A LEGACY of LUXURY More Than a Century Ago, One Man Had a Grand Vision

A LEGACY OF LUXURY More than a century ago, one man had a grand vision... View of Miami Beach along the shore of Biscayne Bay near at today’s 41st Street. Photo was taken on July 6, 1923. Courtesy State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Legendary entrepreneur Carl Fisher dreamed of transforming a small barrier strip of land into America’s Winter Playground. And yet even Fisher could not have envisioned Miami Beach would one day become a treasured international destination. 3900 Alton builds on the legacy of luxury begun more than 100 years ago. Aerial photograph of Nautilus Hotel (present day site of Mt. Sinai Medical Center), including its adjacent islands and Polo Fields in 1926. 3900 Alton Photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Workers begin construction of Nautilus Hotel in 1923. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. ORIGINS Carl Fisher t the turn of the 20th dredged irrigation canals, built a Century, Miami Beach wooden bridge to mainland Miami, was an uninhabited and planted rows of Australian barrier strip largely pines to protect his crops from covered in thick mangroves. ocean winds (those trees can still be seen At that time, few could have along today’s Pine Tree Drive). Collins’ envisioned that in less than three early efforts laid the foundation for decades it would be transformed developer and entrepreneur Carl into a luxurious paradise. Fisher. The Indiana industrialist, with Interestingly, it was agriculture – not a knack for marketing, dreamed of real estate – that set the stage for turning Miami Beach into an island Miami Beach’s development. In 1909, paradise for wealthy northerners. John Collins, a New Jersey native, Following an initial gift of 200 purchased more than 1,600 acres acres from Collins in 1912, Fisher of oceanfront land in the area now embarked on an ambitious plan of known as Mid-Beach. A farmer at buying and clearing hundreds of heart, Collins set out to create a large acres of land from ocean to bay. plantation of avocado, mangos and Crews built retaining walls, pumped other vegetables. Together with his in fill, and laid the foundation for a son-in-law Thomas Pancoast, Collins remarkable future. Handwritten letter from Carl Fisher dated May 19, 1919 on behalf of the Alton Beach Realty Company regarding the purchase of 68.2 acres in Mid-Beach for the sum of $500. Courtesy of University of Miami Special Collection. 3900 Alton Aerial view of Miami Beach looking south from 41st, circa 1920s. 3900 Alton Courtesy of Richard Hoit Collection, HistoryMiami. Aerial view of Nautilus neighborhood, St Patrick’s bell tower is visible at the center, with Nautilus Hotel in the background, circa 1930. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. AMERICA’S WINTER PLAYGROUND Nautilus Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida 3900 Alton y the early 1920s Miami building in a Spanish Colonial style Beach’s real estate boom (the firm also designed Miami’s Freedom was in full swing, with Tower, the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Carl Fisher leading the and New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria charge. He began building grand Hotel). Fisher spared no expense hotels on Biscayne Bay, while selling transforming the Nautilus into a his oceanfront lots for private luxurious haven. The six-storied residences. Ever the showman, hotel, with domed twin towers, cost Fisher garnered national publicity $1.25 million to build and furnish. in 1921 with images of President- The X-shaped floor plan featured elect Warren Harding vacationing 183 rooms and villas, and sat on at Fisher’s newly opened Flamingo 25 acres – including two adjacent Hotel, Miami Beach’s first grand private islands. Well-heeled guests resort. enjoyed tea dances, gondola rides Fisher’s second resort, the legendary on Biscayne Bay, and polo matches Nautilus by the Bay opened on on the property’s four pristine fields. January 10, 1924 at 43rd Street and Fisher reportedly flew in polo players Alton Road (the site of today’s Mount from Europe (paying them each $15,000 Sinai Medical Center). The renowned a year) to show “the locals” how it architectural firm of Schultze & was done. Weaver designed the hotel’s main Polo match in front of the Nautilus Hotel in 1928. 3900 Alton Courtesy of Matlack Collection, History Miami. “Miami Beach is America’s most delightful and exclusive winter resort. Blessed with a climate at once exhilarating and tonic in its balmy freshness – marked by unusual uniformity in temperature – and amid natural surroundings of the most enchanting beauty, it has been aptly termed America’s Winter Playground.” - Advertisement in Country Life Magazine, November 1922 3900 Alton LUXURY LIVING n their heyday during the 20s and 30s, North Bay Roads. Architects of the day the Nautilus, Flamingo, and Roney favored the Mediterranean style (also known Plaza Hotel (built in 1926, it was the first as Mediterranean Revival), which combined luxury resort on the ocean) were among Italian, Moorish, North African and Spanish the favored luxury spots, attracting European themes. Many fine examples of this style can royalty, high society and Hollywood notables. still be seen in the Nautilus neighborhood, Society pages of the day closely followed including homes designed by Miami’s first the movements of prominent guests and registered architect, Walter DeGarmo. area residents -- announcing their arrival by private yachts for the winter season, The grandest homes in the area were the and chronicling their daily activities, which ones built on along Collins Avenue, from included motorboat regattas on Biscayne 14th Street to the exclusive Bath Club. Bay (an avid sportsman, Fisher organized the Between 1920 and 1929, America’s leading famous Biscayne Bay businessmen, Speed Boat Regattas), including Harvey garden parties, and Firestone, J.C. Penney, shows at the nearby Harvey Stutz, Albert Miami Beach Garden Champion, Frank Theater. As Fisher Seiberling, and had hoped, wealthy Rockwell LaGorce, visitors often became built oceanfront enamored with Miami mansions along the Beach, purchased stretch that would property nearby and come to be known built second homes. as “Millionaire’s Row.” Among those estates was the 15-room mansion belonging to Today’s 3900 Alton sits on land once Oklahoma oil millionaire James Snowden, occupied by three luxury homes, dating near Collins Avenue and 44th Street. In 1923, from the 20s and 30s, just south of Nautilus’ Snowden sold the residence to Firestone for famed Polo Fields. The homes, which at $250,000. Three decades later, the Snowden/ the time fronted Biscayne Bay, were part Firestone estate was torn down to make way of a growing number of winter residences for the venerable Fontainebleau Hotel. In Guests at the Rooney Plaza, circa 1935. Courtesy of HistoryMiami. built in the increasingly popular Mid-Beach short order the early 20th century oceanfront area. One-by-one, beautiful residences estates would disappear entirely, as the city began lining Pine Tree Drive, Alton and pivoted into its next incarnation. 3900 Alton Home of Carl G. Fisher on North Bay Road, built in 1925 and designed by August Geiger. Map listing prominent residents of Miami Beach’s waterfront homes, published by Frank Sterns in 1932. Courtesy State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Courtesy of University of Miami, Special Collections. Bathing Suit model, 1955. Courtesy of the MBVCA Collection, HistoryMiami. GOLDEN ERA The once pristine Polo Fields of the Nautilus serve as a training ground for waves of servicemen passing through Miami Beach during World War II. Courtesy of the Miami News Collection, HistoryMiami. he life of leisure that pristine Polo Fields proved to defined Miami Beach be an ideal spot for recruits, in the 20s and 30s who trained on the fields before halted with the start deploying overseas. After the war, of World War II. In the early the Nautilus became the Veteran’s 1940s, waves of servicemen and Administration Hospital, until the women arrived in Miami Beach, VA later moved its operations to which served as a training site the Biltmore Hotel. The Nautilus and redistribution center for never again functioned as a hotel. the military during the war. US The allure of Miami Beach wasn’t Armed Forces commandeered lost on the recruits, however, dozens of hotels and apartments, many of whom later returned to including the Nautilus Hotel, vacation or to make their home which, in 1942, was converted in Miami Beach together with into a military hospital. Its once their brides. 3900 Alton Bathing Beauties enjoying Miami Beach, circa 1940s. 3900 Alton Courtesy of MBVCA Collection, HistoryMiami. MODERNIST MOVEMENT n the jubilant post-war years, Miami early twentieth century industrial millionaires’ Beach entered a new era marked by a oceanfront estates along Collins Avenue. glamorous life style and stylish modern Equally luxurious resorts, including the luxury. Development reached a scale Lapidus-designed Eden Roc, would soon never before seen in South Florida, and gave follow – as well as grand oceanfront rise to a bold and dramatic style that would apartment buildings, many in a bold mid- come to be known as Miami Modernist century design. Hotels in the emerging MiMo architecture or “MiMo.” style often incorporated an expansive use of glass curtain walls, cantilevered asymmetrical Beginning with the roofs, leaping arches, 1948 opening of the sweeping curved walls, Modernist Saxony dramatic fin walls and Hotel, designed acute angles. by Roy France, Resorts such as the renowned architects Fontainebleau, Eden descended on Miami Roc, and Deauville, Beach and designed a among others, became collection of world- as well known for class resorts over the their architecture as next two decades. for the celebrities Among this new who frequented them. generation of hotels was the Fontainebleau, The luxury, glamour, and excitement of built in 1954 by hotelier Ben Novak and Miami Beach in the 50s and 60s lured leading designed in extravagant Modernism by stars of the silver screen and stage, as well Morris Lapidus.

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