1628-15 Various Miami Beach TAG: 0008090394
19 of 127, 2 Terms
mh FABULOUS IN THE '50S, FADING BEACH HOTELS FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE 12/08/1996
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1996, The Miami Herald
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 EDITION: Final
SECTION: Arts PAGE: 1I LENGTH: 131 lines
ILLUSTRATION: color photo: pool area of the Crystal House (a) , lobby at the
Saxony (a) , EDEN ROC; photo: AMERICANA HOTEL
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: By PETER WHORISKEY Herald Architecture Writer
MEMO: ARCHITECTURE
FABULOUS IN THE 50S, FADING BEACH HOTELS FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE
'There is nothing glamorous about middle age.
Especially in architecture.
A perfect example is the generation of beach hotels that sprang up in Miami
Beach during the '50s, the sprawling Auto Age colossi that functioned as
self-contained tourist cities, complete with restaurants, shops and
nightclubs, monstrously big resorts wrought in the spirit of finned Cadillacs
and the bada boom boom cha of Xavier Cugat, mid-rise pleasure domes rising
along Collins Avenue to form an entirely new kind of cityscape: The Strip.
Every year there was another -- The Saxony, the Deauville, the Carillon --
each the product of a high-stakes game of architectural can-you-top-this that
left a string of buildings that for all their opening day glamour, their prize
fights, house orchestras and bejeweled showgirls, have receded in prominence
ever since.
Now the question is: Are they as worthy of historic preservation as their
celebrated Art Deco predecessors?
Today, many of these behemoths are as forlorn as the '30s Deco hotels were
before South Beach preservationists came to their rescue. None of the '50s
hotels, not even the venerable Fontainebleau -- the curved gargantuan that
combined Versailles-style gardens, Belgian chandeliers and modern abstraction
-- is protected against demolition. For while the 'S0s hotels are old enough
to have become decrepit and ignored, they are too young for historic
preservation. In architectural terms, this is what being middle-aged means.
But that may change.
Last month, the Miami Design Preservation League, the group largely
responsible for saving the Art Deco district, began offering tours of what
they call "Magnificent Mid Beach. " It's the first step, according to tour
leader Randall Robinson, toward building broad public support for
preservation.
"These hotels are the very essence of Miami Beach's heyday -- of fabulous
Miami Beach, " Robinson said one day last week, pointing out the sights from a
car rolling up Collins Avenue. One grand porte cochere after another winds by
against a backdrop of• mid-rise hotels, and Robinson, a 33-year-old goateed and •
bespectacled preservationist, raves about a cityscape and a past that most
people choose to forget.
"Think about it. You could have Elvis, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra
dropping in at a bar mitzvah at the Fontainebleau. When Art Deco was big in
the '30s, Miami Beach drew only a limited audience. But at the time these
hotels were built, Miami Beach was an international phenomenon . "
He points through the windshield to the Saxony (1949) , "an elegant bridge
from Art Deco to International Style" . . . to the Eden Roc (1955) , "the
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greatest expression of the ocean-liner an liner influence on Miami Beach architecture"
cochere represented a modern kind of architectural grandeur. "
Geared to cars
Though it requires simultaneous braking and craning, seeing these '50s
hotels from the car might be most appropriate, at least historically:
Architects then counted on guests arriving not on foot but by car. As a
result, the front porches of Art Deco hotels evolved into elaborate porte
cocheres; moreover, the subtlety of Art Deco bas relief was abandoned in favor
of decor on a larger scale, sometimes shaping entire buildings after new
curves and angles.
"People had to be able to get an image of the hotel within a few
seconds, " said Norman Giller, the Miami Beach architect who designed, among
others, the Carillon Hotel at 68th and Collins. "They were driving. A
building had to stand out, it had to have pizzazz, so people might say, 'Hey
-- why don't we stay there?' "
For years, the roadside appeals worked, even as the designs shocked
architectural purists. The critics had a word for it: Superschlock.
The foremost hotel architect of the era, Miami Beach's Morris Lapidus,
became the focus of the critical ire. His popular success at the Fontainebleau
and Eden Roc -- and his subsequent infamy within the architectural profession
-- sprang from his flamboyant, almost delirious, combinations of styles. His
approach at the Eden Roc confronted the world with a question that made some
people uncomfortable: Hey, why not combine mirrors, a Chinese mural and
classical statues?
Waning commercial appeal
Today, however, even as the kind of stylistic free-for-all on display at
the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc has won widespread acceptance, the
commercial appeal of many similar '50s hotels has waned, making preservation a
pressing and possibly controversial issue.
Some of the hotels, like Lapidus' Algiers, have been torn down. Others have
been remodeled and stripped of their original charm: Gone are the dramatic
bird cages in the lobby of the Sans Souci, gone is the alligator terrarium at
the Sheraton Bal Harbour (built as the Americana) , gone are the
Versailles-style gardens at the Fontainebleau. Not surprisingly, Lapidus, who
designed all three, is neither surprised nor much bothered.
"Of course, I regret the changes, " says Lapidus, 94. "But we're living
in another generation. People don't sit around in lobbies anymore -- and in
the Fontainebleau lobby there isn't a single chair you can sit down on. But
that's just, going with the times. "
Nevertheless, he supports the idea of preservation.
"The one question that people are always asking me when I lecture: Why
isn't the Fontainebleau listed on the National Register of Historic Sites?
Most people think it already is. "
'S' is falling
These days, many of the '50s era hotels are either decrepit or the focus of
major renovations. Outside the Saxony hotel, for example, which newspaper
reports described as 'ultramodernistic' when it opened in 1949, the grand
fountain does not work. Elderly vacationers sit outside in garden chairs. And
amid its old murals of ante-bellum New Orleans and the Baroque-ish portico
announcing the Bella Roma dining room, an air of forgetfulness hovers. The 'S'
in the Saxony sign is falling off.
What happens next depends largely on whether the public rises to support
the preservationists. Miami Beach preservation officer William Carey is
scheduled this year to evaluate the old hotels for possible preservation. Any
such measure would then face a vote by the City Commission.
As it stands now, the most difficult obstacle for preservationists may not
be the buildings themselves, but the character of the neighborhood they form:
rt
OMMMMOMOMMMIMM•The Strip is not nearly as charming as South Beach. And while the
Fontainebleau and a handful of other revered behemoths clearly have support,
• some expect a fight over how many will receive historic status.
Some people want to pick out favorites -- and leave the rest to rot. But
others, like Robinson, envision extending rules for historical appropriateness
over the entire city of Miami Beach. . . and then some.
"I want the whole island, " Robinson confides, then remembers that he
would also like to preserve much of Bay Harbor Islands, too. "Actually, I
want the whole archipelago. "
CAPTION: CHANGES: The Americana, now the Sheraton Bal Harbour, lost both its
name and its alligator terrarium.
SANS SOUCI: The lobby cages with live birds are no more.
C.W. GRIFFIN / Herald File
EDEN ROC: 1955 hotel has free-for-all style.
C.W. GRIFFIN / Herald Staff
'ULTRAMODERNISTIC' : That was how newspaper reports
described the Saxony when it opened in 1949. The lobby
retains the oval columns lighted from within.
C.W. GRIFFIN / Herald Staff
BLEND OF STYLES: The pool area of the Crystal House,
designed by Morris Lapidus, typically combines modern
zigzags with a baroque doorway.
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