On our last night Mark’s old friend Mary Ryan from Tom Harkin world drove down from Fort Lauderdale for dinner with us. The big smiles suggest how much fun we had.
We love Miami Beach. There is just something about the colors, the sunlight, the beach, the people, the architecture, the Latin pulse – the whole thing. Mark says there’s no place on earth where he’s just happier. So after all that road trip from Duluth and all the visiting friends we settled in to a full week in Miami Beach.
And after a week there it’s possible I love it even more than I did when we arrived. We stayed at the Shore Club, once perhaps the hottest spot in South Beach. It’s where we spent our brief honeymoon in 2004 (while Mark was deep into the Kerry campaign) and we’ve been back several times since then. We weren’t inclined to stay there this time – the scene can be just too young for us – but it was priced much lower than other hotels. So we booked our week there.
The view from our hotel room. Nothing not to like here!
And then we learned why it was priced so much lower than other places. Over the years, the hotel has kind of gone to hell. It had the feeling of a hotel that the managers had quit taking care of because they figured they would sell it. Actually, that’s exactly what happened: there was a plan a year or so ago to do a serious renovation and connect it to high-end condos. That plan fell through due to a lack of financing, though, and for now then it’s still open as a hotel. A hotel that no longer has the sizzle it once did. And a hotel that now charges a mandatory “resort fee” for stuff that used to be included in the price of the room. Resort fees are just a way to hide the true cost of a hotel. They suck.
One day’s activity from my AppleWatch
What do you do in Miami Beach for a week? Normally you go for nice runs and walks, alternate between pool and beach, and explore the restaurant scene. We had an additional mission though: explore real estate. We’re starting to be pretty serious about finding a home again, someplace we would live maybe half the year while still exploring the world the other half, and Miami Beach is one of the finalists along with New York City and Paris.
We kind of randomly reached out to an agent who was listing one property that intrigued us and she set up two days of pretty intense house hunting. It turns out that she actually knew little about the South Beach market (OK, she didn’t know anything about it) but she still did a good job of setting up tours of maybe a dozen condos. It was all pretty exciting and there were moments when I could see myself making an offer then and there. We’re actually not ready to do that yet and of course it would be insanely stupid to be quite that spontaneous. The fantasy was attractive though.
Yeah, South Beach is beautiful
In the end living in Miami Beach is probably not likely. The climate is wonderful and there is a lot we love, but ultimately I think we would get bored living here. Late in the week we reached out to an old college friend of Mark’s who is a real estate agent here (Mark was initially reluctant to do so as doing business with friends can be a mistake) and he had great insights for us, suggesting that our ideal situation of finding a run down unit and designing our own space was definitely possible. Still, after a burst of excitement about living here, now we’re both skeptical. After stops in Key West and Boston we’re planning on spending two weeks in New York and we suspect we’re going to find that a lot more appealing than Miami Beach, more interesting.
And then our week was over. It’s a place we’ll always return to but for now it’s off to Key West.
The Shore Club pool isn’t quite the scene it once was but it’s pretty nice
The pool at night used to be a big party zone. No longer the case but still pretty.
The pool is still the site of an occasional fashion shoot
Why were hotel prices so high? Two of the biggest and best hotels on Collins Avenue – the Raleigh and the Ritz – were shut down, presumably the result of last year’s Hurricane Irma. This is – or was – the Ritz. I guess if you lose that many hotel rooms prices go up.
One day while eating lunch we started chatting with a local sitting at a nearby table. She turned out to be seriously annoying, maybe drunk, but before we lost interest she insisted we had to go over to Miami to see the public art in the Wynwood neighborhood. She repeatedly compared it to Soho in Manhattan. So I went there. Some of it was impressive, but it was no Soho. Not even close.
Another shot from Wynwood
We love the weather in Miami Beach. We love it in the heat of summer and we love it when storms move in. Especially if it gives you a double rainbow.
We discovered a Greek restaurant. The reviews were good but the feta cheese was bad. How can you have bad feta cheese in a Greek restaurant?
And Mark with a Perfect Manhattan toasting a nearly perfect city
Do let me know if you are in NYC. Off to Kyiv for a week, back next Sunday. Maybe we should do a swap – you live here half a year while I travel and then we switch.