The Villa Casa Casuarina

The Villa Gianni Versace Rebuilt Around a Gold Mosaic Pool

Alden Freeman, heir to a Standard Oil fortune, built this Spanish-influenced villa himself in 1930, modeling it on the Alcázar de Colón in Santo Domingo and laying key-lime coral floors that are still underfoot today. Gianni Versace bought the house in 1992, demolished the neighboring Art Deco hotel next door to make room for a garden, a pool and a new south wing, and spent an estimated $32 million turning it into a private residence worthy of the name Casa Casuarina. Jordache Enterprises, the family that now owns it, reopened the mansion as a ten-suite boutique hotel, keeping Freeman's original details alongside Versace's additions rather than erasing either era.

Why It Works

We selected it for a simple reason: nothing else in South Beach carries this much verified history in one address. The 1930s architecture is real, not a pastiche built decades later to evoke the period, and Versace's renovation, the pool, the garden, the gold mosaic work shipped in from Italy, is as much a part of the building's story now as Freeman's original design. Staying here means sleeping inside an actual landmark rather than a hotel styled to look like one.

Why This Location

The villa sits directly on Ocean Drive, inside the busiest stretch of South Beach's Art Deco Historic District, with the beach across the street and Lummus Park a short walk south. It's a location built for people who want to be in the middle of Ocean Drive's cafés, people-watching and nightlife rather than removed from it, the trade-off for the address being this well known is that the street outside rarely quiets down.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Private mansion turned boutique hotel, equal parts 1930s architecture and 1990s fashion-world history

• Rooms: 10 suites

• Best For: travelers who want South Beach's most storied address, design and history enthusiasts

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the 54-foot pool lined with more than a million mosaic tiles, thousands of them 24-karat gold

• Dining: Gianni's restaurant on site, plus the Onyx Bar, set inside Versace's former kitchen

• Amenities: heated outdoor pool, beachfront access, private parking

• Attractions: Ocean Drive, Lummus Park and the beach, the Art Deco Historic District

The Pool That Took a Million Tiles

The mansion's 54-foot pool is its signature: more than a million mosaic tiles, a large share of them 24-karat gold, set into a Medusa-head design that was assembled in Reggio Calabria, Italy, shipped across the Atlantic in pieces and reassembled on site. It anchors the garden Versace built where a neighboring hotel once stood, and it remains the single most photographed detail of the property, a private pool in the middle of South Beach rather than a hotel pool deck.

Suites Named for Those Who Stayed

Each of the ten suites carries a trace of the house's history, from rooms once used by Gianni and Donatella Versace to one associated with Madonna. The furnishings mix Freeman-era architectural details, the original coral floors and decorative medallions among them, with a more contemporary fit-out, so the suites read as a lived-in mansion rather than a museum piece behind velvet rope.

Before You Book

Check-in is at 4pm, check-out at 11am, and children are welcome. With only ten suites, the hotel books out well ahead of South Beach's busier weekends, so this is not a same-week booking for anyone set on staying here specifically. Gianni's restaurant and the Onyx Bar are open to hotel guests and outside diners alike, so expect some traffic through the ground floor even during a quiet stay upstairs.