1. Miami & Miami Beach

Tequesta – Spaniards & The Seminoles

The first South Floridians were the Tequesta Indians, who discovered the area more than 10,000 years ago and built settlements stretching from the Florida Keys to Broward County, with the largest concentrations along the north bank of the Miami River and on Key Biscayne. They had it all to themselves until the time of the Spanish “entrada” in 1513.

Spain exercised control over Florida for nearly 250 years. After 1784, Spain liberalized its settlement policies in an effort to develop the colony, encouraging, in addition to its own countrymen, residents of other lands and faiths to settle in Florida. In the early 1800s, a few Bahamian families accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River and on Biscayne Bay, and farmed in those lush areas.

In 1821, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million dollars in Spanish damage claims against the American government. The Spanish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised over Florida. Enterprising wreckers from the Bahamas came to hunt for the remains of an international array of ill-fated ships that crashed onto the treacherous Great Florida reef.

At about the same time, the Seminoles arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. They fought to stay in Florida, and the area became a war zone from 1836 until 1857, with most non-Indian residents being soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas on the Miami River. Some of these soldiers and a few other adventurous frontier settlers gave Miami yet another new, foreign-born population. At war’s end, many of the Indians remained in the Everglades. Dade County, stretching from Indian Key to the Jupiter Inlet, contained less than 1,000 persons by the beginning of the century’s last decade. Undoubtedly, the area was among America’s last frontiers.

The Bahamians who stayed became Miami’s first permanent residents and helped found South Florida’s first real community, Coconut Grove.

Founding Fathers

The area’s greatest change came thanks to a visionary Cleveland widow named Julia Tuttle, who purchased 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River in 1891, moving her family into the abandoned Fort Dallas buildings. Within four years, Tuttle — the “mother of Miami” — convinced Standard Oil co-founder Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to Miami, build a luxury hotel, and lay out a new town. The railroad arrived in 1896. By then a city was arising on both sides of the Miami River. The heart of the community was a retail district along Avenue D (today’s Miami Avenue).

By 1910, Miami’s population had soared to nearly 5,500. All kinds of people flocked to the new city, which was never an ordinary Southern town. Miami’s first mayor was an Irish Catholic. Most of the early merchants were Jewish. African Americans and Black Bahamians made up one-third of the city’s incorporators.

Greater Miami never lacked for forward thinkers, including John Collins (a New Jersey Quaker) and Prest-O-Lite king Carl Fisher, who together in 1913 embarked on an agriculture venture on a spit of oceanfront beach and started a bridge across the bay. Miami Beach was born.

Boom & Bust

Tourism boomed before and after World War I. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. But this growth would pale by comparison with what lay ahead—the onset of the great real estate boom of the mid-1920s

Speculation brought people from all parts of the nation to Florida in quest of quick wealth in the overheated Florida real estate market and Miami was its storm center. The boom was accompanied by a breakdown in law and order. Bootleggers sold liquor obtained from the nearby Bahama Islands or from local moonshine stills to thirsty “boomers” and natives oblivious to Prohibition and its enforcement. The rate of violent deaths was greater than at any time since the state of Florida began record keeping

The boom began dissipating in 1926. Wary speculators backed off from further investment in light of inflation, and a series of setbacks brought construction to a standstill. The boom was over. In September, a hurricane with winds of 125 miles per hour smashed into the Miami area. The entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.

During the Depression, Pan American Airways launched the era of modern aviation with “Flying Clippers” from Miami’s Dinner Key. Even then, Pan Am advertised Miami as the “Gateway to the Americas.” (Today, Greater Miami has overtaken New York’s JFK as the nation’s leading gateway for international arrivals).

Also during the Depression, another new group, predominantly Jewish, came to Miami Beach and built a large number of small hotels with stark modern lines along lower Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive. This building boom helped bring the area out of the Depression and forty years later would become the world-famous Art Deco District, which includes the internationally renowned South Beach area.

The New Deal programs and America’s entry into World War II in 1941, led to a radical shift in Miami’s fortunes, as the city and other parts of Dade County became a huge training base for the armed services, bringing another 100,000 people to Greater Miami and the Beaches. Many of these servicemen made the area their permanent home after the war. By the end of the 1950s, South Florida had doubled its pre-war population.

The Cuban Identity & The Capital of the Americas

When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, no one dreamed that the revolution would change Miami as much as Cuba. The Cuban exiles who were just beginning to pour into the area were bringing the next Miami with them. The ’60s and ’80s brought mind-boggling change as more than half-a-million Cuban exiles fled to Miami to start a new life. These enterprising refugees launched the area into its future as what many call the “Capital of the Americas.”

The 1980s and early ’90s brought a multi-billion dollar infusion of investment capital that produced a beautiful new Miami downtown skyline, a reborn Miami Beach, a modernized transportation infrastructure and a new way of life that features the arts, culture, sports and entertainment, all with an international accent. Although it has changed almost beyond recognition (again), Miami Beach has thrived amidst change and overcome many difficulties.

Greater Miami and the City of Miami Beach continue to be an international mecca for travel, business and to establish a home.

2. Founding Fathers

Their names are everywhere! Who are the people behind these names? How did they help shape the history of Miami? Find a quick who’s who guide of our most famous historical residents.

Julia Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami”

Julia De Forest Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami,” is widely recognized as the only female founder of a major American city. The visionary widow from Ohio bought 640 acres at what is now Downtown Miami, moved down on a barge, and eventually convinced railroad man Henry Flagler to extend his new railway to the Miami River by sending him an unusual package.

Tuttle knew that a decent transportation (in that time, a railroad) was necessary to attract development. Three Great Freezes of 1894-1895 devastated orange groves and vegetable farms in central and northern Florida, wiping out citrus and fortunes alike. When Tuttle smartly sent Flagler a package of flowers or foliage — some say it was fragrant and enticing orange blossoms — she proved her Miami River properties were below the frost line.

“It may seem strange to you,” she told a friend, “but it is the dream of my life to see this wilderness turned into a prosperous country.”

Under an agreement between the two, Tuttle supplied Flagler with the land for a hotel and a railroad station for free, and they split the remainder of her 640 acres north of the Miami River in alternating sections. On April 22, 1896, train service of the Florida East Coast Railway came to the area. On July 28, male residents voted to incorporate a new city: Miami. Thereafter, the city steadily grew from a small town to a metropolis.

Mrs. Tuttle died on September 14, 1898, at age 49. Her name adorns the Julia Tuttle Causeway of Interstate 1-95 to Miami Beach, and her statue remains in Bayfront Park near the children’s playground.

Henry Flagler, the “Father of Miami”

Born in 1830 in New York, he cofounded the Standard Oil Corporation with John D Rockefeller. In 1881 Flagler travelled to St Augustine-Florida, where he envisioned an empire of transportation and real estate development. He purchased the St Augustine & Halifax Railroad which would eventually become the Florida East Coast Railway system. Three major Hotels followed: 540-room Hotel Ponce de Leon in St Augustine and the Palm Beach Hotels Royal Poinciana (at the time the largest resort in the world) and Palm Beach Inn (later, The Breakers).

In the late 1880s, Henry Flagler first began to think about ultimately extending his railroad and hotel system all the way to Key West. However, the timing of his plans were accelerated somewhat when the severe freezes of 1894 and 1895 affected the area around Palm Beach but not the settlement known today as Miami, about sixty miles further south.

Julia Tuttle, the Florida East Coast Canal and Transportation Company, and the Boston and Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company, each offered Flagler land to bring his railroad further south, which he set about doing immediately.

Flagler’s railroad, reached Biscayne Bay by 1896. Flagler dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town’s first newspaper, the Metropolis.

When the town incorporated in 1896, its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for its growth by naming it “Flagler.” He declined the honor, persuading them instead to use an old Indian name for the river the settlement was built around, Miama or Miami. A year later, Flagler opened the exclusive Hotel Royal Palm in Miami.

Following an amazing career as a founding partner of the largest and most profitable corporation in the world for more than a century, Henry Flagler literally invented modern Florida. The transportation infrastructure and the tourism and agricultural industries he established remain, even today, the very foundation of Florida’s economy, while the building of the Over-Sea Railroad remains the most ambitious engineering feat ever undertaken by a private citizen.

When Henry Flagler began his work in Florida, it was perhaps the poorest state in the Union. Today, thanks in large to his work, Florida is the third largest state in the Union with an economy larger than 90% of the world’s nations. Indeed, no individual has had a greater or more lasting impact on a state than Henry Flagler has had in Florida.

William & Mary Brickell, Miami’s “First Family”

The story of the Brickell’s is that of two pioneering adventurers (another Ohioan and his English wife) who eventually sought refuge in remote South Florida, and stayed for 50 years.

William Brickell was a colorful storyteller, though his real life needed no exaggerations. He joined the California Gold Rush and the Australian Gold Rush afterwards, where he met Mary, who volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War.

The Brickell’s came to the Miami River in 1872 and opened the first store, an Indian trading post and Post Office that was the center of the slow growing community. They acquired bay front land running from present Downtown Miami to Coconut Grove, soon becoming the largest active landowners in the County.

Mary Brickell joined with Julia Tuttle to negotiate with Henry Flagler for a town to be built on her land and Tuttle’s, to be connected by a bridge over the Miami River. William Brickell felt cheated by Flagler when he built the town only on the Tuttle side of the river where, in concert with his own interests, Flagler planned a major railroad terminal and a grand resort hotel. He refused to cross the bridge until after Tuttle’s death.

After William Brickell’s death, his widow, Mary Brickell, became one of the young city’s prominent real estate developers and managers.

Both Miami and Fort Lauderdale actually owe their existence to this cranky Ohioan and his English wife who shunned publicity, lost all their papers in a storm and had no living descendants.

John Stiles Collins, Mr Miami Beach

Born on December 29, 1837, in Moorestown, New Jersey, John Collins upheld the traditional American Quaker virtues of “honesty, sincerity, patience, sobriety, and a talent for hard work.”

Collins solidified his reputation as an innovator when he founded the New Jersey Horticultural Society. Adventurous in his investments, Collins first bought land in Florida in 1891. With an eye toward the marketplace as much as the soil, Collins wanted to grow exotic crops which hadn’t yet been introduced to the market: in particular, mangoes and avocados, or “alligator pears,” as they were called then. Collins eventually became the sole owner of five miles of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay — roughly 50 blocks of modern-day Miami Beach.

Collins tamed the swamp, full of rats and tangled roots. By 1907 his groves were successful, with mangoes, avocados, tomatoes and potatoes flourishing. Tourism was also beginning to flourish. Collins, though, was not interested in tourism, and now his focus switched to improving transportation, not for the sake of travelers but for his crops.

Collins had set up his sizable family — three sons, two daughters and their spouses — in the family business. Under their shrewd management, the New Jersey nurseries had prospered while their father was planting Miami. Collins’ canal would cost more than he could afford, and he asked his children for the money. Having lived through any number of their father’s hit-or-miss investments, they were reluctant to pour their money into Miami sight unseen.

What the Collins children saw in Miami led them away from horticulture and toward tourism, and they agreed to finance the canal only if their father would agree to build a bridge across it, thereby opening the beach to traffic and enhancing its real estate value. Construction on the bridge in 1912 triggered a flurry of real estate activity, and the land was soon advertised as “a veritable Treasure Island…and winter playground for the masses.”

At the end of 1912, money was short, and so was the bridge. With a half mile still to be built, Carl Fisher, the Indiana auto parts mogul, took one of innumerable gambles in his life. Fisher, who described Collins as “a bantam rooster, cocky and unafraid,” gave the 74-year-old $50,000 in exchange for 200 acres of his land on the beach.

With Fisher’s money, Collins finished his bridge on June 12, 1913, nearly a year after the projected six-month endeavor had begun. To remain competitive in the developing region, Collins and his son-in-law built a hotel. But John Collins never lost sight of his trees. By 1922 Miami Beach boasted the largest avocado and mango groves in the world, but Miami’s agricultural roots wouldn’t last much longer, sacrificed for the tourist trade.

When Collins died on February 11, 1928, Miami Beach bore little resemblance to the wild swamp he had tamed years before. The Collins Bridge was replaced on 1925 by the Venetian Causeway.

Carl Fisher, “Developer in Chief”

Born in 1874 in Greensburg, Indiana, Fisher quit school at age 12 and five years later opened a bicycle repair shop in Indianapolis. A successful entrepreneur, Carl made millions in 1909 after he sold his Prest-O-Lite automobile headlamp business to Union Carbide.

In 1912, Carl decided to retire. He liquidated all his investments and went to his home in Florida. He had $6,000,000 in cash and figured that he could loaf in style for the rest of his life. But he was a man of action and soon became bored with cruising in Biscayne Bay.

Across from Miami, on the long, narrow peninsula that reaches into the Atlantic, was another man of action, John Collins, 75-year-old Quaker who had come from New Jersey to grow tropical fruit. His avocado crop had been phenomenal, but he had no way to get it to market. So he began building a 21/-mile bridge across the Bay.

Fisher was so amazed at the audacity of the man beginning such a project at his age that he loaned the intrepid Quaker $50,000 to complete the job. Collins presented his benefactor with a 200-acre strip of property on the strand. All but the sandy shore was a swamp jungle, so when Fisher bought an additional 200 acres his friends asked the usual question: “Has Carl gone crazy?” But Carl wasn’t crazy; he was just dreaming again.

“I’m going to build the prettiest little city in the world right here,” Carl confided to them. “We’ll kill two birds with one stone. First we dredge the Bay to give it a deep channel and at the same time fill the swamp with the sand.”

The mangroves were cut away, and sand from the Bay was modeled into parks, golf courses and polo fields. Islands were built. Lakes and canals were dug. Boulevards were laid out. A “magic city” blossomed before the eyes of incredulous onlookers.

By 1922, however, Fisher’s entire fortune had melted into the sand. Carl led a battery of press agents to victory by selling sun, sand, sea and sex (the bathing beauty). By 1925, at the peak of the real-estate hysteria, his Miami Beach holdings were evaluated at $100,000,000.

When at last Miami Beach was a success, Carl’s friends expected him to retire as he had planned 12 years before, but as usual he could not rest. “I don’t have time to take time.” He was visualizing a summer resort equivalent to Miami Beach on Montauk Point, at the tip of Long Island. He began the Miami Beach story all over again. Montauk was the end of Fisher’s career. The tragic Florida hurricane of 1926, political interference, and finally the crash of ’29 were the final touches. He had gambled heavily on Montauk and lost. Mortgages on his Florida property were foreclosed, and soon the bulk of the Fisher fortune was wiped out.

Fisher’s last years were spent at Miami Beach in near-poverty. People remember him as an amiable, informal old man who talked of great plans for the Florida Keys. When he died in July, 1939, Miami Beach went into mourning, and the great of America came to pay last respects to the builder who had given so much to the country he loved.

Today, in a small park on the north end of Miami Beach, stands a bronze bust dedicated to Carl Fisher. It bears the simple legend: “He carved a great city out of a jungle.”

The Lummus Brothers

In 1912, two Miami businessmen, the Lummus Brothers, purchased 400 acres from John S.Collins. Through their banking business, they had financed Collins bridge project. They establish the Ocean Beach Reality Company with a clear vision: to build a city fronting the ocean made up of modest single family residences.

Driven by the consolidated efforts between Lummus, Collins and Fisher, the Town of Miami Beach was incorporated in 1915. At this time 80% of the population lived at the southern end of the island in the Lummus tracts and there were only thirty-three registered voters in the community. J.N. Lummus was elected Mayor and plans were made to supply electricity, telephone, sewage and water, which at the time was supplied by windmill powered underground wells.

In 1916 the sale of the land was sluggish. Both Lummus and Fisher had invested large sums of money in improvements, but the land sales did not meet their expectations and they were compelled to create further incentives. Lummus offered free lots to anyone who promised to build homes on his land.

This same year, the Lummus brothers finally sold their oceanfront property, between 6th and 14th Streets, to the city. To this day, this area is known as Lummus Park.

3. The Leslie Hotel

Even in the midst of the Great Depression, Miami Beach would undergo a building boom that today is celebrated in the National Register Historic District. The Leslie Hotel is a beautiful product of that boom and one of the best known buildings of the Art Deco era.

On August 27th, 1937 Miami Beach issued a construction permit to Mr Edward J.Singer, to build a three story hotel at 1244 Ocean Drive. In 1936, Ed Singer had previously built the Nassau Suite Hotel, located at 1414 Collins Avenue, designed by architect Albert Anis. Singer sold the Nassau on August 15th 1937 and three days after, bought the vacant lot where his new dream hotel would come to life.

Albert Anis (1889-1964), born in Chicago, worked in Miami Beach from the mid-1930s to the mid-50’s, designing dozens of exemplary buildings in the Art Deco, Streamline and Postwar Modern Styles. His creations include the Clevelander (1020 Ocean Dr), Winter Haven (1400 Ocean Dr), Traymore (2445 Collins Ave) and Berkeley Shore (1610 Collins Ave).

Ed Singer named his new hotel the “Edsinger”. It had 50 rooms and a total construction cost of $75.000. The exterior is classic Art Deco, with symmetrical façade, strong vertical and horizontal elements, corner eyebrows and a ziggurat roofline. It strikes for its boxy right-angles, lacking any of the curved contours of streamlining. Its front porch is designed with a stone railing that alternates square and round posts. The hotel Lobby featured terrazzo flooring, wood paneled walls, a limestone fireplace and a reverse-ziggurat ceiling contour with a metal lighting fixture running down its center.

During World War II the “Edsinger” was leased by the US Army-Air Force’s Technical Training Command for military use during the war. Miami Beach became the training ground for over 500.000 troops from 1942 to 1945. Hotels served as barracks, restaurants became mess halls and the nearby golf courses and beaches were drill fields. The “Edsinger” was returned to civilian use on June 14th 1944.

Mr Ed Singer sold the property in 1944. Obviously the name “Edsinger” had to go, and at this time the hotel was renamed “The Leslie”. The source of this name is unknown. The name “Leslie” was put into the terrazzo floor on the front porch at about this time.

In March 24th 2014, 77 years after its birth, The Leslie re-opened its doors after a profound renovation that sets a new standard for the historic Ocean Drive properties.

Alquimia Hospitality Group LLC and DN’A Design and Architecture, teamed up to transform “The Leslie” into a true 35-rooms Boutique Hotel. From the foundations up, a new program was designed for the building in order to enhance its guest’s service experience, while venerating all of its registered historic features.

The Lobby area terrazzo floors, ziggurat ceilings, pink marble stairs, perimeter wood wainscot, limestone fireplace & central light fixture have been all restored to its original bright. Its front façade revived with a stylish yellow color pattern and its lateral facades enhanced with elegant right-angled glass smoking balconies. A basement lounge area, gym, media room and business center where aggregated. A new Roof Terrace with and infinity edge swimming pool & spa crowns the amazing transformation of this historic jewel.

“Bringing modern functionality and comfort to a small historic property, without diluting its original magic. Integrating the property to the Ocean Drive vibe, without giving away its sense of exclusiveness. Those were the tasks we had in mind and put in place. We aspire to deliver happiness through a friendly hospitality experience” (Juan Pablo D’Onofrio)

4. The Nassau Suite Hotel

Both the Nassau and Leslie Hotels are products of the same real estate boom, and they have much in common. Both were designed by Chicago architect Albert Anis for the same owner, Ed Singer. Both are in the Art Deco style, and are contributing buildings in the National Register and locally-designated Historic Districts, and both served as barracks for U.S. Army-Air Forces trainees during World War II.

In July 13, 1936, a building permit was issued to Edward J. Singer, who did business as the Edwards Corporation and the Edsinger Corporation, for the three-story, 50-room Nassau Hotel at 1414 Collins Avenue, costing $60,000.

The front façade seen in the buildings vintage postcards remains largely intact today. This three-story building is divided vertically into thirds by two ribbed stucco pilasters.

The interplay of geometric forms is seen in most of Anis’ designs. Here there is a circular theme, with porthole windows and a complementary raised bulls-eye design. The recessed corner windows, appearing almost cantilevered, were another innovation of the time.

Other original features seen in the plans and/or postcard include the scalloped-edge eyebrow extending over and around the front porch; casement windows; decorative incised lines at the porthole windows; the stepped-up front parapet; and grouped perforations in the side parapet walls, giving a lacy effect. The fin sign on the building front was probably added in 1946, when a permit was issued for an electric sign, and replaced in 1975.

The original floor plan of the Nassau lobby is not very legible, but shows the curved stair at the northwest corner that is still present, and the elevator and reception desk on the west wall flanking a stepped-up hallway to the first floor guest rooms. The lobby floor is a pattern of square and oblong clay tiles in red and tan that is probably original, as is the shallow coved ceiling, although the hanging lights are new. The present reception desk is a recent construction of dark wood and white marble. On the south wall is a fireplace and built-in mirror of ribbed masonry that is not apparent in the original plans.

The reverse of the 1936 postcard includes advertising for the Nassau that may have been printed at a later date. It describes, among other things, a patio, a rooftop solarium, and a coffee shop. The patio may have been on the adjoining lot to the south, as seen in the postcard image; this lot has been vacant since at least 1935 and currently serves as a parking lot. A coffee shop and kitchen were built into the basement level in November 1937, according to the Building Card. Today both have been replaced by a business center, gym and movie theater.

In the first eight months of 1937, Miami Beach issued over $8 million in building permits, counting 18 hotels, 57 apartment houses, and about 200 residences.[1] In the midst of this boom, Singer sold the Nassau Hotel on August 15, 1937, for $115,000 to Rubin Feinberg. Three days after selling the Nassau, Singer bought the vacant lot at 1244 Ocean Drive, and within ten days, on August 27, 1937, he was issued a building permit for another three-story, 50-room hotel at this site, costing $75,000, that is the present-day Leslie. Things were moving quickly, and “flipping” was a popular activity.

Beginning in 1942, the Nassau, was leased by the U.S. Army-Air Forces Technical Training Command as the nation entered World War II. Miami Beach became the training ground for over 500,000 troops between 1942 and 1945. Hotels such as these served as barracks; restaurants became mess halls; the nearby golf courses and beaches were drill fields. Miami Beach’s availability as a training center at that time is credited with shortening the war effort by six to eight months and saving the government $6 million in building costs. According to their Building Permit Cards the Nassau was returned to its owners on July 10, 1944.

Besides the Nassau and the Leslie, Albet Anis’s work includes the Barnett Bank Building at 420 Lincoln Road, and the following hotels:
* Waldorf Towers 860 Ocean Dr
* Clevelander Hotel 1020 Ocean Dr
* Winter Haven 1400 Ocean Dr
* Traymore Hotel 2445 Collins Ave
* Berkeley Shore 1610 Collins Ave
* Promenade 1465 Collins Ave
* Biltmore Terrace 8701 Collins Ave

5. The Shepley Hotel

Born in 1938, The Shepley derived its name from its original owners, Mr and Mrs Shepard Swede. An exquisite Art Deco design by renowned New York City arquitect Henry Hohauser and its associate Frederick Gibbs, the hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Credited with being the originator of modernism in Miami Beach, Arquitect Hohauser exposed at the Shepley the signature features of the era: casement windows, channel-letter neon sign, nautical porthole windows on the parapet, prow-like projection of the second-story center window, a stepped up center parapet decorated with a vertical row of bosses and three horizontal bars; corner windows with narrow eyebrows, wrap around “racing stripes” and additional bosses on north and south facades. The porch has fluted porch columns, and is contained by a low wall topped with a simple metal railing.

A notation on the original Building Card confirms that the footings of The Shepley were designed to support a future third story, with an additional 18 hotel rooms and an elevator, but these were never added.

Authors celebrate this building as a forerunner of other Hohauser designs, noting especially its similarity to the Century Hotel at 140 Ocean Drive (1939) and the Davis Hotel at 1020 Washington Avenue (1941). Hohauser came to Miami in 1932. He practiced in Miami Beach for over 20 years delivering some of the most iconic buildings of the era:
* Park Central Hotel (640 Ocean Drive)
* Colony Hotel (736 Ocean Drive)
* Edison Hotel (960 Ocean Drive)
* Cardozo Hotel (1300 Ocean Drive)
* Collins Park Hotel (2000 Park Avenue)
* Essex House (1001 Collins avenue)

After just two years, in May 1940, the Swedes sold the Shepley to Louis Rotman of Iowa for $69.000, and he retained the hotel name. In the next chapter of its history, the Shepley became one of over 300 Miami Beach properties that joined the mobilization for World War II. The US Army Force Technical Training Command leased it for use as a barracks for military trainees. The Shepley returned to civilian service on June 15, 1944.

As the post war boom got underway, between 1944 and 1945 the Shepley, still just two stories high with 32 rooms, was sold four times in 18 months. The newspapers thought this was “a record, even for the tremendously active Miami Beach real estate market”. The new owners in 1945, who bought it for $ 125.000, still planned to add that elusive third story “when they are able to get materials for that purpose”. Apparently they never could.

The Building underwent extensive rehab and became the “Beachcomber Hotel” in June 1991.

Twenty three years later, a total remodeling of the property brought the original name back to where it belonged. In October 2014, The Shepley shined again. Argentinean born designer Pablo Chiappori and Alquimia Hospitality Group LLC, bring back to live the exciting vintage look of this unique and intimate boutique hotel.