736 Ocean Drive; Henry Hohauser, architect
Editor’s note: While Harold Bubil takes some time off, we’ll reprise some of his popular columns. This column originally ran on June 10, 2017.
You could have given up on Miami Beach as America’s new Riviera after the collapse of the 1920s real estate boom and the 1926 "Great Miami" hurricane, one of the worst storms ever to hit the United States.
There wasn’t a lot of underlying infrastructure to support a rebirth of the city after it was leveled by the hurricane’s 140 mph winds and 13-foot storm surge. More than 400 Miamians died.
Adding to the challenge: the onset of the Great Depression.
But Miami Beach still had the beach and the sun and the slogan "It’s June in Miami," which was hung from a billboard in New York’s Times Square in 1920 by Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher. And it had style — the curvy Art Deco flair that was frequently expressed by the architect Henry Hohauser. A new wave of Art Deco buildings built in the mid-1930s to early 1940s reestablished Miami Beach’s resort economy for northerners who still had money to spend.
No building said "Art Deco" quite like the Colony Hotel, which was built in 1935 using Hohauser’s plans. Just three stories tall, it has the rounded corners and "eyebrow" overhangs that are a staple of Art Deco architecture, along with corner-turning casement windows. It also has the sign and the purple neon illumination that make it a regular feature on postcards and "click-magnet" online lists of Florida icons.
It is a symbol of the Miami Beach Art Deco District, which has its own preservation society and became, in 1979, the first 20th-century neighborhood to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. More than 800 structures are Art Deco, inspired by the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Artes Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. The hallmarks of the style are pastel colors, porthole windows, ship railings, curved corners, glass-block fenestration, chrome fixtures, terrazzo floors, artistic signs and other graphics, neon lights and signature sculptural focal points on the facades.
For his influence, Hohauser is on the state’s official list of "Great Floridians." He designed 300 homes, apartments, hotels and commercial buildings, including the Cardozo Hotel and the Essex House in Miami Beach.
A graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., his hotels were intended to be low-cost buildings so the room rates would be affordable for middle-class families.
Today, rooms at the Colony Hotel start at $95 a night. Remember, it’s June in Miami.
"Florida Buildings I Love" is Harold Bubil’s homage to the Sunshine State’s built environment.
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FLORIDA BUILDINGS I LOVE: No. 27: Colony Hotel, 1935, Miami Beach - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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