The Redbury South Beach ★★★★

A 1930s Shell, Reworked for a Pool Deck Era

The Redbury occupies the former Fairfax Hotel, a South Beach property that sbe Hotels, together with restaurateur Larry Levy and developer Bob Heyat, rebuilt in 2013 into a Hollywood-leaning take on the neighbourhood's own Art Deco grammar. Rather than inventing a new silhouette, the renovation leaned into the vocabulary already on Collins Avenue, porthole windows, clean horizontal lines, a restrained black-and-white palette, and then built the hotel's real statement on the roof rather than the façade. Levy, whose family built one of the country's largest restaurant groups, had a direct hand in shaping the hotel's food and beverage programme from the outset, which shows in how central Lorenzo sits to the property rather than functioning as an afterthought. The result reads as a period building with a distinctly contemporary reason to stay.

Why It Works

We keep this one on the list because it solves South Beach's usual trade-off between room size and communal space by simply picking a side: the 69 rooms stay compact, almost incidental, so that the budget and the square footage go into a rooftop built for an actual afternoon rather than a quick dip. It is a hotel designed around how guests behave in Miami Beach, lounging by a pool from midday onward, rather than around a brochure photo of the room.

Why This Location

The hotel sits at 1776 Collins Avenue, one block back from Ocean Drive and close enough to the Art Deco Historic District to reach it on foot in a few minutes, while staying clear of the beachfront's busiest sightlines. The Miami Beach Convention Center and Lincoln Road's shops and restaurants are both within a fifteen-minute walk, and the beach itself is a short block east. It is a central, walkable address without the premium of an oceanfront room rate.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€ (Premium)

• Vibe: Hollywood-leaning Art Deco, pool-first, sociable

• Rooms: 69, deliberately compact

• Best For: travellers who rate a good rooftop over a large room, groups, pool-day regulars

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the 12,000-square-foot rooftop pool deck, oversized for a 69-room hotel

• Dining: Lorenzo, Italian, led by James Beard Award winner Tony Mantuano

• Amenities: rooftop pool and event space, pet-friendly rooms, private parking

• Attractions: Ocean Drive, the Art Deco Historic District, Miami Beach Convention Center, Lincoln Road

The Rooftop and Lorenzo

The hotel's real square footage goes into its rooftop: a 12,000-square-foot pool deck and event space that dwarfs the footprint of the 69 guestrooms below it, built for lounging through a Miami afternoon rather than a quick lap. The pool deck doubles as an event space on nights when it isn't simply full of guests, which keeps its energy from feeling like a fixed daily schedule. Downstairs, Lorenzo serves Italian food under chef Tony Mantuano, a James Beard Award winner, in a dining room pitched as casual rather than special-occasion, the kind of restaurant a guest can use on a Tuesday as easily as a Saturday. Between the two, the Redbury covers a full day without requiring a reservation at a restaurant down the street, which matters more on a block as dense with options as this one.

Before You Book

This suits travellers happy to trade a larger room for a better communal space, and less so anyone who plans to spend most of a stay inside it. The pool deck gets busy from early afternoon on, which is the draw for some and a reason to ask for a quieter floor for others. Private parking is available on site, a genuine convenience on a block where several neighbouring hotels send guests to an off-site garage instead.