Eden Roc Miami Beach Hotel

Eden Roc Miami Beach

The Eden Roc Miami Beach is a resort hotel at 4525 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida. It was designed by Morris Lapidus, in the Miami Modern style, and was completed in 1955-56. Eden Roc Miami Beach has been a favorite of distinguished guests from politicians to Hollywood's top stars. Renovated in 2008, the hotel offers 631 guest rooms, including 96 suites.[1] Eden Roc Miami Beach was built on the site of the Warner Estate following litigation over development rights to the site and to the neighboring Firestone Estate, which became the Fontainebleau Hotel.[2]

Design

Morris Lapidus designed the Eden Roc for a site immediately to the north of his Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel built in 1954. The hotel was designed for Harry Mufson, who was a then-estranged former partner of Fontainebleau owner, Ben Novack, who together had previously created another Miami Beach landmark hotel (the design of which Lapidus did not initiate, but completed) located about a half-mile to the south, the Sans Souci (which opened in 1949). The Eden Roc site had previously been the Warner Estate, owned by Albert Warner of the Warner Brothers. Mufson told Lapidus "I don't want any of the French stuff you used at the Fontainebleau. That's for kids."[3] Novack was infuriated at both Lapidus and Mufson for building the Eden Roc, then considered one of the most elegant and luxurious hotels of its time, and retaliated in 1961 by building a blank 14-story North Tower as a "spite wall" on the Fontainebleau property to shade the Eden Roc's pool. All rooms faced south, and the side facing the Eden Roc consisted of an unpainted and unsightly "eye sore," in which the sole window, an oceanside penthouse on the north side, belonged to Novack, which he created for the purpose of "keeping an eye on" Harry and his guests at the Eden Roc. Mufson sued Novack in what would become one of the most acrimonious, personal legal architectural battles in Miami Beach history.[4][5][6]

Hotel crest and sign

At the Eden Roc, Lapidus avoided the sweeping curves of the Fontainebleau, choosing instead a more formal composition reminiscent of earlier Miami Beach hotels.[5] The hotel is surmounted by a large finned enclosure bearing the hotel's signs. An addition on the south side of the Eden Roc property was built to cover the spite wall and new pools were built in unshaded locations.[6]

The hotel was named after the Eden Roc pavilion at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France. The hotel housed the Cafe Pompei, a supper club that offered entertainment with dinner. The Mona Lisa Room was an intimate formal dining room, and Harry's American Bar was the hotel's nightclub (not named after the hotel owner, Harry Mufson, but rather a famous bar – considered by many an institution - in Venice, Italy, and a name Morris Lapidus borrowed for the storied nightclub within the Eden Roc).[3]

Recent history

The hotel was restored in 1997 by architects Spillis Candela and Partners, and expanded in 2006.[5] Marriott International began operating the hotel in 2005 under its Renaissance Hotels & Resorts brand, with a fifty-year contract. However, due to disagreements between Marriott and the owners, which resulted in numerous lawsuits,[7] the hotel left Marriott on July 11, 2013.[8]

Eden Roc lobby

References

  1. ↑ "Eden Roc Miami Beach". Cvent Supplier Network. Retrieved 9 February 2014.
  2. ↑ "Beach to Fight Ruling over Firestone Estate". Miami News. September 3, 1948. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Eden Roc History". Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  4. ↑ personal, Mufson family archives (Richard Mufson) and the book, "The Eden Roc Story";
  5. 1 2 3 Shulman, Allan T.; Robinson, Randall C. Jr.; Donnelly, James F. (2010). Miami Architecture. University Press of Florida. pp. 319–320.
  6. 1 2 Shulman, Robinson, Donnelly, p. 318
  7. ↑ http://www.hotelnewsresource.com/article72175Marriott_International_To_Depart_The_Eden_Roc_Renaissance_Miami_Beach_July___.html
  8. ↑ http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/13/3450016/eden-roc-no-longer-a-renaissance.html

Coordinates: 25°49′10.47″N 80°07′20.34″W / 25.8195750°N 80.1223167°W / 25.8195750; -80.1223167

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