Thousands of visitors come to Miami Beach every year for the beaches, the tropical climate, the world-class restaurants and the vibrant nightlife, but many also travel to Miami Beach for its unique Art Deco architecture. Miami Beach’s Art Deco historic district boasts the world’s largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world including the popular oceanfront hotels like the Breakwater, the Tides, the Victor, the Cardozo, the Leslie, the Colony and the Clevelander. You can stroll the historical district, which extends north from 6th Street to 14th and spanning west from Ocean Drive to Alton Road, and view some of the beautifully restored buildings, note there are over 800 such buildings in the district, or you can take one of the Art Deco Walking Tours.
The Art Deco Walking Tour (www.artdecotours.com) offers a variety of tours including a two-hour walk through the historic district, a stroll down the historic street created by Carl Fisher – Lincoln Road, a tour of Little Havana and a cocktail tour through the Art Deco District. All these tours are led by informative tour guides who take you back through history and share fascinating stories about the birth and growth of Miami Beach. These tours are so popular that visitors often take a different tour each time they land in Miami Beach. One of the most popular tours it the Cocktail Tour – a three hour tour through Miami Beach’s Art Deco District with stops at hotels like the Z Hotel, Winter Haven, Tides, Victor Hotel, Clevelander and Essex Hotel for one of their signature cocktails. Each cocktail tours features four cocktails with a history of the cocktail and the hotel where it is served. For example, the Winter Haven, built in 1939 by Art Deco master Albert Anis, creates a delicious Mojito, a delicious 5-ingredient cocktail that originated in Cuba. Most tour end at the historic Essex House, an Art Deco gem created in 1938 by Henry Hohauser. The Essex House serves a special crafted cocktail of seven unique ingredients aptly titled “the Speakeasy” as the bar is located in a room that was once a hidden gambling casino.
Art Deco Walking Tours, unlike many similar tours because there are never more than 8 people, take the group to places most visitors never get the opportunity to see. Popular among tourists from all over the world, locals who have taken the tour have been amazed at the information learned and the behind the scene looks at hotels, especially the breathtaking rooftop views. Miami Beach is a unique town, mostly rebuilt in the Art Deco style created after the Great Hurricane of ’26 and many of those buildings have been saved thanks to Art Deco activist Barbara Capitman, responsible for the district’s historical credentials. While the tour focuses on the Art Deco architecture and history of Miami Beach, the tour also includes information about “Miami Vice,” film sites, Versace, fashion shoots, prohibition, and illegal gambling. Visitors to Miami love the Art Deco Walking tours because they offer great insight to the creation of Miami Beach. The tour guides share personal stories while recounting the colorful history of Miami Beach from its beginning when Carl Fisher arrived and turned a mangrove swamp into a playground for the very wealthy. The tour takes visitors in and out of hotels like the beautiful Astor Hotel located on Washington Avenue and the Kent and even on rooftops of hotels like the Dream Hotel on Collins Avenue and the Clevelander on Ocean Drive. The tour is a fascinating trip through the decades with stops in the Wolfsonian Museum, a treasure-trove of Art Deco and Industrial Revolution objects, on Ocean Drive’s Lummus Park and in front of the Amsterdam Palace – a 1930 building infamously remembered as the Versace Mansion. Miami Beach is more than a tropical playground; it’s a historical landmark with the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world.