SLS South Beach

Who built SLS South Beach? Was it the impossibly prolific Philippe Starck, finding himself even more wonderfully, whimsically unhinged than usual in the Miami heat? Was it nightlife scene-maker Sam Nazarian, in an especially well-financed moment, dead set on out-debauching all the competition? Was it occasional interior designer Lenny Kravitz, who turned the best rooms into rockstar-caliber party pads? Or José Andrés, the Spanish ambassador-wizard of culinary chemistry, whose open kitchen stands where a lobby should be? It’s hard to say who was really in charge here, and if the prevailing spirit of decadent, not-entirely-civil disobedience is any indication, it may well be that no one was.

No matter; it’s a fun, only-in-Miami scene. Take the main pool. Adorned with palms, with daybeds, with attractive people, with a 700-pound silver toy-ducky, with cabanas whose private stairs descend into the water, it forms the social center of the SLS. It’s also the centerpiece of Hyde Beach, the third outpost (after L.A. and Las Vegas) of the famed Hyde Lounges. It turns out that taking some of the country’s hottest nightclubs and enlarging them into an 8,000 square-foot pool party makes for a happy time. And it says something that the Lenny Kravitz–designed villa suite is set right above the party, not hidden away in a quiet corner — though if you tire of lording your extravagance over the revelers below, just keep walking along your wrap-around private terrace to the side that faces the ocean.

The lesser rooms are no less fit for company, and if you haven’t come with any, you can probably find some at one of the bars. There are mirrors above the beds, “champagne now” buttons on the SLS smartphone app, chaises longues that look like reclining versions of royal thrones — the sort of white-upholstered royal throne, that is, that the Queen of Hearts might favor. It’s all said to be inspired by the ghost of Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s legendary mistress, and we’re comfortable taking their word for it.

As quintessentially Miami as it all is, there’s truly nothing else quite like it. In fact it’s kind of amazing it didn’t already exist. Except that it sort of did, in the form of a famous 1939 Art Deco building that for decades was the tallest in Miami. That its provenance is practically an after-thought — well, given the of-the-moment star power they signed on to remake this thing, it’s not exactly a surprise, but it’s certainly impressive.