Forbes Magazine: Destination of the Week
Sexy Setai
Sophia Banay, 02.10.06, 12:30 AM ET
Pulling your own beach chair is hard work, made worse when the chair in question is solid teak. Teak is heavy, and the chair sinks into the sand. I realized this for myself on a recent morning, tugging fruitlessly at the arm of a lounge chair on South Beach, Miami, in front of The Setai.
Luckily, I was interrupted by a figure, sprinting Baywatch-style toward me across the beach. It was Paolo, the head of the hotel’s retinue of “beach boys,” employed to prevent people like me from straining their backs moving beach chairs on vacation. Paolo, whose skin was as dark as the teak chair, asked me how much color I wanted to get that day. After sizing up my pale skin, he politely aimed the chair right into the mid-afternoon sun and, then, pulled it down the beach and closer to the ocean, explaining that the breeze off the water would keep me cool.
Then he gave me a tray, also teak, filled with beach amenities: a damp towel, a dry towel, bottled water and a can of Evian Brumisateur, a “skin care atomizer” spray that would keep my face from drying out. I thanked Paolo. I was getting to like him. I sank back onto the towel he’d draped over the chair cushions, and he went off to do other good beach deeds.
Framed by a string of clubs and hotels to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, South Beach is a narrow strip of seedy glamor. The glamor factor varies from hotel to hotel, whose boundaries extend from the outer edges of their properties all the way down to the water, creating a series of sandy fiefdoms. Because The Setai’s beach boys are also employed to shoo non-guests off of The Setai’s strip of beach, sunbathing in front of the hotel is a strangely un-South Beach experience–even in January, the height of the winter season. It’s not very crowded; there’s no music blaring from boom boxes; and impromptu volleyball and football games don’t really have room to emerge. There is a downside: shooed-away beachgoers may approach and ask defensively where The Delano or The Shore Club is. I didn’t know. I had come to see The Setai. As far as I was concerned, the rest of South Beach didn’t exist.
The Setai is managed by General Hotel Management, a U.K.-based luxury resort and hotel operator. GHM’s director and chairman is Adrian Zecha, who founded the well-known Amanresorts chain, which established luxurious resorts in some of the most exotic corners of the world. Aman means peaceful in Sanskrit, and although The Setai isn’t an Amanresort itself, it embodies the privacy and sense of peace for which Zecha has become known.
The Setai started life as the Dempsey Vanderbilt Hotel, which was built in the 1930s during the height of the Art Deco movement that characterizes Miami architecture to this day. The Setai is a newly built replica of the Dempsey and was designed in an “Art Deco Fusion” concept meant to pay homage to Miami culture while preserving the Asian aesthetic Zecha is known for. The result is a predominantly Asian feel: clean lines and natural materials dominate the lobby, which is built from gray antique bricks transported from the now-dismantled Art Deco buildings of Shanghai. The lighting is dim, low couches are scattered throughout, and women in Juicy sweatpants and bikini tops pass businessmen checking out in the lobby as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
There are 75 rooms and 50 suites at the hotel, as well as a 10,000-square-foot penthouse suite with balconies and a private pool (rates available upon request). Guest rooms have teak floors, Lavazza espresso machines, Irish bed linen and flat-screen TVs, as well as rain showers and bathtubs in the bathrooms, where you can get in-room spa treatments.
The Restaurant at The Setai features a global menu, which includes Asian cuisine as well as French and American classics. Guests can sit inside, within view of the display kitchen, or in the courtyard. Be warned: The Restaurant is popular and advance reservations are required even for guests. The Champagne, Crustacean and Caviar Bar is open from the afternoon through the evening, with a floor-to-ceiling glass-walled wine bar and a selection of prestigious Cuvee Champagnes.
Between the hotel and the beach sit three separate swimming pools, which are at the end of a winding set of sheltered cabanas. The pools are shaded with palms and out of view of the passersby on the beach. Each pool has a distinct personality: children splash in the one closest to the beach, while guests do laps in another and couples sunbathe by the third. Lounge beds with black mattresses line the perimeter of the pool area, and The Pool & Beach Bar is a quiet refuge for guests suffering from sunstroke.
Next door to the hotel is a 40-story glass tower, The Residences at The Setai, where serviced apartments are priced from $1 million. To enjoy the splendor of The Setai for less, book a room at the hotel. Rooms start at $900 per night.
Forbes Fact
The Art Deco district in Miami Beach contains almost 1,000 structures, buildings and monuments built during the Great Depression. The Miami Design Preservation League lobbied to have the district protected, and in 1979, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The district is made up of four neighborhoods: Espanola Way, Collins and Washington Avenues, Museum Park and Flamingo Park, and renovation and restoration efforts throughout the 1990s have preserved the area well. Stainless steel, porthole windows, neon lights and pastel colors are hallmarks of the buildings found throughout the area.
