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The Fontainebleau

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Last Updated: November 14,2008 09:55:44 am

t’s hard to imagine a time when Fontainebleau wasn’t a fixture on the Miami Hotel scene. Miami Beach is a city of resorts, and Fontainebleau has historically stood at the head of the pack. Every American president since Eisenhower has spent a night on these sheets and since 1954 countless celebrities have been caught by paparazzi in various acts of debauchery on the resort's hallowed grounds. It's even functioned as a movie set with classics like Goldfinger, Scarface, and Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach filmed there. It’s a classic. It’s a relic. It’s re-opened.

Despite it's glitz, glamour, and storied past, a bevy of large-scale Miami hotels have now treaded the ground that Fontainebleau once laid. Fontainebleau suddenly found itself overshadowed by the competition. If there's anything that years of sports fandom have taught me, it's that you can't stand pat while others improve. You have to do something about it. In Fontainebleau's case (as with most sports teams), that means throwing money at the problem. If you want to see what a $1 billion renovation can do, now's the time to revisit Fontainebleau.

In addition to being a center of nightlife and tourism, the resort has always been noted as an architectural landmark that eventually came to define the dominant style of the city. That made the plans a bit tricky. How do you update a work of art? You don't see the curators of the Louvre painting ironic glasses onto the Mona Lisa, do you? Fortunately, there's not much need to worry. Most of Morris Lapidus' innovative architecture remains in tact. The updates have served to either accentuate or complement the original design.

Touches like curvilinear walls that catch the breeze in lieu of air conditioning have been left in tact, while modern touches like iMacs and Flatscreen TVs in every room have updated it for our paperless society. The famous "staircase to nowhere", a winding stairway that allow guests to "make an entrance" has of course been left alone. Complementing the resort’s two original towers, Chateau and Versailles, new Trésor and Sorrento towers now offer a combined 658 junior, one- and two-bedroom suites.

But this is a Miami resort, so it isn't worthy without a good pool. Luckily, Jeffrey Beers and Lifescapes International have pulled through with a brand new free-form pool surrounded by "walls of water", and an enclave surrounded by cabanas and sun loungers. Of course, this is just one of many pools. Why not include more pools? It's not as if there's an ocean to swim in!

The only suitable way to describe the complex is "sensory overload". You get the sense that every single dollar of the $1 billion has been spent. How else do you explain the eleven dining and drinking options that will eventually be open? And these aren't just burger joints; some of the most acclaimed chefs in the world have been brought into environments designed by such powerhouses as Jeffrey Beers, David Collins and Gilles & Boissier.

To outline Fontainebleau in all its glory would take another thousand words. In order to catch the full sublimity of the project, you have to see it for yourself. Whether you like it or not, you'll definitely be awed. - R.T.