1675-7 Raleigh Hotel ..
ti, a 4
0 C EA _ ,
1 , .
p
f,, 4: .
i ;
....... .
www.oceandrive.co .-L .,, il,
, ,.„:11L.x...,,.. .1410-0.:, ..
I . ..„ ,. ®
--
/,/
it .
4
„,',,,,, , .. ' ki I.
,,,,,,,..,,,: .,,,, ii,. , , ..,, , , 0,-
. .
„‘„,-....„-.,..... ,,, , ,, .,.,, . i4„, i .„---
r�
1
1r
.
k
C.
4 M1�
i.
r,,..,,..
t n
s4 '
,,,. :. ',VENUS WILLIAMS
X
„ .!I- - -7, yr '
HIP ' � Will:. °4 _ t• ••• —.
1, '' / r7.P..'.
4 , , j: %+► _ _+Ali” li, ...
Yee
_` .— •> rt
. —
ille• 1
lit . `
r + , s �.. '� ''r
_s `` • E
E 111•P ' Y .7'
•
• ...tion...41110.it. . . i .... • •
. � ' y•
14.
r �a7 '1,.' ♦ L a • .i!
f � S J. `
•
M �`_'••11�1y_1 • \,
• ` • J , . t.^`T p
,�' •- r of �' • ♦I+tib y ' •
fi
•, 4 --7.* 1
i • 1/ • •
A A'loll __ I T •
4s . r Ai.
_ _ '' The famous pool area,a •la
il, • n .• tic nocturnal party settingt =' t been featured in such films as _
4111 Any Given Sunday,Bad Boys
— ` and The Birdcage.
André ..
Takes . .. .
ss
_..... , ,,
the a ez 39
A beautiful Miami Beach property is set for a big I •'�' ;i
comeback under the direction of one of the �1 ! 1� .
world's chicest hoteliers
11E9E1 ii it it i II II
BY TOM AUSTIN PORTRAIT BY GIO ALMA ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANA BOWDEN I
11:1111 ® i o 1 w—.;:. 1-1%,,,; - I , ••
0n a balmy afternoon in Miami under the direction of former owner Ken Zarrilli, A, RALEIGH
Beach,the land that fame,folly launched all the dreams of what South Beach ,.. . i I • Vii`" '. ,"_
and senseless pleasure built, could become back in the early'90s.Now this par- F ' ., �' �
hotelier Andre Balazs—a vibra- ticular strip of Collins Avenue is both dream and •r i''
1 .• I
ter..
for of chic and celebrity at such nightmare, adorned with towering phallic condokwl
. ___, ._—
properties as the Mercer in New York and West miniums of hideous proportions and the rather i _ _
r
Hollywood's Chateau Marmont—is leading a con- more thoughtful Delano and Shore Club, both The Collins Avenue exterior, j "�'
T-..— �i
struction crew around the Raleigh, the newest managed by Balazs'competitor Ian Schrager. 'gned by noted art deco ��. - ..
jewel in his empire ofgloss.This is the hotel that, A lot of ego, testosterone and financial mus- wh is beingt L. given Dixon,
P g � who is given aadtra-,•.,-;�-?.��r�-".=
314 Ocean Drive spective this month at-the`" . •March 2003'''
Bass Museum of Art.
it 6,-
ANDRE BALAZS
x
cle are in play within the modern South ` ,;_-_ • guard because of all the animals"), and
Beach, and the 46-year-old Balazs has as 7.. the memory inspires some ruminations
much to occupy his energies as anybody. o' '� _ on travel:
Aside from ten or so properties spanning " `- #, Y; ' oa .i; ,• "One of the things that make travel
the Hamptons, St. Barths and all the , 'y' }'+,i., a unique luxury is that you need time,
other haunts of the glittering hordes, he ' :. which is the ultimate luxury. And if
is also savoring the possibilities of the Di you're going to take the time to go
Lido Spa on the other side of Miami someplace it's not attractive to travel to
Beach. On top of all that, Balazs has a - _ ".Fri Berlin and feel like you're at a hotel in
whole lifestyle-made-for-boldface thing , . _ I Boston.The idea of so many hotels now
going on, what with all the hip parties, ice 1 is that there should be no surprises:
the dueling homes and the marriage and F That's exactly what we try not to do.
two young daughters with Katie Ford, i • And not to do that means distilling the
CEO of a powerful modeling agency. 1 ' essence of the city and the property
It's a pretty fancy life, but during , , d . 4 itself, the tone of what it all is. With a
our last encounter at the Raleigh, he had %y a1,... - - - project like the Chateau—or the
been accidentally locked out on the pent- �„ Raleigh—the space already has such a
house terrace during a photo shoot, and
L i - ,..4 K, '-. strong vocabulary, and you have to
was only rescued by my arrival for a -:k. embrace and enhance that vocabulary.
scheduled interview. He'd shown "Each place has its own narrative,
;.1�� ...z.
remarkable good humor during that in the same way that my background
episode, as he had in 1989, when I — -- .ti .. :_fh'eoriginal 1940,nautically has come into play with the design
advised him to bail out from a small _ - s reminiscent pool bar is still aspects of myhotels. Both myparents
�" ,used for daytime cocktails and P
building on Washington Avenue—later ,t,.,= �s,; m
._ ghttimegalas. are in academia: My dad is a scientist—
the site of Follia restaurant—he owned ` +-71t71..:...-:--...--- _ ' " . he was at Harvard for a long time—and
"With a property like the Raleigh, the space already has such a strong
vocabulary. You have to embrace and enhance that vocabulary."
with former partner and boyhood friend an M.D., although he never practiced
Campion Platt. (Manypeople in the Front desk agent Victor Coleman in \
P P P the lobby.Note the original terrazzo. ,4.. medicine. And my mom is a psycholo-
world Balazs travels in gossip about his �\ gist, but also a pianist with her own jazz
dissociation from Platt during the cre- band. It was great to grow up in Carn-
ation of the Mercer, although he's care- bridge,with the exposure to all the ideas
ful to praise Platt's new efforts as a furni- ' and different cultures. My father was
ture designer.) very aware of design and we grew up in
Now, Platt's ex-wife—architect, \ a very modern house. Recently, I was
designer and Miami home girl Alison "41%,,, back visiting and while looking through
Spear—is set to do some of the work on , the shelves I noticed a book called Mod-
fri
the Raleigh. The world keeps turning ern Living, all about Scandinavian`
and Balazs is working hard and hustling: / design. I have that same book in my
In the past eight weeks, he has made • \'11 office,but I'd bought it five years ago or
some truly tasteful headway on the it so. They'd got it in the 1950s, so I'd
hotel—from painting the exterior a sim- grown up with it in our library."
ple china white to opening up the Despite being brought up in the
renowned pool area—but he's relaxed �� I' ultimate college town, Balazs went away
over lunch, ordering a beer and talking 1 Jr for school, landing at Cornell in Ithaca,
of this and that. Susanne Bartsch had .... New York: "I was in a program that
launched the Raleigh's social possibilities �- . .. �{ worked like a college within the college,
with one of her trademark draga- rt•— I with no set curriculum whatsoever—I
paloozas, and Balazs had heard good , 4,- studied art, architecture, political sci-
things about a wonderful party with a '' I ence and literature, among other things.
retro mood: "Several people called and Harold Brodkey became a very good
told me the tone of the evening, the ', friend and mentor: He was one of the
sense of humor and casualness, was so professors I was lucky enough to study
evocative of another time on South with. I did a bit of journalism as well,
Beach." He and his family have also just =:'v -* --.0- and helped start two newspapers, the
gotten back from a high-end ecotourism ' '" Ithaca Post Sunday edition—the only
safari in Africa("If you need to go to the Sunday paper in the county—and the
bathroom at night you have to get at •4 Midweek Observer, kind of a shopper
316 Ocean Drive .
March 2003
}id r .II. _ '
1 i Itii, 114. ii la,
1 I!t? "i'
:i • ! I; 'I e
"‘ 11 1 I 1 i 1 1 !- ' ,...
•0 ! 1 lI
I ‘ 1 ,%0 !I :ft„ , 1, I . i . *lb? ,,
fIIIIP
�t, I I , It ! ('
i. , li P t 1 1
, , ./ it
fil
� { „I , #
i i nit\ I ' , : .i!
0 i it 1' ; ,,
” rs
1 i
y ,
' I 1 i
ll� li
k 01 , if 11 it
7...
1 ''' t'Iti ,--• '. 44t-4, ' ' '' _:._, . . ,
�'� �` '
F
>'
111 , 11 44 r
l.I a.
= e
"of", ;7 ,,..•'
.. Y! +
'h i.I'.
w
Balazs has a whole A
lif• estyle-made-for- -
boldface thing going
t ;i
on, what with all the 1 ► i'{
"%S I {t�
stip parties, dueling ,., i ,, ' -
{ ' I
homtes and family ' 1`
.
� 1, Mk ' +
• {fit., =p� „ �
with Katie Ford. { IT
,�" t do t+ „..‘1 Andre,the giant With properties
1,...-1,. " 1 stretching from Los Angeles to St.
i ei t, Barths,André Balau is a leader in
•' '''-•11;- 1,1,q;1i , the boutique-hotel industry,corn-
,
bining a flair for design with a sen-
" { 1{j t 1: `, sitivity to historic integrity.Here
'4 i,+1{ t at the Raleigh's pool waterfall.
ANDRE BALAZS
THE EMPIRE NEVER RESTS
From the beginning,André Balazs'opera- umental project: "When I first bought the
4... tion—which has everything from the Mercer in Chateau,I remember Helmut Newton telling
fir ,---.- -- ,_. New York to the Raleigh in Miami Beach—has me,'André,whatever you do,you mustn't fuck
��"�ti been about design,style and other elusive qual- the Chateau up with the wrong kind of restora-
q ities.He was recently awarded a Design Patron tions.'At that moment,a spring literally popped
SI„�i .Q Award by the Cooper-Hewitt in New York,and out of the couch.It was like an archeological
"�
r dri?I . his upcoming projects include a new and very dig,trying to find the essence of the place and
,-r. •
1 • •".,i " _ modern condominium on Grand Street in make it all live and breathe again.Everything is
4i. SoHo—designed by Jean Nouvel of the new,although it looks deliberately old."
acclaimed Cartier Foundation in Paris—and an
apartment building with Richard Gluckman.On
Shelter Island in the Hamptons,just down the i`I aA road from his beach house—an 18th-century �� �-
Shaker home moved piece by piece from Mys- • =%;�d
1 tic, Connecticut—he has the Sunset Beach I" ',
N hotel.In St.Barths,he will be finishing up the ' a -;
The cozy coffee bar at the Serano Beach hotel this year with renovations 's It
1 srth end of by Christian Liaigre.Some of Balazs'other hold
-
4
ings include:
paper. We made some money, even though Gannett
squeezed us out eventually. I also had a magazine called THE MERCER:
Onstage,which was distributed at rock concerts:That was years in the THE STANDARD: Just down the block from
Haus-
sold to Playbill. ' making, the Chateau Marmont, Balazs and Shawn hotel's march-of- man took a circa-1962 motel and turned it
"For graduate school, I went to Columbia in New11 -= fame roll call— into the first Standard business hotel,com-
York for a joint MBA and journalism program. After �7j�' •- which began in plete with Andy Warhol-print curtains,decks
graduation, I worked in politics for a while with David - E3I "v 1996—features with blue Astroturf,and minibars with animal
Garth, a big Democratic political consultant, and then i' ; f. 1 boldface on the crackers and jars of Vaseline. It's quite the
did some free-lance writing for a year or so—everything i ` ` ' , j order of Leonar- trend package:"The general quality of every-
from Politics Today pieces to a New York magazine profile 1 do DiCaprio, thing has gone up.For instance,we originally
on this baroness who was a famous jazz patron." Calvin Klein, used Ikea inflatable couches in the Standard,
Heather Graham and you can't argue with their work:It's good
Conscious that he's talking to a writer,he points out
the obvious—"It's very hard work"—but doesn't go into The vterceri a• ; and Bryan Ferry, design and good value.When people ask me
the financial lowliness of the occupation. His first install- "`` but Balazs about the Standard and what kind of person
ment of the high life started shortly thereafter as an early- prefers the democratic manifesto:"We made stays there,to me it's a business hotel.A 25-
many different kinds of rooms at the Mercer, year-old who wants to be a record producer
'80s whiz kid: "With my dad, I started a company called just so we'd end up with a really diverse group will be hanging out poolside because they
Biomatrix, and it eventually went public. The products of people,not just the upper level of rich guys. want to meet some musicians,but that's busi-
we made, like Synvisc for arthritis, are all based on the A young artist or actor will be staying at the ness now.Who's to say what a business per-
manipulation of hyaluran, a naturally occurring mole- hotel at the same time as someone who has son looks like?"
cule. I had that business for about eight years, and then much more money."
started to get involved with restaurants and clubs:
Lemon, MK, The Building and BC in Los Angeles. That .The ChalrtaNatmont a
was a beautiful club but it never really opened:The com- in West j w •
• -
munity opposed it and we couldn't ger a liquor license. I Ai
learned some lessons from that project and then, in 1990, l _ ---..„
the Mercer property came along." J �<
Located on Mercer Street in SoHo, the Mercer was a-- I 1_l r*
built in 1890 as an office building for John Jacob Astor I` *.. ‘= i r o
and has been cited by the New York City Landmarks Ai44*,:‘'
• .
Preservation Commission as an outstanding example of - '-,,._` it-- -40% : •
Romanesque Revival architecture. For the interiors, Bal- I The Downtown LA Standard Z
azs started from ground zero, with the design and furni- 1 I . 8
ture being created by Christian Liaigre. THE DOWNTOWN LA STANDARD: Formerly o
"It took years to open the Mercer, partly because CHATEAU MARMONT: In 1990,Balazs bought the high'50s headquarters of Superior Oil,the o
the fabled haunt on Sunset Boulevard,a land- Downtown LA Standard has a 15-time-zone N
there was a lot of community opposition.They had a fear
that the neighborhood would become about commercial mark that had been home to everyone from clock,huge Gaetano Pesce rubber feet in the
enterprise, and the technical point of opposition was to William Holden and Robert Mitchum to John bathrooms,poolside vibrating water beds,and
Belushi,who overdosed in one of the bungs- whimsical telephone pictographs marked U
deny us the ability to put a retail operation on the lows.Balazs brought the property back from "fluffier"and"motivational speaker."It also has
ground floor, which would be the Mercer's lobby and terminal seediness with the help of movie-set major views:"One of the biggest surprises for 3w
restaurant. designer/Area nightclub aesthetic technician me Was to see a part of the city that is normally §g
"In the end, a good hotel has to be the focal point Shawn Hausman and Fernando Santangelo.A veiled.The building is tall enough to look 4,
of the community, the place where the local social life is few years later,he orchestrated a beautiful book down at this incredible landscape.Atop all q,
played out. A lot of developers approach things the on the Chateau past and present, Hollywood these five-story garages are public parks:From Ei
Handbook The hotel itself was,at times,a mon- the hotel,all you see is green."
s2 : : ,
_ - �_
•
•
r
%�� r i-
• •
f
a.
l
.
' - 1
1.-• � -fir- or �"
, t • ,. /4\- r' _- r. ` s Via' J
t{ . i
-�. }r Vis. •� �1 ij ;; ;
.(0,,,-. 4.1:-. .V
•
I� r
. .A,/: •Y • /••• • - t ,tr.,.., . .._„.-:.--,:. :-.:::...
i
‘4,11
,_. _ ! �-.`j ice - `r: ./,
S• • .
�, tnW . F- - - Ai- , i,::,-: • __:,•,,,�s/�� ��1 �' Watering hole: Life magazine famously
' s^ ���' named the Raleigh's pool the"most beautiful
""111in•
Florida"in the 1940s;it was-also used as a
ire ' . :•--. ''. -7-- —,,,,r i;,,;e setting for Esther Williams'filmic aquacades.
•
Recently,Balazs has expanded the rear of the
ii • -
•"" property to extend to the beach.
'- . i ,
ft .
1
� ; 7e ^
f
Universally regarded as one of "•�
Miami's best bartenders,Crispy *' :\
Soloperto reigns over the Raleigh's i +, aj
!�Ili
r j i
intimate lounge, a bastion of �„ Fi I,
�� '
swank and civility on South Beach. x'.1•44.•...;:,,-.� ;
,,.,ria $ ,.a
• 3 -..
°4 Ili * , '.l
1 r ts' rt
#
. 4 . opiltzll _ . .,.._,.....
... , ....
_if...,„.„,,,,, ‘,....,,,, __
. _
. ,. ...._
. ... ,
,.
..
. , f •
7,...r.
ry At-'
` LIN
..i• � 1 =-ate
-I *+.,.. ` ;r. M i
I il
xY 1 .
•
•
V
"All good hotels make you feel comfortable, as if you were at home, but
they also transport you in some way. People have affairs in hotels."
wrong way, sort of muscle their way through legislation, which negatively building.All good hotels make you feel comfortable, as if you were at home,
affects the outcome of the project. But the Mercer has been embraced by but they also transport you in some way.When you're relaxed,you slowly open
SoHo: I'm a member now of the SoHo Alliance, the same organization that upto a new experience, something more than just a home away from home.
had originally opposed me. People have affairs in hotels: There are more tragedies, more romances and
"The Chateau Marmont, which I also bought in 1990,was an entirely more of everything else because you're taken out of your familiar environment,
different kind of project. Everyone had this wonderfully warm feeling about which can be limiting."
what the Chateau represented to them, but had stopped staying there Over coffee, as his voice starts to fade, Balazs turns to the great beast of
because it was sort of falling apart. The trick was to capture that nuance, pop culture, the engine that feeds his success: "Ten, 15 and 20 years ago,
those fond memories and special emotional connections." sophistication was typically found among older and more worldly people.Now,
With that, the philosopher of the hospitality industry has to deal with the the younger you are, the more actively you consume images from fashion and
realm of the immediate—a waitress who has brought him the wrong food music. In the meantime,we all consume so much of the same stuff that it gets
order—before returning to the big picture: "Originally, what interested me harder and harder to really tell where one tribe ends and another begins.
about clubs and restaurants was the ability to create anenvironment—as a kid, "It's nice to be overwhelmed by a hotel that's bold and loud visually,but at
I was very interested in sculpting. In a restaurant,you're sitting someplace for the same time that only happens to you once.When you come back the fifth or
two hours and things are brought to you.There's food,music and service, but sixth time,that experience wears off.Miami is the perfect example.Look at how
it's still a relatively limited experience. many clever people have tried to make a clever statement in hotels alone. But
"At a hotel, there can be a moment like we're having now at this table, how much can you keep turning up the volume?It's the same thing that's hap-
more intimate,at the same time as the public moment of the lobby and the pri- pening with sex in commercial images. The volume gets louder, but in a weird
vary of the rooms.Morning,noon and night,different cultures resonate in one way the message gets muted.And in the end what does it all mean?"
March 2003
Ocean Drive 319