Where North Beach actually is
North Beach is the north end of the island, the stretch of Miami Beach above the big hotels and below the Surfside town line. Locals call it NoBe. The city's own historic resort district runs along Collins Avenue from 63rd to 71st Streets, which gives you the shape of it: low post-war buildings, a grid of residential streets, and the Atlantic on one side of you the whole way.
We're at 7418 Harding Avenue, a block in from the ocean. Harding runs north from our door into Surfside and then into Bal Harbour, so the three read as one long street that gets a little more expensive as you go. South Beach is twenty-odd minutes down Collins when you want it. Most of our guests go once.
Why people choose this end over South Beach
Because nothing here is performing. North Beach still has its soul: Cuban and Argentine kitchens, old Italian family restaurants, people walking dogs at seven in the morning, buildings three and four storeys tall instead of thirty. There is no queue to get into anything. The beach in front of us is the same Atlantic they have in South Beach, with a fraction of the people on it.
That is the honest trade. If you came to Miami for a club at two in the morning, this is the wrong end of the island and we'd rather tell you now. If you came to swim, eat well, read in the shade, and sleep, you are in exactly the right place.
The house itself
We have 29 rooms and suites across two floors in a 1948 building. The ground floor and an upper level, and the upper level is reached by stairs only, which matters if you travel with a lot of luggage or need step-free access. We do have an accessible suite on the ground floor with a walk-in shower.
Everything here carries Felix's personal touch. He designed each room himself and the furniture is custom, not specified from a catalogue. The art on the walls was commissioned from Mark Cherry. Underfoot around the pool there is teak laid in a yacht deck pattern, which is the kind of detail you notice on the second day rather than the first.
The rooms carry their own names rather than grades: the Nest Room and the Elegance Room look toward the garden or the pool, the Signature Room has a Juliet balcony over the water, and the Grand Luxe Suite is the largest of the house, with a separate bedroom and living room, a king and a sofa bed for a third.
The courtyard, which is the actual point
The courtyard is where the day really begins. A pool ringed in teak decking and native palms, poolside dining by day, and a planted garden that hides the maison from the street so that you stop hearing Harding Avenue after about an hour. Go down at eight, before the heat sets in, and you will usually have the water to yourself. The pool stays quiet well into the evening.
The beach is a short walk from the gate. We keep sunbeds and umbrellas waiting on the quieter sand, so you can leave with a towel and nothing else.
Eating within walking distance
The one we send people to most is Café Prima Pasta at 414 71st Street. Family Italian, over thirty years on that block, tables on the sidewalk, and a wine list out of proportion to the size of the room. Go early in the evening or accept that you will wait, because they don't rush the tables and you won't want them to.
For a bigger night, go north instead. Bal Harbour Shops at 9700 Collins Avenue is about twenty blocks up, a few minutes by car, and the restaurants inside it are a destination whether or not you shop. Carpaccio, on the ground floor since 1995, is the busy Italian lunch; Makoto, from chef Makoto Okuwa, is the serious dinner, and worth booking ahead.
Practical things worth knowing before you book
Check-in is after 4:00 pm, check-out is 11:00 am, and someone of the house is awake at any hour, so late flights are fine. Tell us your arrival time in advance and we'll do what we can about an early room.
We're a small, privately owned, referral-driven house, which shows up in two policies people are sometimes surprised by. Children above 12 years are welcome, younger children are not, and that minimum age is enforced at check-in. Pets stay home, though certified support animals are welcome. We're entirely smoke free indoors, with a designated smoking area in front of the building.
Rates are in U.S. dollars and carry 14% tax plus a 50 USD resort fee. We're cash free: a major credit or debit card at check-out, no checks. Miami International Airport is about a thirty-minute drive, and we'll happily arrange a car rather than leave you to the kerb.
A fair warning
This is a small house and it is deliberately unspectacular. Quiet luxury you feel rather than see. If you want a lobby with a DJ in it, there are twenty of those twenty minutes south, and no hard feelings. If you want to swim before breakfast and hear birds instead of bass, come north.