Lapidus Book by Fontainebleau Miami Beach

FONTAINEBLEAU

FONTAINEBLEAU Essay by Dave Hickey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent of the publisher. ISBN 978-0-692-07277-6 Design by Robin Terra, Stir_San Francisco, stircreative.agency Editorial and production services: BrightCityBooks, Eric Olsen, Executive Editor Photo research: Caren Alpert, Cheryl Olsen, Kristina Ratsy & Dillon Burke Essay by Dave Hickey Cover photograph: Paul Warchol, February 2009 Printed on Forest Stewardship Council certified papers

“The stage was what I wanted, but not acting. I loved the stage; it was a world of illusions, of dreams, a mirror of all human emotions… I wanted to create a world of illusion by designing the settings against which these emotions were portrayed. I resolved to become a scenic designer.” MORRIS LAPIDUS

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Fontainebleau Hotel, poolscape and cabanas, 1969.

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Frank Sinatra and Jill St. John, scene in Tony Rome filmed at Fontainebleau, 1967.

Victoria’s Secret Angels, Grand Re-Opening, November 14, 2008.

Sixty years ago, architect Morris Lapidus created the daring design of the original Fontainebleau, offering new and unexpected ways to experience glamour and style. His bold, creative thinking has served as the blueprint for our reinvention of Fontainebleau and his words continue to inspire:

“My whole concept of life is to make it more unusual, more interesting, more warm.’’ MORRIS LAPIDUS

A scene from Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1933.

“Take a look at the Fontainebleau, the Eden Roc, the Americana and then rent Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1933. Voilà!” ALAN LAPIDUS, Everything by Design

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Frank Sinatra, stunt double, and bodyguards on the boardwalk at Fontainebleau, walking to the set of Lady in Cement, filmed here in 1968.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Design must express the most elementary human emotions: the desire for, love of and need for ornament.â&#x20AC;? MORRIS LAPIDUS

Chateau Tower and Bleau Bar, exterior, 2008; right Morris Lapidus in stairwell, 1994. left

StripSteak by Michael Mina, upper dining room with wine cellar.

“When I was given the task of re-interpreting Morris Lapidus’ Fontainebleau for the 21st century, I was incredibly honored to be part of preserving the work of this prophet of design. Lapidus liked to say that he was designing fantasy buildings, that when people went on vacation, they wanted to be treated to fantasies of luxury, and that hotels were to be like movie sets. These dictums still resonate and have always been an essential focus of my design process.” J E F F R E Y B E E R S , Architect/Interior Designer, Jeffrey Beers International

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Chateau Lobby with, at left, the Stairway to Nowhere.

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M O R R I S L A P I D U S’ H I STO R I C F O N TA I N E B L E AU

FONTAINEBLEAU ON COLLINS AVENUE in Miami Beach is a nifty

a new shop in a variety of colors, for the first time ever. Lapidus painted the store in

hotel and a multifaceted cultural monument. Fontainebleau’s opening in 1954

pale greens, roses, and blues. It worked.

by Dave Hickey

ple informs the insouciant look of Miami Beach itself—Lapidus Land, it might

Hollywood was quicker on the uptake than Mr. Mangel. Lapidus’ ’20s-look designs

be called. Its elegant curved façade stands, along with Cadillac tailfins, starburst

were integrated into the deco chic of movie musical sets throughout the ’30s for

clocks, and boomerang coffee tables, as a monument to the gregarious vernacular

Busby Berkeley extravaganzas and movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

of postwar America that is only now receiving the respect it deserves. More seri-

Lapidus would ultimately steal their versions of his own ideas back for his resort

ously, Fontainebleau marks the global debut of conceptually driven commercial

hotels. In this way, Morris Lapidus redesigned the parts of America where most

architecture. It stands as a tribute to its architect, Morris Lapidus, who had the

Americans spent their time. Everything from the boutiques on Fifth Avenue today,

courage, the education, and the enthusiasm to create the first freestanding build-

to the mega mall and themed casino resorts derives from his essential imaginings.

ing designed not just to house commerce, but to facilitate it.

Like Norman Rockwell, Lapidus saw the theater of American stores. He understood

marked the rebirth of Miami Beach as a luxury resort. Today, the hotel’s exam-

American commerce as Scott Fitzgerald did, as a landscape of Gatsby-esque dreamWhen Lapidus embarked on his Fontainebleau project, he was already a famous

ing. “It’s all theater,” Lapidus said to me, “that’s where I started. As a young man,

designer. He had revolutionized commercial design in Jazz Age Manhattan with

I wanted to be an actor, probably because, for immigrants of my generation, who

his trademark boutiques. In the ’30s, the chain store did for Lapidus’ designs what

didn’t know anything about America at all, it was all theater, anyway.”

the phonograph record did for popular music. It became the magic vehicle of dis-

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semination. During this period, the design innovations Lapidus created for toffs

It never occurred to Lapidus that one shouldn’t refine this mythical landscape of

and flappers in Manhattan—the Theresa Pharmacy, the Parisian Bootery, the Regal

consumable dreams and invest it with style. This would become Lapidus’ métier,

Shoe Store, the Doubleday Book Store, and the Palais Royale nightclub (designed

and during his itinerant years, he evolved a solid, conceptual understanding of just

as a speakeasy for Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel)—spread across the country, some-

what commercial architecture could and should do. Out of this understanding, he

times under Lapidus’ supervision; sometimes the “Lapidus look” was just stolen.

would design Fontainebleau, an iconic luxury hotel that had nothing to do with

So pervasive was Lapidus’ influence on the look of postwar America that it’s hard

luxury hotels of the past, and everything to do with luxury hotels of the future.

to imagine now that in 1931, in Jacksonville, Florida, Lapidus had to argue strenu-

As Lapidus put it to me, “My negative example when I started Fontainebleau was

ously with Mr. Mangel, of Mangel’s Ladies Apparel, to let him paint the interior of

the Biltmore in Coral Gables with its dark spaces and off-putting aura of old-time

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gentility.” Lapidus’ Fontainebleau spoke a new language, one that Lapidus himself

he watched people, not walls. He took the bright theater of human sociability

had invented—the language of the boutique, the theater, the nightclub, the movie,

as his personal arena. Irony, surprise, wit, serendipity, coincidence, bathos, and

and the arcade—the new American world.

outrageous extravagance were tools in his toolbox, and there was no law against them until Lapidus used them to such great effect in Miami. One might describe

So Fontainebleau made history. It declared commercial architecture’s indepen-

Lapidus’ vision of public space by extending the title of his second autobiography,

dence from the tastes and traditions of public, residential, and industrial design,

Too Much is Never Enough, so it reads Too Much is Never Enough, but Just Enough is

and, like most declarations of independence, Fontainebleau started a war. This

Nothing Much at All.

war was fought on battlefields far removed from the James Bond glamour and George Raft swank of the actual hotel, far from the beach, the babes, and the blue

In my own view, this part of the quarrel was, in essence, pedagogical. It arose less

cocktails in the lounge, but it was a serious war, indeed. The morning after Fon-

from what Lapidus did, than from the fact that he knew what he was doing—from

tainebleau opened, Lapidus woke up to find that all the dramatic innovations for

the fact that Lapidus provided a conceptually coherent model for commercial

which he had been so highly praised in the shops of New York, were deemed out-

architecture from which other architects could and did learn. It was as if, after

rageous and vulgar in a freestanding hotel in Miami Beach. Lapidus was shocked

years of playwrights learning to write plays from Aristotle’s writing on trage-

and nearly destroyed by the hostile reception. He never fully realized that he had

dy, Aristotle’s lost book on comedy was suddenly available. So, academics hated

crossed an invisible class boundary by actually designing a building, and he bore

Lapidus, not for his buildings, but for the exquisite rationality of his ideas, for the

the scars of having done so for most of his life, but he lived long enough to see

fact that his buildings taught lessons that were no less intellectually driven than

the war won.

their own—that were, in fact, the perfect inverse of Aristotle’s tragic vision. Critics and historians were slow in recognizing this, of course, but when they did, to their

The combatants may be variously defined. Lapidus saw it as a conflict between

credit, they began changing sides on Lapidus and Fontainebleau.

So, academics hated Lapidus, not for his buildings, but for the exquisite rationality of his ideas, for the fact that his buildings taught lessons that were no less intellectually driven than their own….

his own “architecture of joy” and a cadre of academic killjoys. There is much to

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be said for this position. Morris Lapidus took the human comedy very seriously.

The academic and popular press began by sneering at Fontainebleau as a kitsch

(His largest surviving painting is not a picture of a building at all, but a painting

monstrosity—an affront to modern purity and the International School’s glamor-

of people listening to a musical performance, Rubenstein at the piano, painted in

ized haut-factory aesthetic. As Teutonic purity became more tedious and tainted

a style somewhere between Hogarth and Rockwell.) As Lapidus would tell you,

by authoritarian habits, critics jumped ship. The war between the Fontainebleau

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Morris Lapidus, Rubenstein in Concert, 1967, oil on canvas, 5 by 9 feet. Collection of Elizabeth Lapidus.

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and the gleaming, high-dollar factories of International Style architecture gradu-

by-numbers, industrial, religio-tribalism congenial to robber barons, corporations,

ally revealed itself as a war between the drama of European industrialism and the

and commissars. Morris Lapidus, unhindered by class prejudices and European

theater of American commerce—between the tragedy of European history and the

high-culture sympathies, had the common sense to realize that Modernism was

comedy of American democracy.

not a religion but a new style to be applied as one wishes.

In a tragedy, form follows function. We catch perhaps a glimpse of a possible happy

Even so, American ideas about class were part of the war over Fontainebleau. The

ending, but the ineluctable logic of probability brings about the tragic dénoue-

great urban theorist Jane Jacobs would have described the argument as a con-

ment. Herein resides the primal idea of modern architecture: the idea that each el-

flict between the preferred pleasures of two social classes. In her book Systems of

ement follows from the next to make an internally coherent enclosure, so the ideal

Survival, Jacobs notes that the professional and financial classes in America, in their

work of modern architecture would have neither entrances nor exits. In a comedy,

time away from work, almost invariably seek out nature’s sanctuary and free-flow-

we grow anxious at the probability of a tragic conclusion and then against all odds,

ing, unstructured, contemplative leisure time. America’s commercial classes, on

surprisingly, improbably, a happy ending occurs. This would be Fontainebleau in

the other hand, from bottom to top, seek luxury, comfort and convenience—easy

a nutshell, a designed strategy for delivering more joy than you have any right to

fun in a hurry, one might say, and these fun seekers were Morris Lapidus’ audience.

expect with a soupçon of surprise.

He created commercial Edens for the commercial classes.

In the revised academic narrative of the 1970s, L’affaire Fontainebleau was reinvent-

Two historical events made this possible. First, in the years following World War

ed as a war between repressive Modernists and the permissive Morris Lapidus—a

II, the United States came to terms with itself as the international commercial

post-modernist avant la lettre. This would have been fine, had modern architec-

powerhouse that Alexander Hamilton had envisioned. In the years after the Amer-

ture, like modern music, art, dance, literature, theater, and film, ever created any-

ican Revolution, America saw itself as Thomas Jefferson did, as an agrarian na-

thing with the crazy, jagged, permissive tang of twentieth-century modernity, but

tion of gentlemen farmers. In the years after the Civil War, America saw itself as

it did not. In fact, Lapidus’ Fontainebleau has a great deal more in common with

Andrew Carnegie did, as a financial and industrial juggernaut. In the years after

Igor Stravinsky, Pierre Matisse, Vaslav Nijinsky, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Max

World War II, America was finally capable of producing more goods than its citizens

Reinhardt, and Fritz Lang, than any selection of works by modern architects.

could consume. More Americans lived in cities than not. They had to shop for what

Viewed collectively, modern architecture proposes, at its best, a high-dollar, paint-

they needed and, as a result, everyone’s lives became more interdependent. In this

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milieu, the commercial classes came to the fore. They were the glue that held ur-

things in and keeps things out. Its vertical enclosure implies an invisible pillar of

ban America together.

air that connects the earth to the heavens, the earthly nation to its god above. The walls of the ramada provide the model of all official and public architecture; they

Second, as an additional bonus, America in the postwar years was safe, well po-

define our territory and keep us safe from invasion, from time itself, and all those

liced, and quickly becoming suburbanized. This meant that, for the first time in

events that flow laterally across the surface of the world.

human history, freestanding, undefended, unclustered commercial architecture became possible. Commercial architecture could finally be purely itself, and, of all

The souk, however, is just a floor and a ceiling. A piece of cloth for a roof, supported

the thinkers and builders who pondered the culture of postâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;World War II America,

by four sticks, a rug on the ground for a floor, with objects arranged upon the rug for

Morris Lapidus saw this most clearly. The liberation of commercial architecture

sale. There are no walls because commerce admits no boundaries. The souk defines

was his own liberation; its promise conformed perfectly to his view of architectural

commercial spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a human height stratum of atmosphere extending around the

history, which began, as Morris explained it to me, with two concepts of architec-

world. Historically, these two forms are intermixed. Commerce funds government.

ture: the ramada and the souk. The ramada is an enclosed wall, a corral that keeps

Government protects commerce, so the souk is located in a marketplace protected

Trajanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market, Rome, second century C.E. left North African souk, postcard, 1910. facing page

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by walls, or in a street protected by public buildings. Traditionally, all the great

The curve, he said, was the key, and the curve of Fontainebleau was his favorite.

icons of commercial architecture were inextricable from the civic architecture

“Here’s why,” he said. “Back in the ’20s and ’30s, when I was designing stores, I lived

of which they formed a part: Trajan’s Market in Rome (whose curves foreshadow

on the road. I would come into town on a train, dead tired, and go to a local hotel.

Fontainebleau); The Grand Bazaars in Isfahan, Tehran, and Istanbul; Palladio’s

I would go up in the elevator, step out and look down this dark, endless hall, under

Palazzo della Ragione in Vicenza; the Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg (proba-

this endless yellow line of twenty-watt bulbs. My knees would almost buckle, so

bly the first purpose-built commercial center); the Burlington Arcade in London;

when I finally got to design a hotel, I thought of curving the whole thing. The hall

the Galleria in Milan; and the great arcades of Paris.

would still be long, of course, but it wouldn’t seem so long because of the curve, because you couldn’t see the ends of it. This also expresses another principle of

…when I asked Lapidus what he was proudest of in his career, he cited his transgressions.…

I mention these marketplaces here because Lapidus mentioned them to me in his

mine. I let the inside determine the outside, because I’m designing buildings for

ninety-seventh year to explain the provenance of his work. I mention them also be-

the people in them, not as objects to be appreciated from traffic helicopters.”

cause no other architect or architectural historian has ever mentioned any of these

places to me—except to demonstrate the receding planes of Palladio’s façade or to de-

Lapidus went on to unpack the virtues of the curve at some length. Curves, he

cry the dreamlike flow and flurry of the bazaar as the opiate of commercial culture.

said, signify leisure, because a curve is the longest, most beautiful distance between two points and we’re not in a hurry. Curves are sexy because human beings

The bright theater of public commerce that terrified and entranced Walter

are curved and the curvier the sexier. Curves stand for change because curves are

Benjamin in his notes on the Paris arcades and that angered and dismayed John

how we measure change and express it. Curves signify flexibility and adaptability

Ruskin in The Stones of Venice, beguiled Morris Lapidus from his first visit to

to nature, because nature isn’t rectangular. Curves also stand for self-sufficiency

Coney Island. Not surprisingly, then, when I asked Lapidus what he was proudest

and independence, because curved walls can stand free and straight walls cannot.

of in his career, he cited his transgressions—all the elements of twentieth-centu-

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ry building that “modern architecture” failed to exploit or to account for. “Well, I

“A lot of good things about a curve,” Lapidus said, “and about ovals and circles and

made curves work,” Lapidus said, “I even made ‘S’ curves work, which is not easy.

those biomorphic shapes I call ‘woggles,’ too, because they don’t have any norma-

I made colors work. I made artificial light, plateglass façades, and ornament work

tive ‘size’ relative to the rectangular enclosure. They can be as big or as small as

as well. I proved that architecture is still an expressive medium, like music, that it

you wish and they don’t have any particular vantage point. They look okay from

can make people happy.”

every direction and they invite you to check them out.”

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When I asked Lapidus about my favorite effect of his: the column disappearing

as twenty feet off the sidewalk, he folded or curved the glass into mini-arcades that

into the lighted “cheese hole,” he explained that when you’re designing stores

created two large display stages on either side, breaking down the implied barrier

in New York there is always a building over the store, tons of steel and masonry.

between the storefront and the store itself. “Once you’re in the arcade niche,” Lapi-

The columns have to be there, holding up the building and reminding you of all

dus said, “it’s hard not to go into the shop. You’re kind of trapped.”

that weight. The same holds true in large hotels, but if you run the column into a lighted hole the weight disappears. The whole place seems lighter. Lighted cheese

From the street, his stores became little proscenium theaters, softly lit in the front,

holes without the column do the same thing, like the oculus in the Pantheon, only

brightly lit in the back to draw you toward the flame. Lapidus also broke down

the cheese holes are non-directional. The opposite of the column running into

the distinction between the signage and the building by integrating architectural

the lighted cheese hole, he explained, was the “beanpole” he invented to punctuate spaces, a five-to-seven-inch round pole running from the floor to the ceiling that is obviously incapable of supporting anything. Even so, it makes the space look lighter. “In any other culture,” Lapidus remarked, “these would be cited as examples of architectural wit that do their job. They would be regarded as amusing design anecdotes, like Palladio painting brick-shapes on plaster. In our culture, they are cited as heresy.” Taking the model of the souk, the underlying project of all Lapidus architecture is to make the walls disappear, to screen them, or to make them very interesting, “Stairway to Nowhere,” Fontainebleau, 1955. top Ansonia Shoe Store, New York City, 1945. bottom Postman’s, New York City, 1940. facing page

“Most of my hotel interiors have grand staircases and most of these stairs go nowhere at all… people love to ascend or descend circular staircases in a grand manner as in the movies of Busby Berkeley.” Morris Lapidus

like the French faux-mural in the lobby of the old Fontainebleau, before which Lapidus’ famous stairway to nowhere ascended. In his shops, Lapidus used indirectly lit display niches in “woggle” shapes to display merchandise and de-substantiate the walls. His first act designing a shop was to expand the plate-glass display windows to control the whole space of the first-floor façade, so the store looked like Ali Baba’s cave cut into a building; then, by recessing store entrances as much

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graphics into the façade above the display window, so the off-putting wall seemed

Finally, I would like to return to the war over Fontainebleau and suggest here that

as insubstantial as a page of text. Ideally, everything floated; everything aspired to

it was a war with no bad guys at all, just a family quarrel between indigenous Amer-

weightlessness; everything was touched with illusions created by glass, lucite, arti-

icans and their immigrant brethren at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sec-

ficial light, neon signage, indirect fluorescents, theatrical color, mirrors, and illumi-

ond- and third-generation Americans of Lapidus’ generation could hardly help but

nated frosted ceilings. Before Lapidus, mercantile culture had resisted such innova-

feel the weight of the nation’s dark inheritance—the cruelty of the Civil War, the

tions lest the store compete with its own merchandise. Lapidus understood that if

shame of Reconstruction, the infamy of the Indian wars, the toll of World War I,

you sold the store, the merchandise would sell itself, especially if the store itself was

the catastrophe of a Depression, and then a bloody World War II. These citizens in

a replicable trademark, as it finally became with the rise of franchised chains.

their exhaustion, with their dark memories and chastened hearts, wanted America to be better, somehow, to be purer and less embarrassing, however that might be

All of these innovations are integrated into Fontainebleau to great effect. They

done. On the other side of this quarrel were the new Americans, the immigrants

would become so pervasive in their time, however, that it is worth remember-

and first-generation dreamers, who wanted America to be everything!

ing that someone actually invented them. That would be Morris Lapidus, who (on an embarrassingly modest budget) would combine all the things he had done

Fontainebleau is a monument to that everything—to the imported optimism of

so far into Fontainebleau. He multiplied the spectacle of their interaction, as if

a generation of dreamers, born with the twentieth century, who shaped the very

he had been given not just a storefront on Fifth Avenue, but all of Fifth Avenue

tone and texture of our lives today. What George Gershwin was to American com-

with a beach into the bargain. As a result, the footprint and elevation drawings of

mercial music, what Billy Wilder was to American commercial cinema, Morris

Fontainebleau don’t tell us much—about as much as the footprint and elevation of a

Lapidus was to American commercial architecture. Each of them was educated

movie set or of an informal garden would. The architecture resides in the cinema-

in the inheritance of European high culture. Each of them had a choice between

tography, in arranging and directing the dance of vision—in the invitation of what

the ivory tower and the street, between old Europe and new America. All three

disappears behind what from which angle, what brightness promises delight just

chose new America. All three invented a high popular style, saw it prevail, and

beyond our view. So Lapidus is not in the walls but in the vistas, in the sightlines that

each, in varying degrees, paid a price for his success. If Lapidus suffered more than

look across, over, and around, that look up from under and down from above, that

Gershwin and Wilder, it is only because modern music and modern film were genu-

look through the hotel, down into the bar across the pool and out to the ocean in an

inely modernist idioms. “Rhapsody in Blue,” Double Indemnity, and Fontainebleau

ever-unfolding theater that plays before our eyes as we move through the fair.

remain, however, as monuments to their wanting everything.

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“If I were you,” Frank Lloyd Wright once advised Lapidus, “I wouldn’t talk about those buildings.” Then he added: “Of course, if you want, you can talk about Fontainebleau.”

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Professional diver Charlie Diehl and friend, Pool at Fontainebleau, CA. 1955.

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He was born Moises Lapidus in 1902 in Odessa in southern Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His family left Odessa while Lapidus was still an infant and settled in New York’s lower east side, where the young Morris, as he became known, lived out a script from the American Dream: ghetto boyhood, scholarships to higher education—and Coney Island’s Luna Park in the summers. Of the glittering amusement park, Lapidus would write later: “I never consciously tried to create a version of Coney Island in my architecture, but its wonders and beauties, as seen through the eyes of a child, are echoed in a good deal of my work. Consciously or unconsciously, I try to recapture the glamour and joyous wonder I experienced as a child.” While attending New York University, Lapidus joined the Washington Square Players, which later became the Theatre Guild. He wanted to be an actor, but quickly discovered that while he loved the stage, he hated the actor’s life. “Was this the life I wanted?” he wondered. “Sitting around backstage waiting for my cue ‘to enter stage right’?” He decided to become a scenic designer. To pursue that ambition, he entered the architecture program at Columbia. But on his graduation in 1927, Lapidus began to take commissions for the interior design of shops.

It wasn’t stage design, but it paid the bills.

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Luna Park at Coney Island, 1912.

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Lapidus designed more than 500 stores, from the Parisian Bootery in 1928, one of his first, to his first hotel commission, the Sans Souci, in 1949. During those two decades, he developed some of his most controversial and beloved trademarks, from the bold graphics of the Parisian Bootery to the grand curves, “woggles,” “beanpoles,” and “cheese holes” that graced his later designs.

Parisian Bootery, New York City, 1928. above Rainbow Ladies’ Apparel, Brooklyn, 1947. facing page

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“Here I have at last achieved what I had been trying to accomplish—the absence of straight walls, the use of the curving, sweeping ceiling with the light concealed in sweeping coves. This concept would be my signature in my future designs.” M O R R I S L A P I D U S L A P I D U S FO N TA I N E B L E AU

Meanwhile, Miami Beach hotel developer Ben Novack was traveling around Europe with his wife. One day they passed Fontainebleau, the French royal chateau outside of Paris. They didn’t go inside though. As Novack put it later, he didn’t “go for those foreign chateaux.” But he liked the name. It sounded “catchy.” And so the name of a new hotel, just an idea at the time, was born. In 1949, a mutual acquaintance suggested that Novack and Lapidus meet to discuss the interior design of Novack’s Sans Souci, then under construction in Miami Beach. “The first question put to me,” Lapidus recalled, “was, did I know anything about hotels? I told Ben that I had stayed at hotels….” After dinner with Novack, Lapidus examined the plans for the Sans Souci and then sketched a few ideas on some wrapping paper that was handy. “I sketched various parts of the hotel that I thought would be made more interesting. Of course, I was using techniques that I had developed in stores.” Novack was taken with his flair, and suddenly Lapidus was a designer of hotels, and better yet, hotels in Miami Beach. And best of all, there would be Fontainebleau…. 46

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James H. Snowden estate, postcard, 1919. The estate was later purchased by tire tycoon Harvey Firestone. Ben Novack bought the estate from the Firestone family for $2,300,000. above The mansion as construction headquarters, 1953. facing page

“At last, I was a real architect. I was still using my free-flowing designs that I had developed in my store designs. I was determined not to design a ‘box’ as a building.” MORRIS LAPIDUS

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“My designs had to draw customers into the stores. So began my studies, not of design, but of people: how to find the design elements that would stop people on the street and entice them into the store.” MORRIS LAPIDUS

“My father’s greatest freedom was the knowledge that most of the stores would last just a few years, so if he screwed up, it didn’t matter much in the overall scheme of things. So he experimented with manipulating people’s emotional responses to space, color, forms, lighting, and decoration.” ALAN LAPIDUS

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The permit for the original Fontainebleau was issued by the City of Miami Beach on December 29, 1953. At that time, it was the largest permit ever granted by the city. Now Novack wanted Lapidus to design an entire hotel—inside and out. Everything about the place would be more glamorous, elegant, luxurious, and swanky than anything anyone had done before.

“The white marble floor is decorated with black marble bows. This was the only signature that I placed in the hotel. I have worn only bow ties all my adult life.” MORRIS LAPIDUS

One of Lapidus’ first drawings of Fontainebleau, 1952. above the Fontainebleau lobby, CA. 1955. facing page

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“How does one explain the puritanical liturgy of white, right-angles, and ‘less is more’ to a man whose autobiography is entitled Too Much Is Never Enough?” DAV E H I C K E Y

Cat Pool at Fontainebleau, 1955.

“My work is about space and the light that inhabits it. It is about how you confront that space and plumb it. It is about your seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking into a fire.” JA M E S T U R R E L L

Lapidus was a student of human emotion, and from this he developed his sense of lighting, realizing his “moth theory,” that people are drawn to brightly lit spaces, a tendency well known to actors who can always “find the light,” the brightest spot on the stage. James Turrell, Third Eye (from the “Tall Glass” Series), 2008. LED light, etched glass, and shallow space. Each aperture: 4’-7” x 12’-4”.

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“I became interested in light as object: both the object “Think of the transience of the dandelion—one blow and it has gone. The LEDs and dandelions in Fragile Future seem a total contradiction, but in fact they match perfectly. The chandelier is not about seeing in the dark—it is about conveying emotion and referencing the fact that light is the basis of all life.” LO N N E K E G O R D I J N & RA L P H N AU TA

that gives off light, but also the form that light creates by itself in the illumination it Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, detail from Fragile Future, chandelier, in Timeless, 2013; dandelion seeds, phosphorus bronze, and LEDs: 41” x 128” x 33”. below Timeless, located off the Chateau Lobby, opened 2013. above

generates. I was also interested in the way illumination alters the surrounding environment, and affects how other objects are seen. I liked the fact that the shape of light has these two aspects: one determined by its designer, and one it decides or identifies for itself.” AI WEIWEI

Ai Weiwei, Miami Chandeliers, permanent installation, Chateau Lobby, 2008; stainless steel, glass crystal and lights; each 7’-3” x 13’-6” x 13’-6”. right

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Doug Aitken, Here Comes the Night, 2011; LED in box, 48” x 67” x 8”, edition 3 of 4 & 2AP. below Thomas Ruff, Substrate, 2003; four ditone prints on satin paper, 40” x 30”. above

Tracey Emin, I Followed You to the Sun, 2013; neon installation, 22” x 72”, edition 1 of 3. above Damien Hirst, Cocarboxylase, 2010; woodcut spot print, 42” x 42”, edition 43 of 48. right John Baldessari, Striding Person (with Onlookers), 2008; inkjet print and acrylic paint on photographic paper, 104” x 58” x 2”. facing page

Guests walking into the Chateau Lobby and encountering one of James Turrell’s light installations, or John Baldessari’s Striding Person, Thomas Ruff’s Substrate, or an Ai Weiwei chandelier, will know at once that Fontainebleau is a special place… and that the party is on. 58

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Bleau Bar, 2008. Fontainebleauâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legendary lobby bar and rendezvous LAPIDUS of the stars, returns more dazzling than ever.

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“I let my emotions, my design ability, my artistry, my everything go. There’s hardly a straight line in it— it just moves, with one curve going one way, and another in the opposite direction. There’s no end.” MORRIS LAPIDUS 62

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Fleur de Lis Dining Room, 1955.

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The new resort boasted 554 rooms in an eleven-story structure that gently curved southeast to catch the cooling trade winds. There were elegant shops, a post office, health clinic, and stock brokerage offices. Guests could schvitz in Russian and Turkish baths. The main lobby was 17,000 square feet in size. The Grand Ballroom had seating for 1,000 people that could be combined with the adjacent main dining room to accommodate 3,000. Fontainebleau had eight kitchens and more than 160 chefs and kitchen staff. The hotel’s grand opening on December 20, 1954, featured a $50 per plate dinner dance for 1,600 guests. The mountains of fine cuisine included 110 pounds of caviar. Liberace performed at the piano, and Groucho Marx proclaimed Fontainebleau “the Eighth Wonder of the World.”

The critics hated it. They declared it “boarding house baroque,” “the epitome of the apogee,” and “emblems of tail-fin chic.” The New York Times called it “superschlock.” “Pornography of architecture,” sniffed Art in America. The editors at Architectural Record were so incensed that they vowed never again to refer to Lapidus or his firm.

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left

Liberace. right Groucho Marx.

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But to hell with the critics. The public couldn’t get enough of Fontainebleau.

Hollywood and Fontainebleau were a match made in Technicolor Heaven. The hotel’s dramatic architecture, glamour, fame, and sunny Florida setting made it the ideal movie set. Stars and wannabe stars and thousands of the rest of us who wanted simply to bask in their glow flocked to the place. The hotel’s guest register included the biggest names in show business, politics, and popular culture. Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Red Skelton, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Jerry Lewis, and, of course, Elvis all performed on the stage of La Ronde Room. Jackie Gleason did his show here, too. A Miss Universe was crowned at Fontainebleau. In 1972, the Republican and Democratic conventions were both held here. LBJ stayed at Fontainebleau. So did the Gabor sisters, Judy Garland, Richard Nixon, mob boss Sam Giancana and his pals, and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Up on the penthouse floor, Marilyn Monroe stayed in Suite 1782 and JFK in 1784. And Burt Reynolds spent so much time at Fontainebleau that they named a suite for him. They also named a suite for the Bee Gees.

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Frank Sinatra’s welcome home party for Elvis Presley, taped in the Grand Ballroom, March 26, 1960. Elvis performed two new songs and duets with Frank, including the host’s Witchcraft and his own Love Me Tender.

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“Cut to shot of Sean Connery wearing a light blue terry cloth playsuit. Anyone else would look ridiculous in such a get-up, but not James Bond. He looks… swanky. In the 1960s, everyone loved Lapidus, for the same reason we loved Goldfinger. Both carried the seal of parental disapproval.” H E R B E RT M U S C H A M P, “Defining Beauty in Swanky American Terms,” New York Times

Goldfinger, 1964; Goldfinger poster; The Jackie Gleason Show, ca. 1955; The Bellboy, 1960; Robin Williams & Nathan Lane, The Birdcage, 1996; Regis Philbin & Kelly Ripa, live at Fontainebleau, May, 2009; Charles Osgood on the Stairway to Nowhere, CBS Sunday Morning, 2013; Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, 1992. clockwise from upper far left

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Frank first performed at Fontainebleau in 1957, and during the next 20 years, the Sultan of Swoon was synonymous with Fontainebleau.

F R A N K

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P H O T O

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Fontainebleau Miami Beach celebrates the legacy of Frank Sinatra and his centennial birthday with The Frank Sinatra Photo Gallery, a permanent exhibit of 34 rare vintage personal photos of Frank Sinatra from the Sinatra Family Archive, the archives of Capitol Records, Warner Bros. Records, the renowned photographer Terry O’Neill, and the estate of Ben & Bernice Novack, the original owners of Fontainebleau.

Curtain call, outside Frank’s dressing room at Fontainebleau, 1968. left Frank enjoying a cocktail with friends, including the original owners of Fontainebleau, Bernice Novack (center, at bar) and Ben Novack (behind her, on Frank’s left). above The Frank Sinatra Photo Gallery, Fontainebleau, opened September 3, 2015. facing page

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F R A N K

When Frank filmed a movie at Fontainebleau, he would shoot his scenes during the day and at night play to a packed house at Fontainebleau’s La Ronde Supper Club (now LIV Nightclub). Here, after a day on the set of A Hole in the Head, he’s mobbed by fans in the Chateau Lobby as he makes his way to the club.

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“It couldn't happen today — a photographer wouldn't be allowed the access and the freedom to be around a star as big as Frank Sinatra.” P H OTO G R A P H E R T E R RY O’ N E I L L Frank and the former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt enjoying themselves in Fleur de Lis dining room during a benefit for Girls Town; Frank and Raquel Welch, between takes on the set of Lady in Cement at Fontainebleau, 1968; Prepping backstage at Fontainebleau, “Backstage everything was laid out, from his suit and shirts to his aftershave. But he always prepared himself for a performance. He had to be immaculate, how he looked was as important as how he sang.” — Terry O’Neill; Frank and “the Emperor,” Michael Gergenson, aka Michael Romanoff, the owner of one of Frank’s favorite restaurants, Romanoff’s in Beverley Hills. Gergenson/ Romanoff had a bit part in many of Frank’s films, including Tony Rome, 1962. He played a restaurateur, of course. clockwise from upper left

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Fontainebleau’s BleauLive concert series reinvents the original vision of legendary architect Morris Lapidus — a stage where everyone plays their unique part.

Justin Bieber, New Year's Eve, 2016; Katy Perry, August, 2009; Lady Gaga, New Year’s Eve, 2010; Ricky Martin, Sparkle Ballroom, 2011; Kygo, New Year’s Eve, 2015; Pharrell Williams, Ocean Lawn, 2013; Jennifer Lopez, iHeart Radio Summer Pool Party, 2014. clockwise from upper far left

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Morris told me he was a tenement guy, an apartment guy, not a house guy. He designed apartments and hotels because he liked the crowds. Especially hotels. When he designed hotels he liked to consider himself the host, creating sights for glamorous occasions that raised spirits and put everyone at ease.â&#x20AC;? DAV E H I C K E Y

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President Barack Obama speaks at a reception, Sparkle Ballroom, August 18, 2010.

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Fontainebleau Poolscape L A Tower. P I D U S FO N TA I N E B L E AU and Chateau

“What first attracted me to Fontainebleau can be summed up in two simple words: endless possibilities.” JEFFREY SOFFER

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Jeffrey Soffer Chairman and CEO of Turnberry, one of the country's most highly regarded real estate developers, Jeffrey Soffer has been dedicated to Turnberry's growth for more than 25 years. His vision and influence can be seen in the development of numerous award-winning projects in South Florida and abroad. Soffer led the $1 billion expansion and renovation of the company's landmark Fontainebleau Miami Beach, transforming the iconic resort into one of the country's most sought-after beachfront playgrounds. Famed for architect Morris Lapidus' emblematic curvilinear façade and whimsical interior elements, the 1,504-room resort now includes two new luxury all-suite towers, 12 restaurants and lounges, a 40,000square-foot spa, and a dramatic oceanfront poolscape. Soffer also has created numerous South Florida residential landmarks, including Turnberry Ocean Colony, Porto Vita, Fontainebleau II and Fontainebleau III, Turnberry Village, and more. He brought his company's "mansions in the sky" concept to Las Vegas, creating the first high-rise condominium community overlooking The Strip; partnered with MGM Mirage to build The Residences at MGM Grand, which includes three sold-out and completed 40-story

towers on the Las Vegas casino-hotel property; and expanded the company into suburban Washington D.C. and The Bahamas with successful high-rise residential developments. Currently, Soffer is spearheading development of Turnberry Ocean Club Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, a new 54-story ultra-luxurious high-rise tower on the ocean featuring 154 residences ranging from 2,750 to 10,000 square feet. Soffer also oversees Turnberry's development and management of resort and hotel destinations and Class "A" office towers. In addition to Fontainebleau Miami Beach, the company's portfolio includes Turnberry Isle Miami — a 300acre, AAA Four Diamond Mediterraneanstyle luxury retreat — The Four-Diamond Hilton Nashville Downtown and a new JW Marriott hotel in Music City. In addition, Soffer has entered a joint-venture partnership with LeFrak to develop SoLēMia, a 184-acre site in North Miami that will include a hotel, luxury condominium residences, a lifestyle center with shopping and dining, and an array of neighborhood-style amenities. When complete, SoLēMia Miami will be another defining example of Soffer's mission to build destinations and communities that enhance the quality of life for residents.

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“I was truly having a marvelous time during this year of creating what I now look back on as my masterpiece. I don't think I ever surpassed this creation.” MORRIS LAPIDUS

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Numbers correspond to pages on which the images, excerpts, or references appear.

Miami News Collection, Historical Museum of Southern Florida: 47

Moore, Gus, “Miami Beach History: Morris Lapidus,” www.miamibeach411.com: 65

Credits

Moris Moreno: 20-21, 56 (Timeless), 57, 59 (Striding Person & Cocarboxylase)

20th Century Fox/Photofest: 10-11 Slim Aarons/Hulton Archive/Getty Images: 52-53 akg-images, London: 33 Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University: 44, 45, & 50

Estate of Bernice and Ben Novack: 71 (Frank with Novacks), 72 (Frank in Chateau Lobby) Paramount Pictures/Photofest: 69 (The Bellboy)

O’Neill, Terry, Sinatra: Frank and Friendly (London: Evans Mitchell Books, 2007): 73

WRE Seth Browarnik | WorldRedEye.com: 12-13, 74 (Justin Bieber, Jennifer Lopez, Pharrell Williams, Kygo), 75 (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin)

Courtesy Peter Ross: 83

Shulman, Allan T., Historical Report: Fontainebleau Hotel, prepared for Fontainebleau Resorts, 2005: 44, 46, 50, 65, 66

Courtesy Thomas Ruff and Schellman Art, Munich: 59 (Substrate)

Soffer, Jeffrey, letter to Fontainebleau guests, Grand Opening Weekend, November 14, 2008: 80

Courtesy Carpenters Workshop Gallery: 56 (chandelier detail)

Pete Sousa, Official White House Photo: 77

Turrell, James, interview with the editors, October 15, 2008: 55

CBS/Photofest: 69 (Jackie Gleason Show) Cision US: 68 (Charles Osgood) Courtesy Tracey Emin and Lehman Maupin: 58 Ray Fisher/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images: 1 Courtesy of Florida Archives: 8-9 Fotosearch Stock Photography: 32 Galerie Eva Presenhuber: 59 (Here Comes the Night)

Photofest: 64, 65, 67, & 68 (Whitney Houston)

Staff/Hulton Archive/Getty Images: 51 Irving Underhill Collection/Courtesy Library of Congress: 42 United Artists/Photofest: 68 & 69 (Goldfinger), 69 (The Birdcage) Paul Warchol, 2009: front cover, 18, 22-23, 54-55, 60-61, 78-79 Warner Brothers Pictures/Photofest: 14-15

Getty Images, Bert Morgan: 73 (Frank and Eleanor)

Sources/References

Getty Images/Terry O’Neill: 16-17, 70, 73 (Frank backstage and Frank with Raquel Welch)

We’d like to thank the individuals and publications listed below for permission to quote:

Gio Alma, 2014: 81

Ai Weiwei, interview with the editors, October 15, 2008: 57

Courtesy Gaspar Gonzalez: 73 (Frank and Michael Gergenson) Historical Museum of Southern Florida: 46 Archives of the International Swimming Hall of Fame: 41 The Kat Agency: 71 (Frank Sinatra Photo Gallery) Courtesy Lapidus Family: 28-29 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection [LC-G613-67025, LC-G612-47541, LC-G612-41702, LC-G613-67022]: 36 (both), 37, & 63 Chola Reavley, courtesy Mavrixonline.com: 68-69 (Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa) © The Miami Herald, 1994: 19

Beers, Jeffrey, RA, AIA, Founder and CEO of Jeffrey Beers International, New York City. Interview with the editors, September 9, 2008: 21 Giovannini, Joseph, “Ahead of the Curves,” New York Magazine (March 19, 2001): 63, 65 Hickey, Dave, “A Visit with Morris Lapidus,” Nest Magazine, Spring 2001: 52 Hickey, Dave, interview with the editors, October 15, 2008: 76

DAVE HICKEY has written for most major American cultural publications including Rolling Stone, ARTnews, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Harper’s Magazine, Vanity Fair, Nest, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. His collections of critical essays on art, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty and Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy, are in their sixth and eighth printings respectively. Pirates and Farmers was published by Ridinghouse in 2013, and features essays by Dave from 1999–2013. The University of Chicago Press released 25 Women: Essays on the Work of Women Artists in 2016. Forthcoming is Connoisseur of Waves: More Essays on Art & Democracy. Pagan America is forthcoming from Simon and Schuster. Dave’s numerous awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, an honorary degree from The Rhode Island School of Design, and a Peabody Award for his work on Ric Burns’ biographical documentary of Andy Warhol.

Lapidus, Alan, Everything by Design (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007): 15, 49 Lapidus, Morris, papers, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York: 40, 45, 47, 51, 82

$30.00 ISBN 978-0-692-07277-6

53000>

From Lapidus, Morris, Too Much Is Never Enough (New York: Rizzoli, 1996). Used with permission from Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.: 7, 12, 19, 37, 43, 46, 49

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