Fines mount against Miami Beach hotel where The Beatles played. Fans urge reopening
Half a century ago, a 200-foot line of sweaty fans snaked outside the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach to watch The Beatles perform. The band reached more than 70 million viewers that night in 1964 on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and decided to stay the week at the ritzy resort on Collins Avenue in North Beach.
They made such a mark that the hotel converted part of the 12th floor into a Beatles shrine, with photographs hanging on the walls outside the rooms where they stayed.
But today, the only thing lining the outside of the long-closed Deauville is a 6-foot fence meant to keep squatters away. A giant black mesh covers the back of the hotel to keep debris from falling onto pedestrians. The mold inside is so bad that the use of a hazmat suit is advised before entry. The pool furniture is rusting away, and the palms are yellowing.
“Something has got to be done. It’s a jewel,” said Rob Precht, who saw the Beatles play at the Deauville when he was 9 years old after his famous grandfather — Ed Sullivan himself — got him in.
North Beach residents and the Miami Beach City Commission have long sought a resolution to restore the decaying Deauville, which they say is an extreme example of “demolition by neglect.” But in recent months a group of Beatles fans who organized over social media joined forces with a commissioner to rally support around reopening the hotel.
They are urging City Hall and the owners of the Deauville to preserve and reopen the shuttered resort, perhaps as a cultural heritage site. Leaders of the fan group — historians, authors and journalists mainly based in Florida — hope that the Deauville can reopen its doors by the 60th anniversary of the Beatles show on Feb. 16, 2024.
“Our group is calling for an end to the inertia,” said historic preservationist and author Bob Kealing, who is writing a book about the Beatles’ furtive years in Florida in 1964. “We just can’t stand for this building to basically fall into the quick sand of neglect.”
Miami Beach sued the owners of the hotel, the Meruelo family, in 2019 for failure to maintain the historic building. There are two liens on the property totaling nearly $300,000 and this month the city began fining the hotel $5,000 a day for its neglect of the property. The hotel owes the city at least $90,000 in unpaid resort taxes.
The city is asking a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge to transfer management of the building to an independent entity, which would oversee the hotel’s repair and collect fees associated with the owners’ ongoing violation of city laws governing buildings that the city designates as historically significant.
“It’s one of the more irresponsible patterns a property owner has engaged in,” Mayor Dan Gelber said Wednesday. “It’s purposefully neglecting the property, dragging the community down and just apparently willing to wait out decades of neglect.”
The Meruelos’ attorney, Jose Chanfrau, wrote in an email to the Miami Herald Wednesday that the family “seeks to repair the Deauville Beach Resort though the means and methods have not been determined at this time.”
“The Deauville Beach Resort sustained significant damage,” he said. “The cost to repair the Deauville Beach Resort will also be significant, though a dollar value has not been determined at this time.”
The 538-room hotel, built in 1957, occupies nearly four acres of prime oceanfront real estate. Stretching for several city blocks, the resort features a ballroom and retail and office space.
For neighboring residents, it’s an eyesore that is bringing down property values in the neighborhood. There are several vacant storefronts that adjoin the building.
“This is a great historic property,” said Alex Pavlosky, a real estate developer who lives next door at the Sterling condominium building. “It’s got a lot of significance for the community.”
The hotel owners, who are separately involved in lawsuits with Florida Power and Light and several insurance companies, have signaled that a lack of money may be an impediment to the speedy renovation of the hotel. Building a new utility vault to get some power turned on at the hotel would cost about $4.7 million and require a slew of permits and zoning approvals, said partial owner Homero Meruelo in 2018 during a Miami-Dade County Unsafe Structures Board meeting.
“We have no power. I mean what do we do? We have no money,” Meruelo said, later adding: “I realize it’s an eyesore. But if I have no money, I have no power...What do I do?”
Beatles part of Miami Beach history
As America was beginning to fall in love with the Beatles, the Fab Four fell for Miami Beach.
They visited the island city after making their national TV debut in New York on Sullivan’s show. The band got paid just $10,000 for three shows, the first in New York and the second two in Miami Beach,” said Joe Johnson, creator and host of the award winning “Beatle Brunch” radio show, in a 2016 interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“They didn’t really make any money on it,” Johnson said. “They really used it as a chance for America to see them.”
About 7,000 screaming fans — mostly young women — greeted the band at Miami International Airport. Many of them skipping school that day, the raucous crowd ushered in Beatlemania by breaking chairs, windows and a glass door in the reception area. More than 100 police officers were brought in to keep the peace.
The Beatles performed at the Napoleon Ballroom for a few thousand people. Millions caught the performance on TV. At the time, the Deauville was fit with on-site restaurants, a beauty salon and an ice-skating rink.
The musicians so enjoyed the tropical climate and palm-tree-filled vistas of Miami Beach that they stayed at the Deauville for the rest of the week. A Miami Beach Police officer escorted them throughout their visit, which included a meeting with boxer Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, at the famed 5th St. Gym in South Beach.
“They really fell in love with America in Miami beach at the Deauville,” said Kealing, the author. “The Deauville is a centerpiece of the whole story.”
Kealing is a member of the Facebook group Beatles in Florida, which has a following of a couple hundred people. Last year, a few members of the group formed a new one, The Deauville 2/16/24 Initiative, which has a stated goal of seeing the Deauville reopen in 2024.
Miami Beach Commissioner Steven Meiner, who appeared with Kealing and other Beatles fans at a September town hall with the Miami Design Preservation League, has helped call attention to the Deauville’s plight by urging the city to be more aggressive in its dealings with the hotel. He said there should be a historical marker on the site commemorating the Beatles performance.
“My vision for the Deauville is to have it renovated into a world-class hotel that will serve as the historic crown jewel of a revitalized North Beach,” Meiner said. “The Deauville can be an economic driver for North Beach that will positively contribute to the quality of life of our residents and visitors.”
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