Design
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 had partnered with Ben Novack to build the Fontainebleau. 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." Novack, who had parted with Mufson on bad terms, retaliated by building a blank 17-story wing as a "spite wall" on the Fontainebleau property to shade the Eden Roc's pool, the sole window on the north side belonging to Novack's apartment.
At the Eden Roc Lapidus avoided the sweeping curves of the Fontainebleau, choosing instead a more formal composition reminiscent of earlier Miami Beach hotels. 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.
The hotel was named after the Eden Roc pavilion at the Hotel du Cap 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 (named for Harry Mufson) was the hotel's nightclub.
The hotel was restored in 1997 by architects Spillis Candela and Partners, and expanded in 2006. The hotel is currently operated by Marriott International under its Renaissance Hotels & Resorts brand.
Read more about this topic: Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel Miami Beach
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)