halloween party this year, The Forge restaurant in Miami Beach scared
up Linda Blair, she of the projectile pea soup.
In a tie-in with Level vodka, managers of the storied steakhouse and
nightspot flew in the Exorcist icon first class and put her up at the sleek
Shore Club. She got an appearance fee of about $10,000, a pricey dinner and
the kind of attention that would make anybody's head spin.
It used to be that stars would pay their own way to party in Miami Beach.
But more and more, celebrity is leveraged by nightclubs that don't mind
investing to attract a paying crowd and by corporate sponsors that bankroll
parties to pitch their brands.
And as corporations and "celebrity wranglers, " folks who charge to
deliver stars to nightclubs, set the tone for the upcoming season, it raises
the question: Can the Beach, like Blair's character, be in danger of losing
its soul? And will corporate nightlife spook locals who already feel edged out
of the party?
"You get to the point where you don't want to be out anymore, " said
Miguel Palacios, a website designer who has been partying in Miami Beach since
the days when Madonna struck poses. "Because it does feel like it's about
selling a product, not about having a good time. "
Many see a bright side.
Ian Schrager, the hotelier who helped usher in the glam era with the
opening of the Delano in 1995, says a big-time South Beach is a better one.
"Song Airlines is coming to see me about opening a SkyBar [the lounge at
the Schrager-managed Shore Club] on their planes, " Schrager said.
"Corporations can't reach their customers through mass marketing anymore, so
they look to do promotional events with nightclubs and restaurants.
"That it's happening on the Beach doesn't mean the Beach is over. "
1 "It's not a dilemma unique to Miami, " said hotelier Andre Balazs, who
last season took over the Raleigh and this season opens the Standard, a redo
of the Lido Spa. "I don't think there is a place in the country, or perhaps
the world, where this sort of marketing frenzy doesn't happen within moments
of a spontaneous outburst of culture. "
But there is little question that South Beach has lost its Bohemian blush,
the very thing that lured stars in the early 1990s. Not that the place is
devoid of its sultry appeal, as P. Diddy, Missy Elliott, J.Lo and other stars
who own homes here can testify. But that intoxicating, organic, anything-goes
vibe that made it all spark in the first place has given way to something much
more programmed. And flat.
'30 LINDA BLAIRS'
"In the past, you would have 30 Linda Blairs hanging upside down in your
club - and they all flew themselves down, " said Forge marketing director
Maxwell Blandford, a longtime party promoter who helped architect the Blair
party. "I remember Elton John sitting at the bar at Warsaw [a hot gay club in
the '90s] , running a tab. "
Not that Blandford is complaining. "I cried over spilled milk for way too
long, " he said. "A few years ago . . . the Beach had really become tacky.
But we got over the bad hump and now the glamour is back. "
That glamour is less about red velvet ropes and more about red carpets now.
Because if you're paying to feature names in bold, you trot them in with
fanfare instead of slipping them in the back way, as it used to be done.
"We don't pay celebrities to show up at an event, " said Ingrid Casares,
who claims she attracted big names to her clubs Liquid and Bar Room in the
'90s by establishing friendships, not by offering cash.
But TAI Productions, the company she runs with fellow promoters Alan Roth
and Tommy Pooch, is chasing corporate dollars just like everybody else.
"The money from sponsors lets us throw bigger parties, " Casares said.
"This is not the same Beach where you could open a door, throw on some music
and have a line down the street. Now you need a major production, real eye
candy. That costs money. "
Many see the corporate invasion as proof that the Beach is hotter and more
high-end than ever.
This fall, Casa Casuarina, once Gianni Versace's pad, opens as a
members-only beach club for handpicked big spenders. Next door, the Victor
Hotel, which sat boarded through the renaissance, finally opens as a boutique
Hyatt, tailored to jet-setters who won't blink at the $450 starting rate. The
Standard enters the game in January.
But some locals, the mainstays who pay cover charges even when there is no
media event or promise of a Fat Joe sighting, are feeling that it's no longer
about them.
"When MTV was here with the [Video Music Awards] , there was a major party
at every club, " Web designer Palacios said.
"Missy was here, Usher was there. But the guest lists were taken over by
publicists from L.A. and New York who dissed the regulars and only let in
their friends who had flown down. "
Partying for the sake of partying has been a lost conceit in New York and
Los Angeles for several years, but "it certainly seems like South Beach has
stepped up its game, " said Peter Katsis, senior vice president of music for
The Firm, the Los Angeles management company that handles Leonardo DiCaprio,
Cameron Diaz, Snoop Dogg and Enrique Iglesias.
"They understand how celebrities and products can be tied together, and
they've become very competitive for those events, " Katsis said of the Beach.
He won't offer specifics, but he says his clients can draw up to $100, 000
to appear at a party, especially if it's tied to a major product launch.
On the August weekend of MTV's Video Music Awards, Outkast picked up
$10,000 for showing up at Mansion for an event that was billed as the VMA
afterparty but also served as the launch of Navan, a vanilla-infused cognac.
Kai Rosenthal, spokeswoman for Navan, wouldn't say how much the brand
dropped to put on the event. But such a bash can run more than $100, 000.
' 'Depending on the brand's objective, celebrities can be very useful, "
Rosenthal said. ' They bring publicity to an event. "
When Vin Diesel decided he wanted to celebrate his birthday in South Beach
this summer, his people hooked him up with a bash at Prive. He was flown down
first class and put up at a poolside bungalow at the Sagamore.
RED CARPET
He didn't get cash, but he did get a red carpet and a chance to promote a
new video game featuring his likeness.
Xbox was glad to defray some of the party costs in exchange for plugging
The Chronicles of Riddick. Dewars 12 and Virgin Cola also chipped in.
"If Vin Diesel wants to come down here for his birthday and he happens to
have a game to promote, we can package that, " said Brian Gordon, head of
Miami Marketing Group, which connects the dots.
The big challenge is getting the media to mention the sponsor.
"I resent the pressure, " said Larry Hackett, executive editor of People
magazine. "There have been situations where we have said no and have probably
suffered access because of it. "
US Weekly, which recently stationed a full-time reporter in Miami, is more
cooperative.
"Once we have access, we can ask the questions we really care about, like
'Who are you dating?' " said Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor of the
magazine.
"There is extreme begging to make sure we don't just say Paris Hilton was
in Miami, but Paris Hilton was at the Sky Vodka party at the Shore Club. But
we feel that's a fair exchange. It may be a corporate event, but Paris Hilton
still gets up on a stripper pole. It's still young Hollywood being young
Hollywood. It's still fun. And South Beach is as fun as it gets. "
CAPTION: AL DIAZ / HERALD STAFF CELEBRITY: Actress Linda Blair, with Manny
Curbelo as the devil, appears at The Forge in a vodka tie-in.
KEYWORDS:
TAG: 0411020023
1 of 4, 2 Terms
mh04 ELECTORAL COLLAGE 10/31/2004
THE,MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2004, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, October 31, 2004 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Tropical Life PAGE: 3M LENGTH: 131 lines
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo: Sante Ferrante's Operation Agitation (a) ,
Alexander Isley's Palm Beach Playhouse (a) , Robert A.M. Stern Architects'
Hindsight 20/20 (a) , Sit On This, by Tucker Viemeister, Kai Williams, Philip
Refior and Silas Warren (a) , Poll Watcher I, by Nancy Chunn and Mark Rosen
(a) , and Michael Beirut and James Biber's Crushed (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY BETH DUNLOP, bdunlop@herald.com
DATELINE: NEW YORK
ELECTORAL COLLAGE
Not long ago, the —Votomatic" machine was a minor emblem of an efficient
and effective American democracy. It brought the vote to the people, all the
people, and the people to the vote, a rickety aluminum kit-of-parts that
folded into its own carrying case - not particularly well designed nor
especially easy to use. Then suddenly, the Votomatic became a scorned symbol
of democracy gone awry, a focal point of a contentious and emotionally charged
moment in American history, the disputed Florida vote in the 2000 presidential
election.
In some ways, the events of the last presidential election seem so long ago
- far too much has intervened to claim our attention in these past four years.
But during those weeks, we clung to our television sets, watching a
presidential election that hung in the balance, watching as the Votomatic went
from obscurity to an object of national scrutiny - the center of debates over
voters turned away, ballots hard to read and harder to punch, and much more.
Today, we have touch screens in Florida, for better or worse, and the
Votomatic machine is a thing of our past, gone but not - as the cliche goes -
to be forgotten.
For proof of that, one need only look at the powerful, topical exhibition
on view through Nov. 15 at Parsons School of Design. Titled The Voting Booth
Project, it offers a polemic, satiric and occasionally sobering view of the
now-notorious 2000 election in Florida - the miscounts, recounts and legal
battles that eventually determined the presidency - as seen through the eyes
of an array of renowned architects, artists and designers. r
Some 50 Votomatic machines have been transformed into objects of
contemporary art, social commentary and political persuasion.
The Voting Booth Project was conceived by Parsons' new dean, longtime
architecture critic Paul Goldberger, and hotelier Andre Balazs. The Votomatic
machines had somehow wound up at flea markets and on eBay, and Balazs had
begun buying them to give to friends as only-sort-of-jokey gifts; Goldberger
was at a party and saw one of them, and inspiration struck. Balazs (owner of
Miami Beach's Raleigh Hotel and the Standard, the renovation of the Lido Spa)
went to eBay, bought 100 of the little aluminum Votomatics and distributed
them to designers to remake as works of art and politics.
—Booth" is a kind of misnomer here, in that the actual booth - at least
in my various precincts over the years - was formed by curtains or partitions
around the Votomatic. Yet the metal machine (did we ever know it disassembled
into a little metal attache case?) itself is what sticks in my mind as the
voting experience, and I presume in the collective memory itself.
The transformed Votomatics in this show are far more indelible and
trenchant in their imagery; some not for the faint of heart or the un-fervent.
The media used range from traditional to highly technological; the language is
in some blunt and literal and in others, conceptual and metaphoric.
Only one Florida-based architect, Laurinda Spear, is represented, with a
shadowy silver scrim-clad (fabric of her own design) Votomatic that has an
enigmatic presence. That feeling also comes across in artist Christo's Wrapped
Voting Machine 2004, made from polyethylene, rope, wire, lead, aluminum and
plastic.
Graphic designer Alexander Isley created a Punch and Judy show titled Palm
Beach Playhouse in which a puppet George W. Bush is seen bashing a puppet Al
Gore over the head; his statement (with some wry amusement) says that he was
attempting to recreate —the dramatic tension, nuance and statesmanship
reflected in the American electoral process and the performances of that
year. " Another engagingly sophisticated yet childlike offering came from
artists Nancy Chunn and Mark Rosen, who turned the Votomatic into a miniature
space station landing site with extraterrestrial "poll-watchers" arriving
for the 2004 election. Architect Robert A.M. Stern (dean of Yale's
architecture school and designer of the new Miami Beach Public Library and
Florida International University's forthcoming law school building) attached
dozens of rear-view mirrors to the Votomatic to suggest both oversight and
hindsight, to provoke (pardon the pun, not mine) "a moment of reflection
before the ballot is cast. "
Several offerings included the now-infamous "chads, " the portion of the
paper ballot that either did or did not pop out when punched; others speak of
votes not counted with paper shredders - kind of a high-stakes
paper-scissors-rock game of the ballot.
The 2000 election did more than elect a president. It emphasized the
fragility of the process, a point underscored by a number of the projects on
view. The Rockwell Group's architects recreated the Votomatic with thousands
of wooden matches, using glue and rice paper, to offer the simple statement
that "voting is a fundamental right of democracy and must be handled with
care. " Architect Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity,
turned his Votomatic into an homage to the three civil rights workers slain
during the 1964 voter registration campaign in Mississippi, an attempt to
enfranchise the state's black population, long ago and yet perhaps not so.
The emotions run from irony on down to helplessness. Architects Frank Gehry
and Sam Gehry placed a mushroom cloud (of chicken wire, plaster and resin)
inside the Votomatic, a touching symbol that at first seems obvious, and then
lends itself to levels of interpretation. Designers Michael Beirut and James
Biber hired a 1.5-ton steamroller to run over their Votomatic then left it
crushed, placing only a plastic elephant on it. The message is clear. .
The designer Edwin Schlossberg, who is married to Caroline Kennedy, posted
this message on the side of his Votomatic:
' 'A Monument to the End of Democracy or A Monument to A Terrible Moment in
United States History. Select One. "
To see these is to know the polemic power of design, much matched by the
power of the words incorporated into it. The Parsons Gallery is left unadorned
for this exhibition except for a single quote running around the wall, from
American Jurisprudence (Second Edition, 2.004) , which reads: "The right to
vote necessarily includes the right to be free from restrictions that deny the
franchise or render its exercise so difficult or inconvenient as to amount to
the denial of the right to vote. "
The Votomatics are gone, but eyes of the nation are on Florida as Election
Day looms. The Florida Voting Booth does not stint in its judgments of what
happened four years ago, nor should it. Design and democracy are not usually
thought of as bedfellows, though they are, in ways that are both obvious and
elusive. What is clear, and not only in hindsight, is that the Votomatics were
flawed in their design - awkward, difficult, outmoded and ineffective - and we
should have been cognizant of this, before the trauma of the 2000 election.
Goldberger, the dean, writes in his introduction to the show's catalog that
the "Votomatic changed the course ,of history, " which it did. History is
about to change again, but until it does, and perhaps even afterward, these
transformed Votomatic machines and their designers will remind us - in ways
both subtle and blatant - of the consequences we face if we are not vigilant.
Beth Dunlop is The Herald's architecture critic.
THE EXHIBIT
Information and more samples of work from The Voting Booth Project are
available at parsons.edu/voting_
booth. The exhibit is on view through Nov. 15 at the Parsons School of Design
Gallery, 2 W. 13th St., New York.
CAPTION: SELECT ONE: Clockwise from top left, Sante Ferrante's Operation
Agitation; Alexander Isley's Palm Beach Playhouse; Robert A.M. Stern
Architects' Hindsight 20/20; Sit On This, by Tucker Viemeister, Kai Williams,
Philip Refior and Silas Warren; Poll Watcher I, by Nancy Chunn and Mark Rosen;
and Michael Beirut and James Biber's Crushed.
KEYWORDS:
TAG: 0411030028
2 of 4, 2 Terms
mh04 GLAMOUR, GLITTER OF SOUTH BEACH RESTYLED BY THE CORPORATE TOUCH 10/31/2004
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2004, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, October 31, 2004 EDITION: First
SECTION: Front PAGE: 1A LENGTH: 130 lines
ILLUSTRATION: color photo: Linda Blair and Manny Curbelo (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY LYDIA MARTIN, lmartin@herald.com
GLAMOUR, GLITTER OF SOUTH BEACH RESTYLED BY THE CORPORATE TOUCH
For a Halloween party this year, The Forge restaurant in Miami Beach scared
up Linda Blair, she of the projectile pea soup.
In a tie-in with Level vodka, managers of the storied steakhouse and
nightspot flew in the Exorcist icon first class and put her up at the seek
Shore Club. She got an appearance fee of about $10,000, a pricey dinner and
the kind of attention that would make anybody's head spin.
It used to be that stars would pay their own way to party in Miami Beach.
But more and more, celebrity is leveraged by nightclubs that don't mind
investing to attract a paying crowd and by corporate sponsors that bankroll
parties to pitch their brands.
And as corporations and "celebrity wranglers, " folks who charge to
deliver stars to nightclubs, set the tone for the upcoming season, it raises
the question: Can the Beach, like Blair's character, be in danger of losing
its soul? And will corporate nightlife spook locals who already feel edged out
of the party?
"You get to the point where you don't want to be out anymore, " said
Miguel Palacios, a website designer who has been partying in Miami Beach since
the days when Madonna struck poses. 'Because it does feel like it's about
selling a product, not about having a good time. "
Many see a bright side.
Ian Schrager, the hotelier who helped usher in the glam era with the
opening of the Delano in 1995, says a big-time South Beach is a better one.
"Song Airlines is coming to see me about opening a SkyBar [the lounge at
the Schrager-managed Shore Club] on their planes, " Schrager said.
"Corporations can't reach their customers through mass marketing anymore, so
they look to do promotional events with nightclubs and restaurants.
"That it's happening on the Beach doesn't mean the Beach is over. "
NOT UNIQUE
"It's not a dilemma unique to Miami, " said hotelier Andre Balazs, who V
last season took over the Raleigh and this season opens the Standard, a redo
of the Lido Spa. ' 'I don't think there is a place in the country, or perhaps
the world, where this sort of marketing frenzy doesn't happen within moments
of a spontaneous outburst of culture. "
But there is little question that South Beach has lost its Bohemian blush,
the very thing that lured stars in the early 1990s. Not that the place is
devoid of its sultry appeal, as P. Diddy, Missy Elliott, J.Lo and other stars
who own homes here can testify. But that intoxicating, organic, anything-goes
vibe that made it all spark in the first place has given way to something much
more programmed. And flat.
'30 LINDA BLAIRS'
"In the past, you would have 30 Linda Blairs hanging upside down in your
club - and they all flew themselves down, " said Forge marketing director
Maxwell Blandford, a longtime party promoter who helped architect the Blair
party. "I remember Elton John sitting at the bar at Warsaw [a hot gay club in
the '90s] , running a tab. "
Not that Blandford is complaining. ' 'I cried over spilled milk for way too
long, " he said. ' 'A few years ago . . . the Beach had really become tacky.
But we got over the bad hump and now the glamour is back. "
That glamour is less about red velvet ropes and more about red carpets now.
Because if you're paying to feature names in bold, you trot them in with
fanfare instead of slipping them in the back way, as it used to be done.
"We don't pay celebrities to show up at an event, " said Ingrid Casares,
who claims she attracted big names to her clubs Liquid and Bar Room in the
'90s by establishing friendships, not by offering cash. But TAI Productions,
the company she runs with fellow promoters Alan Roth and Tommy Pooch, is
chasing corporate dollars just like everybody else.
"The money from sponsors lets us throw bigger parties, " Casares said.
"This is not the same Beach where you could open a door, throw on some music
and have a line down the street. Now you need a major production, real eye
candy. That costs money. "
Many see the corporate invasion as proof that the Beach is hotter and more
high-end than ever.
This fall, Casa Casuarina, once Gianni Versace's pad, opens as a
members-only beach club for handpicked big spenders. Next door, the Victor
Hotel, which sat boarded through the renaissance, finally opens as a boutique
Hyatt, tailored to jet-setters who won't blink at the $450 starting rate. The
Standard enters the game in January.
But some locals, the mainstays who pay cover charges even when there is no
media event or promise of a Fat Joe sighting, are feeling that it's no longer
about them.
"When MTV was here with the (Video Music Awards] , there was a major party
at every club, " Web designer Palacios said. "Missy was here, Usher was
there. But the guest lists were taken over by publicists from L.A. and New
York who dissed the regulars and only let in their friends who had flown
down. "
Partying for the sake of partying has been a lost conceit in New York and
Los Angeles for several years, but "it certainly seems like South Beach has
stepped up its game, " said Peter Katsis, senior vice president of music for
The Firm, the Los Angeles management company that handles Leonardo DiCaprio,
Cameron Diaz, Snoop Dogg and Enrique Iglesias.
PRODUCT LAUNCH
"They understand how celebrities and products can be tied together, and
they've become very competitive for those events, " Katsis said of the Beach.
He won't offer specifics, but he says his clients can draw up to $100,000 to
appear at a party, especially if it's tied to a major product launch.
On the August weekend of MTV's Video Music Awards, Outkast picked up
$10, 000 for showing up at Mansion for an event that was billed as the VMA
afterparty but also served as the launch of Navan, a vanilla-infused cognac.
Kai Rosenthal, spokeswoman for Navan, wouldn't say how much the brand
dropped to put on the event. But such a bash can run more than $100,000.
"Depending on the brand's objective, celebrities can be very useful, "
Rosenthal said. "They bring publicity to an event. "
When Vin Diesel decided he wanted to celebrate his birthday in South Beach
this summer, his people hooked him up with a bash at Prive. He was flown down
first class and put up at a poolside bungalow at the Sagamore.
RED CARPET
He didn't get cash, but he did get a red carpet and a chance to promote a
new video game featuring his likeness. Xbox was glad to defray some of the
party costs in exchange for plugging The Chronicles of Riddick. Dewars 12 and
Virgin Cola also chipped in.
"If Vin Diesel wants to come down here for his birthday and he happens to
have a game to promote, we can package that, " said Brian Gordon, head of
Miami Marketing Group, which connects the dots.
The big challenge is getting the media to mention the sponsor.
"I resent the pressure, " said Larry Hackett, executive editor of People
magazine. "There have been situations where we have said no and have probably
suffered access because of it. "
US Weekly, which recently stationed a full-time reporter in Miami, is more
cooperative.
"Once we have access, we can ask the questions we really care about, like
'Who are you dating?' " said Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor of the
magazine.
"There is extreme begging to make sure we don't just say Paris Hilton was
in Miami, but Paris Hilton was at the Sky Vodka party at the Shore Club. But
we feel that's a fair exchange. It may be a corporate event, but Paris Hilton
still gets up on a stripper pole. It's still young Hollywood being young
Hollywood. It's still fun. And South Beach is as fun as it gets. "
CAPTION: AL DIAZ/HERALD STAFF CELEBRITY: Actress Linda Blair, with Manny
Curbelo as the devil, appears at The Forge in a vodka tie-in.
KEYWORDS:
TAG: 0411020038
3 of 4, 2 Terms
mh04 BOSTON BORN MIAMI CRED 03/28/2004
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 2004, The Miami Herald
It DATE: Sunday, March 28, 2004 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Tropical Life PAGE: 1M LENGTH: 176 lines
ILLUSTRATION: color photo: Andre Balazs (a) , The Raleigh's pool (a) ; photo:
Uma Thurman (a) , a fire on the beach (n) , The Raleigh (a)
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: BY LYDIA MARTIN, lmartin@herald.com
BOSTON BORN MIAMI CRED
Out by the Raleigh hotel's famed swimming pool, a giddy mirage unfolds.
Hipsters in $200 flip-flops sip icy cocktails and take in lulling electronica
while fancy lap dogs get slipped bits of burgers and Matt Damon knocks back
Ciroc with Liquid Ice.
Can it be that this dramatically scalloped lagoon framed by a wading pool,
the stage for Esther Williams' wet ballets, the design gem from Deco's glory
days - can it be that this pool has finally sprung back to life?
Just a couple of seasons ago, the Raleigh, which has known greatness and
has known tumbleweed, sat in a post-renaissance stupor. It was the moribund
hotel, 1775 Collins Ave. , that snapped back to life to host the first wave of
SoBe's revival in the early 1990s. After a few years of frolic, it flatlined
again.
By the time Andre Balazs took it off the hands of previous owner Ken
Zarrilli in 2002 (for $25 million, according to property records) , the place
was pretty much a ghost town. Which is why folks in the know in South Beach
tourism scratched their heads. The collective question: What was Balazs
thinking, buying the 1940 hotel that had fallen out of favor even before 9/11
felled everybody else?
But here it was, post 9/11, everybody was hurting, the too-cool Shore Club
up the street was giving away spanking new rooms at 100 bucks a night - and
Balazs was going to try to make something of the Raleigh just as everybody
else was pronouncing the Beach over?
"Miami is a big-league city now, " is basically what Balazs was thinking.
"It's not a second-tier or third-tier city that goes up and down with the
vicissitudes of fashion. To say that Miami is in or out is like saying that
New York is in or out. I mean, that's a ludicrous construct, " he says as he
sips his favorite Rose in the Raleigh's retro penthouse while staffers set
out candles they just ran out to buy.
The candles, and the extra bottle of Domaine Ott Rose chilling in a
bucket, are for the benefit of Uma Thurman, Balazs' new squeeze, who is on her
way" up.
HOTEL KING
Balazs today could lay claim to the title of hippest hotelier in America,
with Soho's Mercer, Hollywood's resurrected Chateau Marmont, and two Standard
hotels (one in downtown Los Angeles and the other on Hollywood's Sunset
Strip) , all packing in the funky and the famous.
Now he's luring them to the Raleigh, which has undergone a lobby
refreshening that retains the original tropical elegance. And an outdoor
regreening, with a thicket of palms adding mystery to the front drive and
seagrapes punctuating a new beachy outdoor lounge complete with curtained
cabanas. He raised the yard behind the pool by six feet to gain a view of the
Atlantic. By fall, Balazs says, the 104 rooms (rates from $295 to $475) will
be redone in what he calls an "Old Havana" vibe.
And also by fall, he hopes to unveil an incarnation of the Lido Spa, the
1950s relic on the Venetian Causeway that once invoked the spirit of the
Borscht Belt and will soon re-emerge as a Standard spa, where whippersnappers
will replace the white-haired set for mud baths and massages. Pricing follows
Balazs' philosophy that rich is not necessarily righteous. Rooms start at $95,
like at the L.A and Hollywood Standards.
"Traditionally, high-end boutique hotels catered to older, more monied
people, " says the ruggedly handsome, soft-spoken Balazs, born in Boston to
Hungarian parents. "It was believed that sophistication came with age and
money. And there was a certain look to that, a certain content. Then I noticed
that young people could actually be more sophisticated culturally and had a
greater desire for meaning in the way things came together. Even the graphics
on the note pads meant something. But they are people, notwithstanding the
movie stars, who tend to have less .money. "
They are also people infinitely amused by lava lamp aesthetics, which is
why the rooftop pool at the downtown L.A. Standard features vibrating
waterbeds and a Twister-inspired dance floor. And the Standard in Hollywood
offers wall-to-ceiling shag carpeting, Charles Eames surfboard tables,
electric blue Astroturf by the pool - and a glass box in the lobby showcasing
slumbering, scantily clad models.
The new version of the Lido will feature a playful, if sedate, Scandinavian
vibe, with blond woods and retro canvas chairs and picnic baskets doubling as
nightstands and, for some reason, quilted cozies covering wall-mounted
flatscreen TVs.
Outside each door at the motelish Lido will be Army cots and bathtubs,
though if you're not the exhibitionist sort you'll use the shower inside your
room. The only attempt at bathtub privacy are mesh dividers that don't leave
much to the imagination. But, as a staffer says, "If you're gonna be a prude,
you probably shouldn't be at the Standard. "
Balazs himself has famously gone skinny-dipping in the Raleigh pool, a
clear call to the edgy crowd. Balazs knew better than to mess with the pool
that, in 1940, Life magazine dubbed "the most beautiful pool in the state of
Florida" and five decades later Conde Nast voted "one of the 16 sexiest in
the world. " But he did heat it, likely to make it more inviting to
skinnydippers.
"Who wouldn't want to swim naked in that pool?, " Balazs says with a
smile. "That pool is nice. "
Uma has just walked in, legs taller and cheekbones higher than her movies
do justice. She doesn't want to interrupt, but then again, she wouldn't mind
watching her boyfriend be interviewed. Just for kicks.
"Have you been hard on him?" she wants to know.
So you ask what's going on with their relationship, which sprung to life
soon after Balazs' divorce from Katie Ford, head of Ford Models, and Thurman's
separation from Mr. Reality Bites, Ethan Hawke.
"I can't talk about that, " Balazs says as Thurman snuggles up to him.
During the rest of the interview he holds her hand.
Balazs knows his audience, and he knows what they want. They want cool. But
they don't want the self-conscious brand.
What they want is something that smacks of that first fluttering of South
Beach hip, which visited upon the Raleigh before it visited everybody else.
Back then, the Beach's charm was that it didn't know from VIP rooms or velvet
ropes. Paparazzi-free superstars and supermodels blithely played among local
kids and drag queens.
ART BASEL PARTY
Which is why in December, when the Raleigh hosted a party during Art Basel
festivities for- New York photographer Patrick McMullan, the old-timers,
partying among a sexy new international arts set, perked up. The word of the
night: The old Beach was back. McMullan, a South Beach fixture himself, stood
at the velvet ropes to ensure they didn't slow anybody down. Because the truly
cool know attitude is for the wannabes.
"It was a great party because it had the feel of the Raleigh in the late
'80s, early '90s, when it was an undercover place where the hippest people
could go and just blend in, " says longtime Beach player Dennis Leyva. "Once
again it's a really cool, chill-out place. At all the other hip hotels, you're
under the klieg lights. Who really wants that?"
Balazs sizes up his hotel and his followers:
"I think at its core, there is a certain open-mindedness. There is no
sense of these people are the right people and those people are the wrong
people. People like us are people who are culturally sophisticated. They are
artists and creative people. They know who they are and they're not worried
about hotels as fashion brands. There's no, 'I'm going to stay here because it
makes me cool. ' They make their own opinions. "
Even before Balazs ripped out the first old carpet, news of his South Beach
plans echoed through a smarting hotel industry. It was a sign that maybe
things would start looking up.
NEW LOOK
"Definitely, Andre investing made everybody who has been on South Beach
for 10 years take a new look, " said hotelier Jennifer Rubell, whose family
owns the Greenview and Albion on South Beach and the Beach House in Bal
Harbour. "His fresh eyes gave everybody else fresh eyes. It made everybody
say, 'Damn, we are a special place. ' "
But Balazs won't take credit for anything beyond having a broader vision
than many locals.
''There are three serious cities in America. New York, L.A. and Miami.
Every day, Miami becomes a city with a more complex social and cultural life.
What makes a great cultural metropolis is the mix. Miami has that. But Miami
also has an inferiority complex. "
Which is why Balazs isn't trying to import the Mercer's energy, or the
Standard's or even the Marmont's. The Raleigh is a hotel revived, but not
re-thought.
"It's not exciting to have a place in Miami look like a place in Paris, or
worse, like a place in New York. Miami has nothing to learn from New York. New
York can learn a lot from Miami. Miami is an inherently vibrant city that has
nothing to do with what some travel magazine decides to declare it. "
SECRET PLACES
And it's a city he and Thurman are dying to know better. They ask about
out-of-the-way restaurants, Cuban music joints. They want to be shown the
stuff the travel magazines aren't hip to.
"Miami is particularly exciting right now because it's on the cusp of
something even greater. It feels less glitzy and in a way more authentic and
deep, " Balazs says. "But I know people who are afraid of Miami. Because it
unlocks possibilities. People who are afraid of Miami are people who are
afraid of themselves. "
And it is quite true that Miami is a city where the mercury rises, the
barometer drops - and freakiness comes out to play.
"I've been freaky in other places, " says Thurman. "But Miami has yet to
find the button. "
To which we say, give us a minute.
CAPTION: NEW SQUEEZE: Uma Thurman, separated from Ethan Hawke, is seeing
Balazs.
JOSHUA PREZANT/-FOR THE HERALD THINGS HEATING UP: On Soiree Sundays, folks
hang out by a fire on the beach in back of the Raleigh.
JARED LAZARUS/HERALD STAFF AN INSTITUTION: The Raleigh, built in 1940,
surged back to life in the early 1990s.
JARED LAZARUS/HERALD STAFF SOBE COOL: Top, Andre Balazs, with his reviving
of the Raleigh and other properties around the country, could be the hippest
hotelier in America. Above, the Raleigh's pool was called 'the most beautiful
in Florida' in 1940.
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