Acqualina Resort and Residences

There’s one kind of Miami experience, the one many have heard so much about, perhaps even experienced themselves as passing adopters of the Magic City mindset: the splendours of the sun, life by the water, sand, heat, cocktails, chisme, and a certain alegría de vivir. It is mostly assumed that one needs to be on the southern end of Collins Avenue to enjoy the full stylings of this Miami fantasy. It is also assumed that, inherent to this fantasy, is a kind of chaos. Various combustible episodes, dotted throughout Miami’s history, would certainly suggest so. But up the coast, about 10 miles north of Lincoln Road, is where one can taste the full spread of this fiery Southern metropole—the vivacity, the sun-soaked passions—without all that deafening busyness.

The Acqualina is testament to a different kind of Miami experience, one of subtler charms and quieter graces. It’s Miami for those who’ve been to South Beach, who love South Beach, but whose pull to the city no longer involves getting their South Beach fill. This is the new Miami: sophisticated and serene. Though its recent 20-year anniversary might make it seem an elder statesman of the Miami hotel scene, the Acqualina presents itself as a much more timeless experience. Its aesthetic underpinnings come from antiquity: here, that certain dignity, usually associated with classical Greek or Roman culture, is transposed upon four miles of pristine Florida coastline.

As soon as one steps into the lobby, one is greeted by a wide antechamber with a ceiling that vaults like an Italian galleria, decorative architraves, Doric columns, and Palladian windows. By the time one reaches the stairs, it’s clear this isn’t one’s average Miami resort. Winding Italianate staircases shuffle visitors around the main public areas. Inside spacious rooms, small statuettes and cool stone finishes bring to mind something of a Mediterranean seaside manor, as do the bathrooms, complete with marble vanities and old-school travertine arches. Indeed, the rooms more closely resemble small apartments or residential quarters than standard hotel rooms. Even in the case of a short stay, one still gets to experience a slice of luxury living.

The local Florida flavour appears in some of the resort’s more fundamental design choices. For such a colourful city, one might be surprised to encounter a preponderance of subdued, pale colourways: creams, tans, whites and greys. But, as one soon discovers, these are just the palette cleanser for the real action. Outside, by any of the hotel’s three pools, cabanas and daybeds in scintillating scarlet welcome the eye to the Miami fiesta. Hot red abounds; and behind it, the deep azure of the sky and the sea beams like a cerulean flashbulb.

Water, then, is a theme at the resort, a key ingredient of the full Acqualina experience. (And why shouldn’t it be? It’s in the name, afterall.) Some 20,000 square feet of pools, saunas, spas, treatment spaces, crystal steam rooms, Himalayan salt relaxation rooms, jet pools, and lounges have raised its renown from mere standard-bearing hotel to exemplary spa experience. These are the kinds of amenities that one once found a long, long way from Collins Avenue. Even the restaurants—Il Mulino New York for Italian, Ke-Uh for Japanese, and the bougainvillea-ringed Avra for a taste of Greece—reflect the new, bustling cosmopolitanism of one of the United State’s most intriguing and fast-growing powerhouse cities. Those looking for less fuss in their Miami experience can rest assured; they have the glorious Florida ocean to console them.

In the past, the kinds of events that powered Miami’s expansion were often born of crisis: the influx of immigrants after the Cuban Revolution, the sudden creation of a naval base during World War II. Now, visitors are turning to the 305 out of a burgeoning desire to see what all the fuss is about. With all that energy, movement, and tropical heat, it’s a wonder the Acqualina’s ice fountains stay cool.