The storied Eden Roc hotel is one of Miami Beach’s great emblems of Miami Modern architecture. The original tower, erected in 1956 by MiMo master Morris Lapidus (who, most famously, also designed the Fontainebleau), features all the hallmarks of the movement from curvilinear lines to the lobby’s central, sunken circular bar, decorative support columns, brass frescoed elevator doors and terrazzo flooring with fleur-de-lis flourishes.
The hotel, which expanded in 2008 with a second tower, is undergoing another renaissance with the arrival of Nobu Hotel, a hotel-within-a-hotel concept in soft opening since October 2016.
Legendary Japanese Chef Nobu Matsuhisa has expanded his empire beyond dining in partnership with Academy Award-winning actor Robert DeNiro to include a collection of sleek, culinary-driven hotels around the world. In Miami Beach, this means Matsuhisa’s namesake restaurant Nobu has traveled up Collins Avenue from its longtime home at the Shore Club and into a luxuriously Zen dining room designed by David Rockwell at the Eden Roc.
The forthcoming Malibu Farm by Chef Helene Henderson is expected to open at the end of the month in a space directly overlooking the Atlantic, offering a variety of healthy (yet hearty), organic dishes ranging from pea and pesto couscous to grass-fed beef sirloin. In the meantime, the pop-up Splash is serving a preview of her menu poolside during the day.
Occupying Eden Roc’s original tower, Nobu Hotel’s 206 rooms are also designed by Rockwell in an Asian-inspired aesthetic featuring a silk screen cherry blossom accent wall, paper lanterns and a subdued neutral palette of natural materials like stone and wood. Guests of Nobu Hotel are privy to a handful of exclusive on-property perks, including access to the Nobu pool in addition to the property’s three other pools, room service by Nobu, Natura Bissé bath products and 10 extra minutes automatically added to any spa service.
The Eden Roc now occupies 418 rooms inside the more modern tower built in 2008, which is currently undergoing a redesign floor-by-floor to give them a more contemporary, updated look. This project is expected to be 90 percent complete by December 2018. One of the perks of this tower is that all of the rooms have ocean views unlike the original tower’s 1950s architecture.
At the moment, they’re still in the process of converting all floors of the original tower into the Nobu Hotel design and the Nobu pool is slated for completion at the end of the month.
Once all of the improvements are in place, both hotels will boast luxurious contemporary rooms with dinner at Nobu just an elevator ride away.
According to booking sites, Nobu Hotel rates currently start at $290, while Eden Roc’s start at $152.
