Prelude Hotel review

Hotel > The Diamond Life

Welcome to South Beach’s hidden jewel of a retreat.

words by > Jeremy Dillahunt

The Catalina Hotel & Beach Club

South Beach, Miami

Set on bustling Collins Avenue in the heart of Miami’s South Beach, The Catalina Hotel & Beach Club is easy to miss. The three-story retreat, a mix of retro décor and futurism, sits opposite its taller and better-known neighbors, The Ritz Plaza and Delano, whose vertical ambition make it seem downright diminutive—which is a good thing, as the Catalina may very well be South Beach’s best-kept secret.

It is not that the Catalina is more luxurious or fantastic than South Beach’s other accommodations. Rather, the Catalina impresses most because of its distinctive character and subtle design inspired by South Beach’s greatest asset: the people who visit it.

The hotel has created several very different environments for its guests. The front patio is home to the Spy Lounge restaurant— brainchild of Gokhan Yuzbasioglu and Philippe Balthazar, who have collaborated on projects in New York, France, South Africa and Turkey—and lets guests watch the never-ending stream of action that passes by. Inside, the hotel lobby is a soaring, bi-level construction of glass and steel, where guests can kick back with a cocktail at the Spy Bar and socialize privately, separated from the outdoors by floor-to-ceiling windows. Still further removed from the street and allowing for a total escape from the hustle and bustle, the Catalina has created a yoga garden and enclosed pool surrounded by cotton lounging cabanas.

Whereas the public spaces of the hotel encourage relaxed socializing, the guest rooms are hard-to-leave dens of comfort. The tranquil white-on-white color scheme of the rooms is playfully complemented by the addition of bright red hanging pendant lamps. Tempur-Pedic mattresses, 300-count Belgian cotton sheets, rainforest showerheads, plush bath towels and plasma televisions round out the amenities. Given that all this is available at considerably less cost than the surrounding hotels, one could think of the Catalina as a diamond among pearls. www.catalinahotel.com