Rolling up to the driveway at the Gansevoort Miami Beach Hotel, Spa and Residences in South Beach, you'd be hard-pressed to find evidence of its recent ownership and management changes.
The flashy cars parked in the driveway; the soft, purple lighting and mellow dance beats inside the lobby; and the well-heeled guests milling about in their South Florida finest all still evoke the hip, upscale feel the Gansevoort brand was built on.
But at the end of January, lenders took over the hotel, then known as the Gansevoort South, from the father-and-son team of William and Michael Achenbaum, who had developed the Gansevoort hotel brand.
In February, the property's new owners, Column Financial, put Coral Hospitality in place to manage the hotel.
One component of the property that survived, and arguably even thrived, through the transition was the much-anticipated STK restaurant, which opened in January. On a recent Friday night, STK was packed with glitterati bobbing their heads to nightclub grooves coming from the DJ booth.
Hits and misses
But head up to one of the oceanview suites, and some of the challenges the property faces become a bit more apparent. The Gansevoort Miami Beach comprises 334 rooms and 259 condo residences, and the failure of the condo market has been cited as one of the reasons the Gansevoort went into default.
While the suite was generously proportioned with a large living room, almost equally large adjacent bedroom and one-and-a-half baths, some of the workmanship seemed like it was done in a hurry or on a tight budget. For instance, the closet doors were difficult to open and shut, and the bath fixtures were hanging out of the wall (the fixtures in the glass-enclosed stand-up shower were fully operational).
But head down to the 40,000-square-foot pool plaza area, and any disappointments from the lackluster room finishings are pretty quickly forgotten. The service is extremely friendly, and the views of the ocean from the comfortable poolside lounge chairs -- not to mention the people-watching -- are exactly what one would expect from a hotel with a party reputation like the Gansevoort.
It might be under new ownership and management, but the Gansevoort Miami Beach Hotel is still very Gansevoort.
The property is located on Collins Avenue in South Beach and also includes a 110-foot-long, rooftop pool and 45,000-square-foot David Barton Gym and Spa. Visit www.gansevoortmiamibeach.com.