Inside the makeover of an iconic Miami Beach hotel. ‘We want people to hang out’

On a sweltering summer day in Miami Beach, relief awaits beyond the sidewalk on Collins near 17th.

From a nearby bus stop, a wide patio with tables and chairs come into view. A short and wide staircase gives easy access to a place that once hosted Hollywood’s leading names.

Inside is the cool. Tall white curtains at the entrance and a lobby with a hip cafe.

The long-awaited redo of the Delano Miami Beach Hotel, six years in the works and about $100 million later, certainly evokes elegance. It also feels accessible even to those who can’t afford to stay there.

Start with the view from the street. The tall ficus hedges that ensconced the prior edition are long gone. That’s because the city requires buildings to be visible from the street. That’s fine with the new developer and operator.

“I love that,” said Ben Pundole, chief brand officer for Delano Hotels. That requirement “is a great thing for the city of Miami Beach.”

Then, without checking in, or even having a reservation, you can grab a seat at the outdoor patio for a drink or pastry.

“Anyone can sit outside here,” Pundole said. “You don’t have to be a guest.”

Hotels in Miami Beach and the Miami area come and go. Demolitions are public spectacles and considered regular entertainment. But there’s only one Delano, and it’s been absent. Until now.

The new Delano Miami Beach

The renovated hotel, 1685 Collins Ave., has returned with a splash, maybe two, with 171 guest rooms, including penthouses and bungalows. Rooms come with large windows, lots of sunlight and white and cream colors. The penthouses on the topmost 14th floor can be combined to form a seven-bedroom cluster occupying that entire floor for those looking to max out.

Food and beverage options result from a partnership with Paris Society, a luxury French hospitality company that works with groups worldwide to give them high-end culinary offerings. This is its first restaurant collaboration in the United States. The new Delano is now home to Italian restaurant Gigi Rigolatto and Mimi Kakushi, inspired by underground artists in Osaka in the 1920s.

MORE: Two world-famous restaurants open at newly renovated, iconic Miami Beach hotel

The Delano Miami Beach is certainly high end. A room with two queen beds, for two adults and a child, starts at $848 a night for Aug. 7, according to its website.

Yet the hotel seems to want to be part of the larger Miami Beach community, whether luring locals to stop by for a drink, artists in the area to get their work displayed here, or musicians who just want to chill.

The long and wide lobby has white and cream colored, curved sofas. Elevator buttons are light bronze etched on medium oil rubbed bronze plates.

Lobbies might be out of vogue at hotels these days. A growing trend is to automate check-in and send guests straight to their rooms. That’s not the case at the new Delano.

“We absolutely really want people to hang out in the lobby,” said Pundole.

From the earlier iconic Miami Beach hotel

The light colors in the lobby and white curtains at the entrance are two of several features from the previous version that the new developer and owner sought to maintain.

They also kept the iconic Rose Bar, accessible from the lobby. And the original Salvador Dali “Leda Chair” sits in the lobby.

The original Delano seal was restored and is now embedded in the terrazzo floor at the entrance. Guests see it as they arrive. It had to be removed and extensively polished, Pundole said.

For the musically inclined, one of the first things guests see in the lobby is the Lucite Piano, courtesy of rock star Lenny Kravitz. That’s the same piano that was in the Florida Room, a lounge in the prior Delano that Kravitz designed.

“People will come in and play it every day,” said Jonathan Goldstein, CEO and co-founder of Cain International, owner of the hotel.

The Delano, named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spans 15 U.S. presidents. It was built in 1947 and lies inside the Art Deco historic district in Miami Beach.

It attained new heights when Ian Schrager, the New York entertainment mogul who founded disco Studio 54, took over and renovated the hotel. In 1995, he reopened it to much fanfare, including a six-page layout in Vanity Fair.

Schrager told the Miami Herald in 1995, “I want this hotel to be glamorous, but easy.”

The Philippe Starck-designed renovation quickly became a hit. Celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx stopped by. When asked about it, designer Calvin Klein told the Miami Herald that “it is the best hotel in the world.”

And not only celebrities. “Everybody remembers being at the Delano,” said Goldstein. “Everybody has a story.”

It had a trademark outdoor pool, ranging from a depth of one inch to five feet. It was more for aesthetics and socializing than for swimming. A table and chairs were placed at the shallowest end.

In 1995, the Herald wrote that “the refashioned Art Deco gem was immediately dubbed the epitome of cool, revitalizing Miami Beach and launching a tsunami of boutique hotels that forever changed how Americans vacation.”

In that era, average room rates were about $150 per night, considered expensive for Miami Beach at the time, the Herald reported then. But they could fall to $100 a night since Schrager sought a mixed clientele.

“I learned in the nightclub business that it’s irrelevant what people make and where they live,” he told the Herald then. “It’s something else they have in common that’s interesting. It’s ball gowns dancing next to blue jeans.”

Still, the hotel later hit tough times, and Schrager left the scene.

The pandemic, and six years of waiting

Shortly after COVID-19 hit the U.S., the hotel closed. At its back entrance on March 20, 2020, a sign read: “The safety and well-being of our staff and guests is our top priority.” It continued, “We very much apologize for these developments and hope to welcome you back to the property soon.”

In late 2020, Connecticut-based firm Eldridge acquired the Delano from SBE Entertainment Group. Eldridge put its investment arm, Cain International, in charge of the renovation.

In 2023, Cain brought in hospitality company Ennismore to run the hotel. Founded in 2021, it’s a joint venture with Accor, a majority shareholder.

For years and even during planning, the new owners had been thinking about how to restore the hotel to its past splendid form. In 2022, Cain said in a statement, “while plans for its restoration are being developed, we are committed to restoring the property to its original grandeur and reestablishing it as one of the country’s most desirable hotel destinations.”

In doing so, the new Delano has kept the outdoor pool with the same design, including the table and chairs at one end. Rocks made of oolite limestone dot the landscape. The preponderance of white and cream colors, in the guest rooms and the lobby, also evoke the earlier Delano designs.

The Schrager Delano provided a green apple to each guest on arrival. The redone Delano is giving apple-shaped glass vessels filled with treats.

“We inherited one of the iconic properties in Miami Beach,” Goldstein, the Cain CEO, told the Herald. “We felt a real responsibility to get it right.”

Influence from an earlier time

A big part of doing that was bringing on Ben Pundole, considered a star in the luxury hotel industry. From London, he lived in Miami Beach about 20 years ago. Among other roles, he was previously an executive for EDITION, Ian Schrager’s firm, worked closely with him for many years and considers him an important influence.

He also did some work at the prior Delano, including helping to build the Florida Room and bringing in Lenny Kravitz to design it, the musician’s first commercial design project. He also got the king of cool to donate the Lucite Piano then, the same one that today sits in the lobby. “We have brought it back and restored it,” the executive said.

For those reasons, the new Delano “is very personal for me,” Pundole said. “I know what it means to Miami Beach.”

The new owners and developers even brought back things that were in the original hotel but left out of the 1990s Schrager edition.

That includes the terrazzo floor, introduced in 1947, both at the entrance and in the lobby. Before the Schrager/Philippe Starck edition of the Delano, the floor beneath the dark hardwood had a terrazzo pattern.

The new Delano also has tall octagonal columns, found in the original. A mezzanine bridge seen from the lobby was brought back. It takes guests to a private dining room.

Wellness for modern times

The owners have also added new features to keep up with the times. They include 10 cabanas, a gym and a yoga studio. They took out the nightclub in the basement and replaced it with a 7,000-square-feet wellness facility.

“Wellness is a real focus for the new Delano,” Pundole said.

Their big bet is in on a new private club. While private clubs are becoming common in South Florida, the Delano is trying to create a high-end one that stands out. Membership is open to the public, but you must apply and be approved.

Many of the features for members are found on the fourth floor, including the restaurant Mimi Kakushi. For those who aren’t staying at the hotel, joining the club is the only way to eat there.

Members also have access to a fitness studio, the hotel spa with a 22-seat sauna “for holistic group experiences,” and a separate pool built on the fourth floor. There’s also a year-round program of cultural and entertainment events, preferred room rates and upgrades. r

The Delano is accepting its initial 200 founding members. For individuals, joining costs $6,000, plus an annual $12,000 fee.

Food and drink

Walking through the lobby toward the pool, guests arrive at one of the hotel’s flagship restaurants.

Gigi Rigolatto offers fresh tagliolini with lime and Florida stone crab, Otoro carpaccio and cotoletta alma parmigiana. Guests can sit indoors, poolside or in one of the beach cabanas. They can also stop at the Bellini Bar. There are a total of 220 seats.

The restaurant’s walls feature carved wooden panels, mineral plaster and yellow Sienna marble.

Meanwhile at Mimi Kakushi, hotel guests can enjoy sashimi or sushi as well as Donabe rice pot and Kagoshima wagyu beef. It has 195 indoor and outdoor seats.

Movie buffs will enjoy a unique way of ordering cocktails. Guests will receive a handheld stereoscopic viewer. Each drink is inspired by a character from a film of renowned Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa, who became popular during the silent film era.

Café Delano and the revitalized Rose Bar are also important venues in the new hotel. In the latter, the Murano glass Narciso chandeliers were restored to their original condition. They come with dusky lighting and-slung velvet seating.

Art from South Florida is also expected to be a big focus of the new hotel. Artist Nicola Green will lead efforts to bring in local work.

“I really want to use the hotel as a springboard for local, emerging artistic talent,” Goldstein said. “When you walk the corridors of Delano, you’re going to be surprised by the pieces of art you see.”

Structural changes and history

One of the biggest changes the new owners made was to the fourth floor, to allow it to serve the private club. The terrace now there had been entirely covered and the floor ended after the guest rooms. The owners had to petition the city to open up that space.

They added a swimming pool there. That space is now meant to be “an oasis” within the hotel itself, said Goldstein.

While it took longer to finish than planned, the owner praised Miami Beach’s historical preservation board for its role in the process.

“The actual dealing with the historical board was a very transparent and smooth process,” Goldstein said.

The owners had to make their case, but he noted, “You prepare your paperwork, you speak to city employees, they give you their guidance, you take their recommendations.”

He said, “you know where they stand.”

So, what does the new Delano do for South Beach?

Goldstein lists the nearby Shore Club and Shelbourne and others, praises them and notes the neighborhood is improving its hotel offering and recovering its splendor.

As a result of the new Delano, “I think people will up their game which will be to the benefit of everybody and Miami Beach,” he said.

With the many changes, one other thing that remains is the hotel’s access to the beach. Walking past the outdoor pool and past the back gate, guests see a pristine part of Miami Beach.

To get to it, you pass “almost jurassic-like vegetation,” Pundole says.

“I could do with just a couple of hours on this beach,” he said laughing, making clear that running a hotel or getting one started is quite different than staying at one.

Pundole has a deep connection to the new Delano given his past work. After nearly 20 years away, he moved back to Miami to oversee the new edition.

“I’ve become so emotional,” the executive said as tears formed.

“Delano belonged to the city,” he said. “It’s been missing.”

And now, given the reaction he and his colleagues have received?

“There’s been great love for it to come back.”

This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 10:06 AM.