Miami Beach – The Ultimate Luxury Town For An Unforgettable Vacation

The EDITION is a wonderful mixture of showiness and subtlety. It’s sly, decadent and amusing. Even its beach is a little bit honesty, a little bit of artifice: reportedly, almost a million dollars worth of rocks were shipped in to form a small breakwater so guests could still swim on a rough day.

Just south of The EDITION is a hidden walkway, set between the hotels and the beach boardwalk. Easy to miss, it runs half a mile south towards the Metropolitan by COMO. At this small, cool, oasis, you won’t find a DJ playing by the pool, although during Miami’s Ultra Music Festival in March, you’ll see plenty of turntablers staying here, soaking up the peace and quiet and impeccable service, perhaps by the relaxation pool on the roof. The rooms, too, have a cool mood: mint-green walls, monochrome floors and frosted mirrors.

The Metropolitan may be all about restraint, but it’s an attribute that has long been in short supply in Miami Beach, where you can check into a five-star hotel wearing nothing more than a thong. People tend to think of Miami Beach and Miami as one and the same, but in fact, they’re two separate cities connected by four bridges. Miami Beach was incorporated as a city in 1915.

Having failed as a coconut and avocado plantation, this glorified sandbar soon found its natural calling as a holiday destination with an early string of small hotels. Within a decade, the rapidly growing city received its first presidential visit: Warren Ci Harding on vacation in 1921. In what was already becoming the regular Miami Beach overkill, he was given a special caddy for his first round of golf: a three-ton elephant called Rosie. To this day, Miami Beach hotels will try to give you something different for your dollar.

Next to the Metropolitan sits the 1 Hotel South Beach, the town’s first ecologically committed place to stay. Consisting of 426 rooms, it’s big, but pulls off the legerdemain of intimacy. The white, high-ceilinged lobby may now be a familiar Miami trope, but instead of acres of cut flowers, there is a ‘living wall’ of 11,000 plants. Beyond the lobby, the green initiatives continue: bedroom doors are unlocked with reclaimed-wood keycards; on the bedside table is a chalkboard instead of a notepad; inside the wardrobe, the hangers are made out of recycled paper and by the minibar there’s a tap that gives out fresh, filtered water.

But Miami Beach has always been about decadence and the 1 Hotel provides plenty of that too, with four swimming pools (including one on the rooftop), a fleet of Tesla electric cars to ferry guests around, a gym and a spa.A few blocks further south is another rebuild: Nautilus, a SIXTY Hotel. Like the EDITION, it plays with its origins and there’s a New Yorker behind it. Jason Pomeranc, who co-founded the Thompson Hotels brand.

Now with his SIXTY Hotels, he’s restored this 1950s property created by architect Morris Lapidus, the man who reinvented Miami Beach style. Even today, this is still old-school Miami where your stay begins with a drink, as you’re drawn through the lobby past the white columns, grand staircases and curved walls to a gently arched wooden bar. There’s a touch of Mad Men about the rooms too, such as the upended trunk that opens to reveal a minibar.

Speaking of Pomeranc, the Thompson Miami Beach has made its mark on the area as well. Here, three buildings have been stapled together to form a place that’s filled with colour and beats. The poolside 1930s House, with its original scalloped roof and Spanish-tiled floor, gives off a speakeasy vibe – just the spot for the first or last cocktail of the night.