Miami Nice

MIAMI'S South Beach used to be just flash and trash. Now it's glamour all the way, writes Julie Earle-Levine after trying out her own 'tanning butler'.

South Beach, Miami/file

WE are lying poolside, propped up with plump, soft cushions and a bucket of iced Perrier-Jouet champagne.

The sparkling aqua sea is dazzling, beautiful people zoom by on rollerblades, golden brown and glistening with coconut tanning oil.

I am wondering out loud if all of them could possibly be surgically enhanced when a man in tiny, tight white shorts approaches and offers to help me apply suncream in hard-to-reach places.

My husband removes his shades for a better look at this guy, who quickly explains he is my tanning butler and it's his job to make sure I get a dreamy tan too. No kidding. At South Beach, Miami, five-star pampering just got even more fabulous.

To many, Miami is one dazzling fantasy, from the celebrity-studded lavish beach parties and nightlife (as Paris Hilton says, "South Beach is hot") to the Latin-inspired food and barely there fashion. The city has been getting international attention recently for its annual Art Basel event (December 7-10) and Design District, home to art galleries, design businesses and architects.

Miami is emerging as a truly luxurious hotel destination with a string of new, swanky hotels, from the Ritz-Carlton South Beach (home of the tanning butler, which seems ridiculous until you have one and then completely necessary even if your husband insists otherwise) to the Setai, the Standard by New York hotelier Andre Balazs (Uma Thurman's on-off boyfriend who owns the Mercer in New York and the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood), the Mandarin Oriental and the Conrad Miami.

These worthy newcomers are transforming the city into a more sophisticated destination.

While they may be new properties, some are old, beautifully restored art deco hotels with clean, rounded corners and ledges, oval driveways and gorgeous swimming pools.

It's not surprising to learn Miami is the location for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 classic To Catch a Thief. The original, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, focuses on an American expatriate on the French Riviera who falls in love with another beautiful American, just as a string of jewel robberies occur. Could Miami be framed as a 21st-century French Riviera?

Each hotel has its allure. The Ritz-Carlton South Beach, formerly the DiLido Hotel, designed by prominent architect Morris Lapidus in 1953, has been completely restored with a $US200million ($269million) makeover.

Lapidus designed it to look like a luxury cruise ship, with two three-storey wings that extend towards the ocean and flank a centre pool. As you approach the hotel from the fine white-sand beach, you come upon what appears to be a ship looking out to sea with stainless steel accents and horizontal racing stripes.

When we visit in February, escaping a bitter Manhattan winter, I spend most of my time gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean. The beach is like Queensland's Gold Coast without the tour buses and is dotted with each hotel's signature cushioned sun lounges and umbrellas, mobile juice cafes, locals with lunches packed in styrofoam coolers and an international crowd.

When I fall asleep in a sun-induced haze, the butler comes by to make sure I am not getting sunburned. It is time to check out the spa, which is the largest on Miami Beach and has just introduced exclusive Prada beauty treatments. After a shiatsu massage, I float out to the pool area for lunch, where basketball legend Michael Jordan is seated at the next table.

Miami is packed with celebrities. Even the best, tiny Greek cafe here is frequented by Hilton and her posse; Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan hang out at the Sultan Kabob on Collins Avenue (where, like, everyone goes after clubbing at nearby Mynt) and there are photos on the wall to prove it.

Who knew stick-thin Paris liked generous servings of delicious lamb gyro after a champagne-fuelled night?

Lenny Kravitz is among those who have bought apartments in the Setai's 40-storey condo building, which opened last December. A room at the Setai is a staggering $US900 a night, making it among the most expensive places to stay in Miami. Originally built in the 1930s as the famed Dempsey Vanderbilt Hotel, the Setai feels all Asian chic and, sadly, not much like Miami. In the lobby, a silk carpet runs by the front desk to the elevators along grey stone flooring imported from Shanghai. Black stone from Beijing was used for the walls, which are hung with bronze and jade art.

The Setai's 75 rooms and 50 suites are decorated in velvet, silk and linen in shades of coffee and chocolate, with deep purple accents.

Guests can start the day with a private tai chi or yoga class on the beach, or at the hotel's oceanfront garden area, which has three pools, one with 24C water for lounging, another at 29.5C, and a third with 35C water, which suits me just fine, as I float below a giant Buddha. It feels like Asia but with Miami's golden stretch of beach.

After a day in the sun, guests and locals gather at the hotel's mother-of-pearl table at the champagne and caviar bar. If you stay here, make sure to ask for a room with an ocean view because the hotel is set back from the condominium tower, the building directly on the oceanfront. Getting a booking at the Setai's spa is no easy feat as it is heavily booked by hotel guests.

The spa trend is sweeping Miami and the Standard, which opened in January on Belle Isle, west of Miami Beach, is a hot spot.

Formerly the Lido, it has been a spa since the 1940s and has kept its fabulous white marble walls and terrazzo floors. Balazs's first spa hotel successfully revives traditional bath-house cultures from across the world – hammams in Turkey, Korean scrubs, Swedish saunas and the Russian shvitz – albeit with a modern twist.

Lapidus has put his trademark baroque spin on the facade of the Lido, with details such as gold panels and green ceramic tiles. The rooms are simple, with whitewashed walls, flatscreen televisions with covers (a nice touch) and fun furnishings. The minibars are stocked with homeopathic hangover medication in case you hit the bars in South Beach. In the public areas he has added vintage Danish furniture, beanbag coffee tables and a library.

The Lido spa smacks of naughtiness. Don't be surprised to see couples in private nooks set aside, the hotel says, "for self-exploration and indulgence". Couples frolic in the clothing-optional mud baths (guests can slap on red earth, clay or a soothing mud) and wash it off in a circular waterfall set among sea-grape trees and blooming jasmine.

The pool and hydrotherapy area is an ode to communal bathing, with DJ-spun music underwater. Guests can slap themselves silly with soapy birch branches or spend time in the Turkish hammam with heated marble seats. Spa treatments are suggestive; a standard spanking (cellulite-fighting massage) or a Chinese sex tonic, anyone?

It is a tamer scene at the Mandarin Oriental's waterfront spa (no unisex here), favoured by Jennifer Lopez and Penelope Cruz, with treatments such as the Kundalini Journey, combining massage, gemstone therapy and guided meditation. It has 17 private treatment rooms, decorated in bamboo, rice and glass. At night, guests can head to the hotel's main bar for one of 250 martini options. The Mandarin is beautiful but it is set back from the beach on Brickell Key Drive.

The new Conrad Miami is also away from the beach and occupies 10 floors of a 36-storey building in the downtown financial district. It's more corporate than pleasure – big conference rooms and business facilities – but it does have a stunning glass atrium with a full spa.

One of my favourites, for its porthole windows and stunning South Beach views from every room, is the Tides, right on Ocean Drive. Its lobby is breezy, with comfy white lounges and high ceilings, and it has a quiet private pool at the back of the property and a gym that overlooks the beach. It is lining up for a makeover, to be completed by the end of this year.

Other hotels to keep an eye on are Gansevoort South, a 232-room property with rooftop swimming pool and palm tree-fringed teak roof deck, near the new W Hotel on the north end of Collins Avenue. Gansevoort South guests can play at a tri-level beach club with cabanas and fire pits at night.

W replaces the old Holiday Inn, with 500 new condominiums. Also planned is a Miami outpost of the Soho Grand, the private members' club in London and Manhattan.

Gianni Versace's Miami beach house, the scene of his 1997 murder, is on Ocean Drive in the heart of the deco district. With elaborate marble floors and a pool of 10,000 mosaic tiles, it's now a 12-room hotel, Casa Casuarina (a member of Leading Hotels of the World), where a small suite starts at $US1200 a night, with temporary rights to splurge on caviar and champagne.

You don't need to stay at any of these chic hotels to indulge. Many visitors opt for classic, unrenovated art deco hotels along the beach, for one-third of the price, and just hotel hop into the new beauties for lunch and spa treatments. It'd be a vice not to.