Todd Oldham Revisits Hotel of South Beach

Originally designed as the Tiffany by architect L. Murray Dixon in 1939, the Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic sites.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 10/9/2009

He's designed for Escada, La-Z-Boy, Target, and Old Navy. He's hosted House of Style and Top Design. Add perfumier, author and philanthropist to his resume, and it's clear that Todd Oldham has done just about everything. Except, perhaps, revisit his own work.

But the designer now settles that score with completion of a 20-room addition for the Hotel of South Beach—the Art Deco Miami Beach hotel he originally remade in 1998—along with an update of his work on the hotel's garden restaurant, Wish.

The two-story addition is located on Ocean Drive, adjacent to the hotel that was originally designed in 1939 by architect L. Murray Dixon as the Tiffany, and is now listed on the National Register of Historic sites. Owner/operator Goldman Properties carved 20 rooms and suites out of the property, including two new 850-square-foot oceanfront terrace suites.

Oldham began with a reception vestibule featuring cream color walls, original terrazzo floorings, and a brass elevator. He replicated many of his original signature details from the hotel for the addition, including daybeds that do triple duty as window seats and storage, and are covered in a deep-brown and sand symmetrical pattern. Upholstered headboards and benches at the foot of the beds sport coral, orange and brown stripes, complemented by similarly patterned ottomans and gold-framed, floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

Floors are covered in custom soft-tweed carpets in shades of brown, gray and orange. Window are dressed with Roman shades. Sliding glass doors are made of double-thick glass to keep rooms quiet and cool in South Beach's tropical heat, particularly when shrouded in full-length, brown-and-orange tweed curtains. Bureaus, desks, and case goods are rendered in golden-tone mahogany, while closets incorporate mosaic door pulls and Oldham's signature storage panel, which collapses down for storing floor-length dresses.

Bathing areas were designed to reflect Miami's sunset, with counter tops of white mother-of-pearl terrazzo and flecks of coral and gray. Floors and walls are covered in white tiles that are streaked with touches of red, pink, orange, and gray.

Some of these same tones reappear in Oldham's redesign of Wish, which graced the cover of Interior Design when he first created it 10 years ago. Doing away with the garden restaurant's glass-topped tables and famed tie-dyed cushions, Oldham replaced them with deep-brown open-weaved Seashell chairs from Janus et Cie, accented with turquoise-colored cushions and quartz-topped tables. The circular fountain at the center of the garden was also recovered in a mosaic of blue, green, silver, and gold Bisazza tiles.

"We were delighted to celebrate Wish's 10th anniversary with a refreshing new look and adding elements of surprise while keeping the environment magical and comfortable," Oldham says.