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A Grand Miami Beach Hotel, and Its History, Might Be Torn Down
New York TimesMIAMI BEACH — The baby-faced Beatles spent nine sun-kissed days in Miami Beach in 1964, basking in the warm winter as thousands of young fans thronged to catch a glimpse of the four Liverpool lads enjoying a bit of freedom on the ocean shore.
They stayed at the grand Deauville Beach Resort on Collins Avenue, and it was their live “Ed Sullivan Show” broadcast to 70 million people from the hotel’s Napoleon Ballroom — after their debut show in New York — that helped cement the Beatles’ extraordinary popularity in the United States, and the Deauville’s status as a South Florida cultural landmark.
In its heyday, the hotel hosted the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra. The Deauville was unmistakable, greeting visitors with a dramatic porte-cochère fashioned of parabolic curves over the driveway entrance, a feature of its postwar-modernist architectural style. On the sign out front, a star dotted the letter “i” in its name. It looked like something out of “The Jetsons,” embodying the promise of the future.
Today, the Deauville is shuttered, enclosed by an ugly chain-link fence and No Trespassing signs. Soon, it is likely to be demolished, to the shock and disgust of preservationists, who fear the hotel’s slow demise will set a troubling precedent in their efforts to protect South Florida’s history.
They stayed at the grand Deauville Beach Resort on Collins Avenue, and it was their live “Ed Sullivan Show” broadcast to 70 million people from the hotel’s Napoleon Ballroom — after their debut show in New York — that helped cement the Beatles’ extraordinary popularity in the United States, and the Deauville’s status as a South Florida cultural landmark.
In its heyday, the hotel hosted the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra. The Deauville was unmistakable, greeting visitors with a dramatic porte-cochère fashioned of parabolic curves over the driveway entrance, a feature of its postwar-modernist architectural style. On the sign out front, a star dotted the letter “i” in its name. It looked like something out of “The Jetsons,” embodying the promise of the future.
Today, the Deauville is shuttered, enclosed by an ugly chain-link fence and No Trespassing signs. Soon, it is likely to be demolished, to the shock and disgust of preservationists, who fear the hotel’s slow demise will set a troubling precedent in their efforts to protect South Florida’s history.
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