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Sometimes a shot of Botox just ain’t enough. What’s needed is a
complete makeover from top to bottom. And in the Land of Extreme
Makeover, aka Miami Beach, the latest billion-dollar bombshell to
showcase her extreme transformation is that oft-denigrated Morris
Lapidus chef d’oeuvre the Fontainebleau. Once reviled for
its slap in the face of staid modernism with its emblematic curves,
cheese holes, and circles, the Fontainebleau has long held a fabled
place in the history of Miami Beach—and therefore, in the history of
American leisure and culture.
It was in 1952, right on the cusp of commercial aviation, that
hotelier Ben Novack purchased the Firestone mansion on upper Collins
Avenue and appointed Lapidus to create the largest hotel in Miami
Beach. As Lapidus explained in his autobiography, Too Much Is
Never Enough, American culture at that time was in the grip of
Hollywood—and so Lapidus created a movie set and let the guests be
the players.
When the Fontainebleau opened in 1954 (the same year as Judy
Garland’s A Star Is Born), more than 1,600 people attended
the inaugural ball—including the mayor of Fontainebleau, France.
Throughout the Fifties and early Sixties, the Fontainebleau played
host to every major entertainer and celebrity, from Presley,
Garland, and Gleason, to Dietrich and the Rat Pack. The resort was
the setting for Jerry Lewis’s The Bellboy, as well as
Goldfinger—but by the time of the filming of The Bodyguard
in 1992, the Fontainebleau was less a bombshell than a dowager
clinging to faded glory.
At some point near the end of the last millennium, we found
ourselves at the Fontainebleau for the first time, seeking to rent a
car—and what we found was, frankly, alarming. The abandoned rental
car desk was in the middle of a fusty, carpeted lobby, and there was
an elderly Austrian man, also waiting for the nasty employee to
return, who started conversing with us, imitating the irritated
rental car clerk in his heavily accented voice: “Pithy? She
thinks she’s pithy? I’ll show her pithy.”
Fast forward to 2008—where not a vestige of that faded Fontainebleau
remains. Instead, as soon as your car heads around the
Fontainebleau’s stately porte cochère and the valets, attendants,
and bellboys amass, it’s immediately evident that you’re in the
hands of a team of professional players. These are employees who
seem genuinely pleased to be witnessing the renaissance of an icon.
Thoughtful and courteous, as well as obscenely attractive, without
any of what is sometimes referred to as Miami Beach attitude, the
people who front the reception desks and concierge serve as an
exemplar to the hospitality industry as a whole.
Stripped down to steel studs and bare concrete and then completely
rebuilt with an almost complete reimagining, the Fontainebleau
shimmers with the impact of every dollar of its $1 billion dollar
makeover. Talk about making an entrance—back on the world stage!
From the moment you step into any of the Fontainebleau’s various
public areas—and let’s start with the famous central lobby, with its
world renown Staircase to Nowhere—you can’t help but feel as if
Lapidus has done you right and made you a movie set designed to
highlight all your best attributes. You feel it in your step; you
see it in everyone catwalking around you. You’re working your
shades as you stroll across the famous black bow-tied marble floor;
you’re creating a look. You’re part of the whole movie that’s
surely being filmed. This is life on celluloid—and it’s brilliant.
It’s not surprising that the Fontainebleau’s first re-opening bash
was the celebrity-laden Victoria’s Secret fashion show in late
November.
Perhaps what is most inspiring about the Fontainebleau’s
reconfiguration is the manner in which the signature Lapidus motifs
have been retained—floating ceilings, crystal chandeliers, sweeping
curves—and brought forward into 2008. This is as loving a
reconsideration of an architectural monument as any since perhaps
the reclaiming of Manhattan’s Grand Central Station—another public
stage set and cultural touchstone.
Spread out over twenty-two eye-popping, oceanfront acres, the
Fontainebleau resort showcases two new towers, the 37-floor Trèsor
and the 18-floor Sorrento, as well as the original Fontainebleau’s
Chateau and Versailles, both of which have been completely
reconceptualized. Utilizing a team of eight designers, architects
and artists who immersed themselves in Lapidus’s original vision,
the Chateau’s oceanfront rooms, for example, are a vision of
contemporary serenity, even as they nod to Lapidus’s favorite
sculptural details. Furnished with rattan table and chairs, as well
as two rattan chaises, the oceanfront terrace of our suite could
easily have hosted a cocktail party for twenty. Alas for our
friends, we were too selfish—and chose instead to indulge ourselves
in sumptuous shelter magazine fantasies of the high life. (Insert
photo—of two style mavens swathed in white waffle spa robes, peeling
an orange, drinking champagne…)
Few things in this world are as inspirational as awaking to the
sound and sight of the surf breaking on the shore—and our Chateau
suite ruined us for any alternate life. We’re talking a bathroom
that could’ve housed a Bentley, with a walk-in shower that could’ve
accommodated six (not that we attempted, mind you…) Equally alluring
was the suite our friends had in Sorrento Tower. Ranging in size
from a studio apartment to a Manhattan penthouse, the Sorrento
suites include flat panel television, kitchenettes with granite
countertops, marble bathrooms, jet tubs, walk-in showers, and
spacious balconies. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tropical
sunset wash over the Miami skyline from your Sorrento tower room.
The problem? Who wants to leave rooms and suites such as these?
Though the rest of the resort beckons, tempts, and cajoles, it’s
sometimes difficult to pull oneself away from such commodious
accommodations. But you must! There are restaurants awaiting—and
we’re not talking just any old restaurants. The eleven dining
choices peppering the resort include those of such renown New York
chefs as Scott Conant (L’Impero, Scarpetta) and Alfred Portale (Gotham
Bar and Grill), as well as—get ready for this—Alan Yau, chef of the
only Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in London, Hakkasan.
When preparing for dinner, channel your inner Lapidus—and prepare
for an entrance. With its flickering blue-lighted floor, the
central lobby bar, Bleau, demands it—and so do what are known as the
spines of the building— connecting halls more akin to catwalks.
Still can’t bear to leave your room? Not until well after
midnight? Well, you’re in luck: Blade, the late-night sushi hangout
might be just what you’re looking for at that bewitching hour.
Apart from the eleven restaurants and lounges, and a 40,000 square
foot spa, there’s also the pool. No, not just any pool, but a
free-form pool evoking Lapidus’s lobby floor bow ties. Arguably the
heart of the Fontainebleau, the pool is where you’ll find yourself
surrounded by “walls of water” as you await the emergence from the
ocean of the latest James Bond.
And speaking of legends, what was once Sinatra’s favorite haunt, the
Tropigala Lounge, has now become LIV (think Roman numerals—54—the
year of Fontainebleau’s opening), a marquee nightclub that has
already hosted the likes of such world-class deejays as David Guetta
and Tiesto.
Beyond the grand statements (and did we mention the Mac computers in
every room—to insure a “paperless” hotel, whereby all guests are
connected whenever and wherever they wish to be—and if you’re like
us, and always irritated by the numerous paper doo-dads and
advertising that greets you in your hotel room, then you can
appreciate entering a room bereft of all that useless
paraphernalia), it’s the attention to detail that proves so
alluring. The linens, for example, created exclusively for
Fontainebleau, all sewn with an in-house Made For Fontainebleau
label. Bath sheeting supple enough for a newborn—and large enough
to swaddle a camel! Toiletries by Lapis, the in-house label for the
Fontainebleau’s spa, Lapis. For as Morris Lapidus well knew—in
constructing a movie set, it’s the numerous details which create a
whole.
According to Jeffrey Soffer, the Executive Chairman of Fontainebleau
Resorts, LLC, “We are moving the resort into the future…to create a
21st century showplace [for] a new generation of
tastemakers.” With the opening of the $3 billion Fontainebleau Las
Vegas set on 25 acres of the Strip scheduled for the autumn of 2009,
Soffer would appear to be leaving nothing to chance in terms of
snaring those tastemakers. But at least for now, it’s all about the
Fontainebleau, the once and always original on Collins Avenue in
Miami Beach.
As Lapidus put it best, “I’m selling a good time”—and ever since
then, and more than ever now, Miami Beach has been the better for
it. Vive le Fontainebleau!
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