Design Travel · Miami
Reading time: 8 minOn Collins Avenue, the 1940 Shelborne returns as the Shelborne by Proper — a Design Hotels member reimagined by ADC Atelier, where Art Deco heritage, Morris Lapidus’s pool deck and a new generation of Latin American art meet in one of Miami Beach’s most anticipated reopenings.
Miami Beach has always danced to its own rhythm. From the pastel parade of Ocean Drive to the Deco spines of Collins Avenue, this is a city that folds nostalgia and innovation into a single, sun-bleached silhouette — and few buildings embody that talent for reinvention quite like the Shelborne. Now, with its grand reopening as the Shelborne by Proper, the 1940 landmark begins an entirely new chapter: one written for discerning travellers, design enthusiasts and anyone who believes a hotel should carry its history as lightly as a linen jacket.
After an extensive renovation, the oceanfront icon re-emerges not merely as a place to stay but as a destination for design, culture and contemporary luxury at the heart of Miami Beach. Its membership of the prestigious Design Hotels collection feels less like an accolade than a statement of intent — placing the Shelborne within a global community of independent, design-led properties that prize creativity, craftsmanship and an unmistakable sense of place.
An Icon, Four Architects Deep
There is something quietly thrilling about walking into a hotel where eight decades of history have already checked in ahead of you. The Shelborne was designed originally by the celebrated architects Igor Polevitzky and Thomas Triplett Russell, and it quickly became a fixture of Miami’s glamorous mid-century heyday. In the 1950s, Morris Lapidus — the great showman of Miami Modernism — added his own flourish, introducing the now-iconic pool deck and folding MiMo exuberance into the building’s Art Deco bones.
The guest book tells its own story: Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and The Beatles all passed through, sealing the Shelborne’s reputation as a beacon of style at the centre of the Miami Beach stage. Even today, the rooftop lettering — that skyward “Shelborne” script rising above the palms — remains one of the most recognisable signatures on the skyline.
The latest chapter belongs to ADC Atelier, the award-winning team behind the hotel’s meticulous transformation. Their approach is one this publication has long championed: preserve the elements that carry the building’s memory, then layer in a contemporary elegance confident enough to stand beside them. The 18th Street façade, a relic of the original structure, still greets arriving guests — a handshake from 1940 before the twenty-first century takes over inside.
That restraint is one of the real pleasures of this stretch of coastline. The Shelborne’s renewal makes the building’s mid-century character the whole point of the exercise, keeping the 18th Street façade and the Lapidus pool deck at the centre of the composition. The more contemporary the intervention, the more clearly the building’s layered history reads.
“The Shelborne does not chase Miami’s past; it lets you sit inside it, cocktail in hand.”
A Lobby That Sets the Palette
Inside, the lobby establishes the language immediately: honed Perlino marble, travertine and rich wood, composed in that rare balance between sleek modernity and warm nostalgia. The reception desk alone is worth pausing over — a rippling, sand-toned timber volume set against a dramatic wall of pink breccia marble, its fractured pattern reading like an abstract of the Florida shoreline itself.
The colour palette takes its cues from Miami’s tropical surroundings, and it does so with genuine subtlety. Moss greens, terracotta tones and soft powder blues set a sophisticated, sun-faded register that feels drawn from the place rather than printed onto it, tuned to the light coming off the Atlantic.
The lobby lounge doubles as a gallery of craftsmanship and contemporary art, with bespoke furniture and handcrafted finishes sharing the space with works by emerging Latin American artists. Kenny Nguyen’s ethereal silk installations shift gently in the natural light; Regina Jestrow’s fabric works and Lauren Shapiro’s organic sculptures add texture and intrigue at every turn. It is not often that design, art and location harmonise this seamlessly — and rarer still that it feels this effortless.
The furniture itself deserves a mention. Sculptural lounge chairs in suede and bouclé gather on soft rugs beneath towering palms, their curved silhouettes trading knowing glances with the building’s MiMo geometry, while checkerboard oak side tables and glass-topped occasional pieces keep the composition light. The effect is of a room collected rather than specified — mid-century in spirit, entirely current in execution.
Rooms with a Design-Led View
For those who weigh interiors as carefully as ocean views, the hotel’s 251 guestrooms — including 32 suites and villas — deliver on both counts. Miami-based artist Jessy Nite brings the city indoors through handwoven topographic artworks, while Hayley Moree’s palm-inspired paintings nod to the Deco past with a thoroughly modern vibrancy.
The rooms speak the language of quiet luxury: clean lines, vintage-inspired details and bespoke ceramic accents by local artist Carly Graceffa and Barcelona’s Clara Arbuniés. Natural light pours through vintage-style glass panes — in the corner rooms, wrapping bay windows frame the Atlantic so completely that the ocean becomes the artwork. Bathrooms continue the understatement with travertine floors, custom vanities and Aesop amenities: serene, tactile spaces to retreat to after a day in the city.
At the top of the offer sit the Two-Bedroom Pool Villas, complete with kitchenettes, lounge areas and private terraces overlooking the pool deck and the ocean beyond — as close as Miami Beach comes to a private residence with room service.
Five Ways to Dine, Miami Style
No Miami hotel earns its stripes without serious food and drink, and the Shelborne delivers through a partnership with hospitality heavyweights Lowder-Tascarella. With Michelin-starred chef Abram Bissell — a Florida Keys native — leading the kitchens and globally acclaimed beverage expert Christopher Lowder shaping the drinks, the hotel’s five dining destinations celebrate the multicultural flavours of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Pauline, the signature restaurant, puts seafood at centre stage with dishes as visually composed as the rooms they are served in. Little Torch, the intimate cocktail lounge, trades in exclusivity — a meticulously crafted list poured amid warm, moody interiors. The Café handles the daytime rhythm with coffee and Cuban-inspired bites, its mushroom-shaped stools lined against a breccia marble counter that must rank among the city’s most handsome coffee spots. The Bar, meanwhile, performs Miami’s favourite trick: sun-drenched espresso by day, coconut-aged Manhattans and strawberry-tequila espresso martinis by night, beneath brass shelving stacked with the Lowder-Tascarella arsenal.
The fifth destination is the oldest. Outside, the historic pool deck — complete with its original platform diving board, gleaming white against the palms — invites guests to do what guests here have done since Lapidus’s day: unwind beneath the sun, cocktail in hand. Seen from above, the deck remains one of Miami Beach’s great compositions: mint parasols and green striped loungers arranged along turquoise water like a Slim Aarons photograph waiting to happen. The adjacent Beach Club, with full-service dining, modular sage lounges and fringed parasols on copper poles, completes the quintessential Miami Beach picture.
At the Heart of Miami’s Cultural Pulse
Location is everything in this city, and the Shelborne could scarcely be better placed. Set along Collins Avenue, steps from the sand, it sits within walking distance of cultural anchors like The Bass Museum of Art and gloriously unreconstructed haunts like Mac’s Club Deuce, the full range of Miami Beach character within a single stroll.
Venture slightly further and the city unfolds: the street-art-saturated blocks of Wynwood with their fast-rising culinary scene, or the Miami Design District, where galleries, concept stores and luxury flagships form an urban playground for design lovers. For readers planning a design-focused itinerary around Art Basel, Miami Art Week or simply a long weekend, the Shelborne makes an almost unfairly convenient base camp.
A Living Celebration of Miami Design
What ultimately distinguishes the Shelborne by Proper is not the location or even the illustrious history — it is the consistency of intent. Every finish, artwork and corner reflects Miami’s cultural heritage while embracing a bold, modern sensibility; every era of the building’s life, from Polevitzky’s plan to Lapidus’s pool to ADC Atelier’s interiors, remains legible in the finished whole. The Design Hotels membership simply formalises what the rooms already declare: this is independent, design-driven hospitality of the first rank.
Whether you are a luxury hotel aficionado, a devoted student of interiors, or simply in search of a stay that captures the essence of Miami Beach, the Shelborne delivers — and then pours you something cold beside the diving board. It is not just a hotel; it is a statement. A celebration of the exact point where Miami Modernism, Art Deco heritage and contemporary luxury meet, with the Atlantic glittering just beyond the curtains. Sinatra would still recognise the place — and, one suspects, he would still ask for the same table.
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