Stretching seven and a half miles in length, Miami Beach stands separated from the mainland by three and a half miles of water. As cities go, Miami Beach has a relatively short history since little more than one hundred years ago, the area was nothing more than a nameless and virtually impenetrable collection of islands (landfill has fashioned it as it is today) lined with natural sand beaches on the ocean side, and a tangled of palmetto jungles and mangrove swamps in its interior. Prior to 1870, the island was practically untouched and aside from a few Tequesta Indian remains found from the 15th century, the only other known inhabitants of this forlorn strip of land were alligators, crocodiles, and ever-present mosquitoes.

Charles Lum
In 1870, an enterprising father and son from Ohio, Henry and Charles Lum, visited Miami Beach (known then as the "Beach" or "Ocean Beach"). Envisioning frontier fortune and opportunity, they bought a tract of land running from Cape Florida to the Jupiter Inlet from the United States Government. They purchased one hundred sixty acres at seventy-five cents an acre for the purpose of planting and harvesting coconuts as the first commercial enterprise on the Beach.

In 1882, with additional income from two New Jersey investors, Ezra Osborn and Elnathan Field, the Lum project got off the ground. Charles Lum brought his bride to the Beach in 1886, where they built a rough fifteen foot by fifteen foot timber and thatch cabin and became the first full-time residents on the Beach. It was a solitary life and they lasted only eight years. In 1894, the Lums moved away forever and the dream of coconut tycooning fizzled.

Architecture
The architectural style of Miami Beach's grand hotels and elegant private residences was well in keeping with the prevailing conservative tastes of their day, exemplified by historical revivalism. One might christen the style as Mediterranean Eclectic—a mix of Spanish Colonial Baroque, Tuscan Villa, and Venetian Gothic.

It may have been conservative, but it was also suited to a tropical climate. Open loggias, terraces, and courtyards permitted the flow of ample sea breezes into the structures, and stucco facades were tinted pinks and beiges to reduce the glare from the strong Florida sunshine. Red tiled roofs, elaborate wrought iron work, and fanciful plaster castings further enhanced the romantic image. The Mediterranean Style and its accompanying motifs were not new to South Florida. In 1918 Addison Mizner had developed his own colorful Spanish-type architecture in Palm Beach.

 Flapper with Rosie the Elephant

Carl Fisher in his speedboat on Biscayne Bay

South Beach in the 1920s

John Collins
But all was not lost. An original investor on the Osborn-Field-Lum plantation scheme, John Stiles Collins, was no quitter. He was a tenacious and optimistic Quaker, and he came down south from his New Jersey home in 1896 to see what had happened to his investment. Collins was a farmer with a bent for scientific horticulture, and he soon saw that the soil on Ocean Beach was not suited to coconut farming but was ideal for avocados and other fruits and vegetables.

In 1907, an arrangement with Field left Collins, at the spry age of seventy, the sole owner of a five mile long beach plantation. His land ran from the Atlantic to Biscayne Bay and from what is today 14th Street to 67th Street.

Collins began by cultivating only a small strip of land along the area that is Indian Creek today. Clearing and preparing the land for farming was a difficult task. Dense forest had to be filled and getting supplies from the mainland across the Bay was no mean achievement. To protect the young avocado plants from rain and wind, Collins imported and planted a row of Australian pines in 1908 which still stand today along a road which bears their name, Pine Tree Drive.

Collins, by the way, did not live on his ocean plantation. He stayed in a hotel in Miami and hired a tenant to live on the farm. To facilitate easier travel from the mainland to his property, Collins decided to build a bridge across the Bay and cut a canal through the island.

At the same time that the Beach was blooming, similarities in architectural forms could be found in the city of Miami, as well as in George Merrick's development of Coral Gables.

The building boom was in full swing by the middle 1920's. In 1916, there had been only one hotel on the Beach, Fisher's Lincoln, with 16 rooms. By 1925, there were at least 234 hotels and apartment houses. The Beach could boast 8,000 permanent residents, 300 shops and offices, eight bathing casinos, three schools, four polo fields, three theaters, and two churches.

One of the best remaining areas that still exhibits the Mediterranean flavor of this period was built on Espanola Way. It was known as the "Spanish Village" and was created by Robert Taylor in 1925 for N. B. T. Roney and consisted of hotels, apartment houses, and stores. The block long "Village" featured patios, balconies, and casement windows all executed in a Spanish manner. Roney even went so far as to stage musical fiestas to heighten the Hispanic effect furnished by the architecture.

Hurricane of 1926
By the 1925 season Miami Beach was an American success story. It was high society's tropical dream land that the rest of America fantasized about. But while high society traveled south each winter and kept up the frantic pace of the jazz Age, the bucolic frivolity was suddenly dampened by the hurricane of September, 1926.

Carl Fisher's Miami Beach home
on Alton Road

Hardie's Bathing Casino
Ocean Drive just north of Biscayne Street

Roney Plaza Hotel 
23rd & Collins  

His little hobby was now a costly venture and his family back in New Jersey was becoming skeptical of the financial drain. In 1911, Collins' sons, daughter, and son-in-law, Thomas Pancoast, came to have a look for themselves.

The future they saw in Collins' ocean front property was not in truck farming, but in developing an area for resort and recreation. Sea bathing was already a popular pastime on the southernmost tip of the island. By 1911 rickety boardwalks replete with rough wooden bath houses (creatively referred to as "casinos") had sprouted on Ocean Beach. Pancoast and Collins struck an agreement on developing the family's property. They formed the Miami Beach Improvement Company, and while Collins would continue his farming, Pancoast, who had permanently relocated to Miami, began to promote the pleasure industry.

Collins Bridge
Work on Collins' bridge and canal began in 1912. Dredge from the canal was used as fill for the roadbed to the bridge, making the task as arduous as it was costly. Collins planned to build a bridge large enough to accommodate vehicular traffic, but four months after construction began his money had run out and the bridge was only half way across the bay. The project was quickly labeled "Collins' Folly" and Collins himself seemed destined to obscurity—but not for long. The bridge was refinanced and finally completed in 1913, becoming the longest wooden structure of its type anywhere. In 1920, Collins' bridge was sold to Jacksonville developers who turned it into what it is now the Venetian Causeway, a chain of man-made islands that traverse Biscayne Bay at 17th Street.

The main thrust of the storm centered on the Beach and homes and hotels were inundated by several feet of water. Roofs were torn from buildings and boating piers were swept into the sea. The storm also took its toll on human life, but the mammoth hotels which were built soundly on concrete piles, suffered little structural damage. Recovery took only a few months until the Beach was ready for the winter season, but investors stayed away. The greatest havoc imparted by the storm was on Miami Beach's reputation, and that seemed almost irrevocable. Speculators saw the island paradise as malevolent and pernicious. The great land boom burst at its own hyper-inflated seams.

Wall Street's Woes Come to Miami Beach
The 1929 stock market crash, and the economic depression that followed, further diminished any hope for financial recovery. Development was curtailed and days of decline lay ahead. The glimmering image of the Beach was tarnished and high-brow attitudes and snobbery could no longer be sustained. When Chicago gangster Al Capone arrived in Miami in 1930, no one had the power to escort him out of town once he and his gang lodged themselves in a palatial home on exclusive Palm Island and began buying his way into clubs and race tracks.

In spite of the hurricane, national economic malaise, and damaged pride, Miami Beach nevertheless continued to grow in the 1930's. The one essential difference from the previous decade was the type of clientele as the social circle was enlarged to a broader base. Between 1930 and 1940, the permanent population swelled from about 6,500 to 28,000, and winter visitors numbered well over 75,000.

Bill Jordan's Bar of Music
22nd Street

La Ronde Supper Club
at the Fontainebleau Hotel

Martha Raye's Five O'Clock Club
22nd & Collins Avenue

Carl Fisher
The financial rescue of Collins came from a thirty-five year old Prest-O-Lite (automobile headlights) magnate, Carl Graham Fisher. The story of Fisher and his presence on Miami Beach has become legend. Fisher came south from his home in Indianapolis in 1912 for a vacation with his young bride Jane, and immediately recognized the potential for developing Miami Beach into a new Riviera—an American Riviera. Fisher was never a man to do things in a modest way. He may have been impetuous in his vast schemes as an entrepreneur, but he had both the money and the clout to realize his ambitions, and the Beach would come of age under his tutelage.

In return for financing Collins' bridge, Fisher received a tract of Collins' property. With this and other lands he purchased, Fisher formed the Alton Beach Realty Company.

A massive campaign was begun to drain and fill the swamps and clear the mangroves. Plots of land were prepared to be sold for residences, and Fisher began to build nightclubs, swimming casinos, and other attractions to entice people to the Beach.

By 1914, south of what is now Lincoln Road, the Beach had sidewalks—some board and others concrete; several streets wide enough for automobiles; a canal; a wooden bridge linking the mainland; electric lights; and 49 residences, with the largest being Fisher's own home.

J.N. Lummus
On March 26, 1915, the Beach became incorporated as the town of Miami Beach (it became a city two years later). There were thirty registered voters and J. N. Lummus became the first mayor.

Lummus had come to Miami in 1895. Seventeen years later, he and his brother, J. E. Lummus, bought the remainder of the old Lum plantation and some adjoining properties, and together they amassed about 500 acres of swamp with ocean frontage and formed the Ocean Beach Realty Company.

The Lummuses, unlike Collins and Fisher, always seemed short of funds. Shortly after Miami Beach was incorporated, they sold the city a strip of land which ran along the ocean from about 5th Street to 15th Street and was called (as it still is today) Lummus Park. Many of the palm trees on that property were the original coconut trees from the Lum plantation.

High Society Comes To Miami Beach
As early as 1915, a curious dichotomy was established between the Lummus and Fisher properties. The Lummus family members were never too discriminating as to whom they sold or leased land, and their real estate had a pervasively proletarian atmosphere. The ocean front rooming houses, lunch counters, and bathing casinos which occupied the Lummus land offered a relaxed and hospitable atmosphere. They were open to anyone of any economic status who wished to enjoy the ocean and fair weather.

Fisher, on the other hand, wanted his winter playground to cater to the rich and famous. The atmosphere he cultivated was restricted and exclusive. Between 1915 and 1920, Fisher sunk millions into his vacation paradise, but even those who could afford such luxuries held back. These were, after all, the war years and the mood of America was cautious at best.

The sparse and restrictive years during World War One generated a restlessness in America which during the 1920's unleashed an era dedicated to reckless abandon. By the winter of 1920-1921, throngs of northerners began to rush to the balmy shores of Miami Beach where euphoric dreams of sunshine in December, nightclubs, gambling, polo matches, yachting, and bootleg liquor were fulfilled.

Land Boom
An even more consuming urge brought people in droves—the delirious Florida land fever. Rumors circulated that real estate values could escalate as much as a thousand percent in less than a month. Fortune hunters flocked to South Florida to strike it rich, and the natives in knickered white suits and Panama hats waited to wheel and deal.

No one was more adept at luring prospective buyers than Carl Fisher, who was a shrewd and clever promoter. Always operating on a grand scale, Fisher gambled and won the highest stakes. To entice big money to the Beach, he built opulent hotels. These pleasure palaces were constructed on Fisher's bay-front or inland property where land was still relatively inexpensive.

The presence of a Fisher hotel immediately raised the value of the surrounding land, which Fisher adroitly sold to vacationers staying in those very hotels. It was a neat scheme and it worked. Fisher wooed the best of America's newly crowned royalty—those who had made their millions in commerce: Harvey Firestone (rubber), J. C. Penney (department stores), Harvey Stutz (automobiles), Albert Champion (spark plugs), Frank Seiberling (tires), and Rockwell La Gorce (National Geographic magazine).

These and other glittering personalities bought land and built up the famous three mile long Millionaire Row that lined Collins Avenue along the ocean (these mansions would be replaced in the 1950's with grand high-rise hotels such as the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc).

Fisher's nouveau-ritzy crowd could be spotted lunching on the veranda of one of his hotels, dancing under the stars to Paul Whiteman's orchestra, gambling at the Embassy or Palm Island Clubs, sea bathing at the choice Surf or Bath Clubs, playing a bit of polo on the Nautilus fields, or golfing with Presidents like Warren Harding (with tiny elephant "Baby Carl" acting as caddy).

Fisher's grand hotels provided the glamorous backdrop required by the social elite. The first of many was the Flamingo Hotel, which opened New Year's Eve of 1920. To design the multi-storied structure, Fisher imported two Philadelphia architects who were well versed in the academic Beaux Arts tradition. The edifice was as grand on the exterior as it was elegant on the interior. Construction cost ran over a million dollars and the one hundred fifty guest rooms and many public rooms were embellished with three hundred thousand dollars worth of furnishings.

An exotic milieu for the hotel was created by Japanese gardeners who decorated the well manicured grounds with every botanical species imaginable, from date palms to jasmine (none of which were indigenous to Miami).

Fisher even tried to import flamingos, the namesake of his colossus hotel, but they died in transit from Africa. Every conceivable creature comfort was afforded the hotel's stylish guests. The Flamingo had a laundry, a stock broker's office, shops, and even Guernsey cows which were brought in at considerable expense so the guests could have farm-fresh milk daily.

If his guests grew bored with speedboats, polo matches, or sun bathing, Fisher provided one last touch of truly exotic entertainment, as visitors could ferry about the canals and islands sprouting in the bay in gondolas which were operated by Bahamian oarsmen dressed up in suitably colorful uniforms.

Fisher's vision was such a success that he quickly followed it up with several other equally grand hotels such as the Nautilus, the Fleetwood, the Boulevard, and the Floridian. Other entrepreneurs followed with equally well known hotels. The Pancoast family put up the Pancoast Hotel in 1924 on the ocean and 22nd Street, and N. B. T. Roney's wedding cake extravaganza, the Roney Hotel, went up at 25th Street and the ocean.

It was tourism rather than land speculation that became the major attraction. By mid decade as economic recovery burgeoned, hotels, apartment houses, and private homes sprouted frantically, stretching the city limits as far north as 87th Street.

Unlike the preceding era, which had opulent hotels for a relatively exclusive society, the subdued decade of the 1930's built less costly structures for the newly arriving middle class. The Beach was keeping in step with the more down to earth, sensible national economy. It was the subtle pace of the Swing Era that characterized the lifestyle and building design of this period. The focal point of construction during the 1930's and 1940's was in the area now known as "South Beach"—Collins Avenue, Ocean Drive, and Washington Avenue from 1st Street to several blocks north of Lincoln Road at 23rd Street.

While the Mediterranean Eclectic style persisted somewhat during this period the most popular architectural designs of the 1930's and 1940's were the more up-to-date modernistic styles of Art Deco and Streamlined—collectively known as the Style Moderne.

Recovery during the depression years was both economic and psychological. A break with the past was necessary to allow for a fresh look towards the future and the new architectural style that was built on Miami Beach was clearly part of a widespread movement. Style Moderne was unashamedly optimistic about the future and hitched itself to "the machine" as the ultimate symbol of progress and change. Motifs like the skyrocket finial on the Tudor Hotel suggest movement and dynamism while efficiency and functionalism were stressed. Hence, this modernistic style was characterized by light smooth surfaces, rounded edges, and geometric patterns.

The majority of the buildings on South Beach were modest in size—three or four storiesCwith a few like the Park Central, Raleigh and the New Yorker rising between six and eight stories.

In keeping with the age and cost limitations, the construction and layouts of the buildings were functional and to the point rather than innovative. Rentals for rooms were kept down to $5.00 to $7.00 a day. Decoration was lavished on the facades, not on the interiors. Exteriors were painted in bright sundrenched resort colors—strident greens, blues, oranges, and pinks were set off against neutral backgrounds of beige and white. The facades sported decorative motifs such as rounded corners, zig-zag step backs, sunbursts, and geometric floral patterns which have now become icons for the spirit of their era.

The first zoning ordinance came in 1933, but it was minimal, as the law demanded a five foot setback for buildings. Since ocean frontage was the prime location for fun in the sun, the result produced a serious cluttering along the ocean and nearby properties with little more than ten feet separating structures.

By 1940, it looked as if the banner years had returned to the Beach. Beaches were lined with sun-worshipers, ballrooms were filled with music, and hotel rooms were occupied to capacity. The thrifty folk populated the newly built-up South Beach area, while the still fashionable Roney, Nautilus and Floridian hotels were once more graced with high society. Walter Winchell, Al Jolson, Damon Runyon and other notable personalities vacationed at the Beach and lent their names to Carl Fisher's publicity machine.

The War Years
Regrettably the boom was short lived. World War Two put a quick end to the gaiety and fun-making. By February, 1942, there was a blackout, rumors spread of a German invasion, and gasoline rationing severely restricted travel to and from Miami Beach. The Army Air Corps took over numerous Miami Beach hotels and replaced sun-seekers with troops in training for the war in the Pacific. The once elegant Nautilus and King Cole were converted into hospitals. (The King Cole is now part of the Miami Heart Institute and the Nautilus has been replaced by Mount Sinai Hospital.)

At the end of World War Two, there were less than three dozen hotels between Lincoln Road and the northern boundary of the Beach. Going north on Collins Avenue in 1945, one could still see the ocean between the millionaire estates which had been built in the 1920's. However, all of that quickly disappeared in the post-war building boom. In less than two decades, Miami Beach was radically transformed from a place with a low skyline to a city of high-rises with a vanishing shoreline.

Tourism Booms
The building madness began north of Lincoln Road, but left South Beach relatively intact. Like the spirit that guided the boom of the 1920's, people were eager to spend money again after the restrictive war years. However, unlike those of an earlier period, promoters in the 1950's and 1960's were not selling land, they were selling tourism and exploiting it on a wholesale scale.

A number of factors helped to make tourism—aimed at a broad public base—commercially profitable. The convenience of air travel and the jet age brought more people than ever to the sunny shores of Miami Beach, and thanks to modern technology, high-rise hotels were fully air-conditioned which allowed year round operation—unlike in earlier times when hotels were often closed from May to November.

The sheer size of the hotels built during this period must be their most characteristic feature, as most structures rose fifteen or more stories. The exteriors tended to be relatively austere, favoring a commonplace second generation "International" style. The lion's share of decoration was lavished on the interior with "Hollywood" set lobbies. Hotels became self-contained man-made environments replete with shops, drug stores, rooftop "starlight" ballrooms, bathing pavilions, and coffee shops. The romance of escapism which lured the vacationers perhaps was best exemplified by the names given to the newly built resort establishments of the 1950's and 1960's, such as the Fontainebleau, Martinique, Seville, and Montmarte.

No discussion of this frenzied period of building would be complete without mention of the now legendary architectural firm of Morris Lapidus and Associates, which designed the most well-known edifices on the Beach, including the Fontainebleau, Americana, and the Eden Roc.

The most grandest hotel of this period is the Fontainebleau. Its clean crescent-shaped lines were novel for the time and met with great skepticism, however the public (and Hollywood) loved it. The structure was as costly as it was elaborate, with crystal chandeliers, marble columns, and plush furniture gracing its main lobby. The lower lobby still contains coy marble statues that once decorated the Harvey Firestone estate of the 1920's, on which property the Fontainebleau now stands.

As tourism faded in the late 1960's Miami Beach began catering to older, permanent residents. Older hotels were converted into apartments for year round occupancy, or demolished to make way for high-rise condo development. Some of the Beach's most architecturally significant hotels such as the New Yorker and the Senator were destroyed during this period over the protests of crusading art deco aficionados like Barbara Captiman and Leonard Horowitz. But the resurgence of South Beach and the designation of the Art Deco District has allowed the City to place much tighter restrictions on demolition of historic architecture.

Miami Beach has come a long way from Carl Fisher's dream of an American Riviera and even further from Charles Lum's vision of coconut plantations.