The Haute Evolution

Haute Living launched in Miami in 2004 as a local publication focused on the real estate market. Today, it has evolved into a luxury lifestyle magazine with print editions in four markets across the U.S. and an online platform that covers 17 domestic and international markets—a number that is growing exponentially, as is our online readership; www.HauteLiving.com is ranked higher than some of our competitors who have been around for quite longer than Haute Living.

The evolution of Haute Living into a luxury lifestyle powerhouse mirrors the growth of our hometown. In the past six years, Miami has undergone rapid and inspiring changes. No longer solely a beach town known for its rampant nightlife debauchery (although the beaches and nightlife are still quite a draw!), the Magic City is emerging at the forefront of cultural destinations, thanks in large parts to various projects and institutions that have opened since our launch.

In honor of the magazine’s six-year anniversary edition, we present a look back at the revolution of our hometown, which spurred our growth from a real estate rag into a luxury publication, with a focus on the arts, culture, development, hospitality, and fashion—much like the city itself.

First, it’s important to address what this city looked like in 2004. The specific answer may vary but the general consensus is this: vastly different than it does now. I’ll offer this personal example: I moved to Miami in 2003, finding refuge from New England winters in the tropical heat. I landed in South Beach, as many do, and began working as an editor of a local dining publication. The offices were also located on the beach, so reasons to cross the causeway were sparse. One balmy winter day, a colleague asked me to accompany him to a meeting with a real estate developer, who was interested in advertising the Sky Palace condominiums at Mary Brickell Village. As we drove down South Miami Avenue, my colleague pointed out the window. “This will be the center of Miami one day, just wait,” he said. I dismissed him; the surrounding neighborhood was nothing but aging office towers with a handful of restaurants, like Perricone’s, Tobacco Road, River Oyster Bar, and Big Fish, to serve the corporate types.

Fast forward to 2010. I now live steps from Mary Brickell Village, which is emerging as a thriving urban center filled with boutique shops and restaurants galore; a new eatery opens its doors seemingly on a weekly basis. Every night, those restaurants and lounges are packed with an aspiring young professional crowd that has moved into the new, luxury residential towers that surround the neighborhood.

Just around the corner sits ICON Brickell, a Philippe Starck masterpiece by Related Group that includes a Viceroy Hotel tower with designs by Kelly Wearstler. On the other side of the Miami River, high-rises like the Metropolitan Miami Complex are filling up fast. That rate is expected to accelerate exponentially when the new Three Kings of the Miami Heat hit the court at the downtown American Airlines Arena this fall.

The city of Miami is growing up at lightning speed, and a number of flagship projects served as the catalysts for this change. Over the course of Haute Living’s history, we have covered many of these projects extensively, and those articles can be seen in our online archives: /archives. In honor of the six-year anniversary of Haute Living, we present a look back at the events and institutions that ushered Miami into a new era, as well as a look forward at some of the forthcoming projects that will make an indelible mark on the cultural fabric of this city.

Art Basel Miami Beach

True, Art Basel Miami Beach was up and running two years before Haute Living officially launched, but it’s an important factor in the maturation of the city that we simply can’t ignore. Samuel Keller, a native of Basel, Switzerland, first brought Art Basel to the shores of South Florida in 2002. Haute Living featured him on the cover of our annual Art Basel edition in 2007, which happened to be his last  year as the director of the fair. In our interview, he stated that he was ecstatic about the way Art Basel Miami Beach had impacted the city’s growth. He said, “If you think about it, this was a high-risk venture. The first year, it didn’t happen because of 9/11, and only a few years later, it has become the most important art event in America and the second most important art fair in the world.”

Art Basel puts Miami on the global map as a cultural destination, rather than simply an oasis for spring breakers. Over the years, Art Basel grew to embody so much more than just an art show in the Miami Beach convention center. During the first week of December, the entire city comes alive with satellite fairs, pop-up exhibitions, temporary galleries, and more, resulting in what is now referred to as “Miami Art Week.”

Design District & Wynwood Arts District

Much of that fanfare takes place in two Miami neighborhoods that were not so haute when Haute Living launched in 2004. Craig Robins, the developer behind Dacra, began acquiring property in the decaying Design District in the 1990s with a vision of creating a haven for high-end furniture and design companies that called to discerning buyers. In a piece on Art Basel in 2009, the Wall Street Journal heralded the Design District as “one of the hottest design centers in the country.” Needless to say, Robin’s vision has been realized. The Design District is now home to high-end brands like Fendi Casa, Paltrona Frau, and Cappellini, which cater to astute buyers. The city’s culinary superstars, such as Michael Schwartz, Jonathan Eissman, and Michelle Bernstein, opened up eateries to serve the design-hungry masses.

Nearby, other visionaries are leading the transformation of a neighborhood from blighted to bangin’—this time, father and son duo Tony and Joey Goldman of Goldman Properties. With a track record that includes the transformation of New York’s SoHo and Miami’s South Beach, Goldman Properties began investing in properties in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami in 2003, with a goal of transforming the warehouse-packed enclave into the “SoHo of Miami”—a live/work/play environment that calls to the creative types. To get the ball rolling, the father-and-son team partnered with Museum of Contemporary Art to open Goldman Warehouse, a 12,000-square-foot gallery that hosted MOCA’s annex for a number of years before opening an independent exhibition program for Art Basel 2009. Goldman is also behind the inspired Wynwood Walls, an outdoor mural project on the warehouse walls throughout the district. Twelve murals debuted during Art Basel 2009, with plans to add a minimum of 15 murals over the course of the subsequent two years.

The project adds to the colorful allure of the arts district, which incorporates 50-some art galleries, in addition to a slew of museums, artist studios, design retails, and more. In the past few years, a number of restaurants and lounges popped up to cater the eclectic crowd, with the likes of Cafeina, Joey’s, and Morgan’s appealing to those in search of the arts–the culinary kind.

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

When Miami’s performing arts center was completed in 2006, it forever changed the city’s urban landscape. Now known as the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the 570,000-square-foot landmark plays a vital role in the cultural renaissance of Miami, as well as the revitalization of Downtown in general. The Adrienne Arsht Center can be considered the centerpiece of the city’s urban core, and the county estimates that the center is responsible for driving $1 billion worth of neighborhood revitalization, as residential towers, shops, restaurants, and lounges open their doors. The neighborhood’s radical transformation can be traced to the Arsht Center, which has redefined the typical model for metropolitan performing arts centers. At the Arsht Center, standard classical music and dance performances are joined by a line-up of cutting-edge and contemporary programming. Take, for example, this summer’s run of the dynamic, theatrical Fuerza Bruta show, which was made complete by an on-site nightclub and lounge. Hip-hop artist Nas performed during Super Bowl weekend in 2010, and acoustic shows by rock bands packed the hall in the spring.

In this new performing arts center prototype, diners want more than just your typical concessions, so the Arsht Center partnered with Barton Weiss to open Prelude by Barton G. This fall, the Arsht Center will celebrate its fifth-anniversary season, which will kick off with an elegant gala on October 28. The who’s who of Miami elite will gather to witness the dedication of two newly engraved donor walls, which honors those who contributed to the fundraising campaign in 2010.

Miami Art Museum

Just a few blocks from the Arsht Center, the space now known as Bicentennial Park will soon be transformed into Museum Park, the new home for Miami Art Museum. The museum’s collection, currently housed in a 33,000-square-foot enclave in the heart of Downtown, will be relocated to a waterfront masterpiece designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the same gents behind the Beijing Olympics’ Bird’s Nest wonder. Construction is slated for completion in 2013. The county commission approved $100 million construction budget, and MAM is undertaking an extensive fundraising campaign to match the public funds with $100 million from private donors, with $45 million raised thus far.

Midtown Miami

In the neighborhood between the Design District and Wynwood, New York developer Joseph Cayre created a $2.3 billion self-contained urban community on 55 acres. Complete with 3,000 residential units in two towers and a midrise, plus a ton of retail and office spaces, Midtown Miami carved a whole new niche out of a neighborhood that, just a few years ago, you wouldn’t even want to drive through. Much like its book-ending neighborhoods, Midtown has a decidedly arts focus, serving as a hub for rising artists, art galleries, and special exhibitions throughout the year. During Miami Art Week, Midtown plays host to a number of the larger satellite fairs, including Art Miami.

The center courtyard, which was a 2.5-acre barren stretch of grass, is being transformed to the Gardens of the World, a public art project that will blend contemporary sculptures with shaped topiaries, exotic evergreens, and blossoms.

New World Symphony by Frank Gehry

The new campus for the New World Symphony, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Frank Gehry, the genius behind such architectural wonders as the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, will cement Miami-Dade’s place amongst New York and Los Angeles as a cultural capital in the U.S. The NWS’s home in the unassuming yellow Art Deco Lincoln Theatre on Lincoln Road garners little attention from visitors and locals who scamper down the strip in search of refreshments and entertainment, excluding the nights when concerts are broadcasted on the building’s exterior speakers.

Come January, the New World Symphony will have a new home that epitomizes the changing city as a whole. Ground was broken on the $200 million project in January 2008 and progressed at break-neck speed. The new campus, which stretches from behind the current NWS home on Lincoln Road to 17th Street, will feature an acoustically advanced performance hall, a 7,000-square-foot outdoor projection wall, a rooftop terrace, and an assortment of state-of-the-art rehearsal spaces.

Beyond that, the campus will feature a public park designed by Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8.

Luxury Hospitality hits the Beach: The Setai & The W South Beach

As noted in Haute Living’s Art Basel edition in 2009, to evaluate the true fruition of a city, one should look at the advancement in hospitality options. As the city grew to become a hub for the Rat Pack and their notorious glory days of debauchery, colossal hotels like the Fontainebleau opened to accommodate the elite crowd. But as the beach’s reputation deteriorated, thanks in large part to the prevalence of crime that followed the Mariel boatlift, the hospitality offerings declined as well. Then came Tony Goldman, who opened Park Central and began Miami Beach’s famed revitalization. The fashion industry followed, and the promise of glitzy possibilities prompted Ian Schrager to team up with Aby Rosen to open the Delano, which gave the model-laden population a place as chic as they were to rest their heads after reveling in the lobby bars until the wee hours. Imitators popped up in its wake, each trying to be somehow hipper than the last.

Yes, our city’s teenage years were inexplicably cool. But time stands still for no city; the pivotal turning point in the maturation of Miami Beach into adulthood was the arrival of Art Basel in 2002. Suddenly the town was on the radars of culture lovers throughout the world, gaining a prestigious reputation for something other than skin, sun, and a thriving nightlife. And so the hospitality offerings once again evolved with the changing landscape. When the Setai Hotel and Resort opened in 2004, it rose as the champion of luxury hotels at this end of Collins Avenue. Zen-like in its elegance and simplicity, this beacon of hospitality attracts those patrons looking for the very best.

In July 2009, David Edelstein and Aby Rosen’s new W South Beach opened. It’s a manifestation of all of the characteristics of the new Miami Beach—chic, sophisticated, buzzing, beachfront, and perhaps most importantly, culturally relevant. “That was our goal,” explains Edelstein, principal of TriStar Capital, which owns the hotel. “Miami Beach, being as vibrant and important as it is, both from a tourist point of view and on a cultural scale, has been given a clean slate, and we thought it was important to build something that was world-class.”

1111 Lincoln Road

At one end of the Lincoln Road strip, remnants of cheesy South Beach still lag—tacky souvenir shops, bedazzled t-shirt boutiques, club-thumping music at dining establishments, and well, bums. But on the western end of the street, a brawny parking garage is transforming the area’s retail scene into a luxury shopping and entertainment experience. Yes, a parking garage. “We don’t consider it as just a garage; it functions more like a civic destination for Miami Beach goers,” says visionary Robert S. Wennett, president of UIA Management, who has worked on numerous mixed-use projects to revitalize downtown South Norwalk, Conn., and Washington, D.C. “It’s the first building that reflects the new Miami.”

In designing the space on the corner of Alton and Lincoln Road, Wennett envisioned a more fashion-forward, grown-up Miami Beach and wanted to create the city’s own version of SoHo, Melrose or the Meatpacking District, a very chic appeal that will eventually, hopefully, trickle down to the less-endowed, neon-light district of old South Beach.

“1111 Lincoln Road is a conversion of culture, commerce and community,” Wennett says. “These new luxury-type tenants are not just selling products, they are delivering experiences to customers. It’s consistent to what’s happening with the hotels on Miami Beach—a transformation to the more cool, edgy and sophisticated.”

What can be more hip than grungy, trendy Alchemist. Located on the fifth floor of the garage, the high-end boutique boasts men’s and women’s selections of Rick Owens, Rodarte, and Chrome Hearts labels for the wannabe rock stars.

The rest of the shops on 1111 Lincoln Road are street level. MAC Cosmetics bumped up to high-end with MAC Pro and set the tone for the store with a launch party featuring nude, painted models. There’s also Journelle, a lingerie shop featuring La Perla, Stella McCartney, Elle Macpherson, and others; Nespresso, the Swiss coffee café; the Taschen bookstore designed by world-renowned Philippe Starck; Osklen, a Brazilian sportswear boutique; Y-3, an Adidas and designer Yohji Yamamoto collaboration of edgy athletic wear; ArtSee, a designer eyewear shop; Babalu, the upscale beach gift store influenced by exotic Bali and St. Barth’s; Coltorti, an Italian, multi-brand specialty shop; and Inkanta, a super-mod design store hailing from Columbia.

Of course, when patrons are not sauntering in and out of those shops, they are people watching in the cobblestone plaza or weaving through Dan Graham’s glass-and-steel sculpture Morris, named for the architect Morris Lapidus. Parched and famished consumers can feast on burgers, shakes, custards and fries at Shake Shack, a New Yorker’s favorite burger joint that opened it doors to Miamians in June. And Rosa Mexicano, an upscale Mexican eatery with a presence in Mary Brickell Village, is coming to 1111 later this year.

Finally, the ultra-modern, seven-story car park, designed by Herzog and de Meuron, is an attraction itself. People take pictures of the garage and use the industrial columns and shapes as a backdrop for photo shoots. It has also been used for a McDonald’s commercial and Ferrari ad. Its seventh floor has a 34-foot ceiling and is used for events, though a to-be-announced rooftop restaurant will be sharing the space and panoramic view soon.