THE VILLA BY BARTON G.
1116 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Fla; (305) 576-8003; www.thevillabybartong.com; suites from $2,025.
No place in South Beach speaks to the vicissitudes of its over-the-top beach party culture quite like the old Versace mansion on Ocean Drive. In the early-nineties’ heyday, owner Gianni Versace’s A-list friends from Hollywood, Wall Street and the recording arts – including Madonna and Elton John – were houseguests. After the Italian fashion designer was gunned down on the front steps by a stranger in 1997, the mansion sat vacant for years and fell into disrepair, even disrepute (a recent owner covered the walls with Bacchanalia-themed paintings and hosted similar “parties” there). Meanwhile, locals began deserting South Beach for hip new nightspots in the Design District of Miami, and the recession has further culled Ocean Drive’s bikini-clad ranks.
Enter catering impresario Barton G. Weiss, instigator of some of South Florida’s most gossiped-about parties, and owner of restaurants issuing such tacky-luxe innovations as mac and cheese served over a mousetrap. Channelling his inner Versace, Weiss has spent a few months and a few million preserving period details and burnishing this visually frenetic gem. The result puts South Beach on display, once again, in full flamboyant glory.
DESIGN
Tourists mill about the front gates as you enter a 1,765-square-metre, Moorish-style villa built for an oil heir in 1930, which remains, years after Versace’s murder, one of the most photographed homes in the United States.
Multiple changes of ownership have left the Villa by Barton G. consisting of 10 suites on two upper storeys overlooking a generous ground-floor courtyard. A hard left at the entrance brings you to the ocean-facing dining room, open to the public for dinner. Its azure-and-gold scheme matches Weiss’s collection of vintage La Mer-pattern Versace by Rosenthal dinnerware. Around the courtyard, there’s a bar, entertaining rooms, Versace’s former exercise room (featuring a circular, multiperson shower), and on upper storeys, a brown-leathered relaxing room and the Rooftop Lounge for drinks.
But the heart of it all is the garden. Somehow, Versace had snagged a permit to tear down an adjacent historic-designated hotel; he replaced it with a new south wing of suites, a raised patio, a saltwater pool partly tiled in 24-karat gold, and a massive floor mosaic depicting the Versace Medusa head that became a pop-culture icon.
AMENITIES
You can cross Ocean Drive to get to the public beach, where a personally assigned butler sets up an umbrella, or lounge in the garden, a sort of pampered oasis within the clamour of South Beach’s main drag.
Pretty much anything can be stocked by request at the villa, since the idea is that (ridiculously wealthy) guests will use this as a staffed, discreet pied-à-terre, and may rent it completely.
The only time Weiss dials up the quirkiness for which he’s known is with a nightly turndown surprise: a molten chocolate fountain, or a “crazy candy” gumball machine spewing M&M’S, penny candy and more. His new line of bed linens and bath amenities makes its debut this summer at the hotel as well.
Tuck yourself into an oversized bed and take in the frescoes and drapery that are original to the home.
ROOMS
Suites were individually crafted for members of Versace’s inner circle. Although their contents were auctioned after his death, the original drapes and painted frescoes remain, so Weiss, a former theatre set designer, uses these as inspiration for his interiors. Leopard prints and crimson dominate brother Santo’s apartment on the second floor, while above, Versace’s own suite of rooms is wood-panelled, with hot pink glass-paned windows, heavy gold brocade drapes, a turquoise and black-streaked bedspread covering a replica headboard, and Rubenesque frescoes of toga-clad men and women relaxing amid coconut trees. Suites all contain Frette bathrobes and pyjamas, mink throws, Kindle e-readers and Sonos satellite radios. Some, including Versace’s, have a custom king bed so large that a 5-foot-7 journalist with arms outstretched couldn’t reach the full width.
SERVICE
An authentic fold-clothes-between-layers-of-tissue butler is the villa’s unexpected treat. Far from Connecticut, in the epicentre of South Florida’s often skanky nocturnal scene, six prim veterans of the International Association for Private Service Professionals are at guests’ disposal, 24 hours and in place of a concierge, for everything from complimentary clothes pressing to arranging for a personal trainer, serving lunch, laying out pyjamas or figuring out the universal remote and settling the bill. Unless you’re an exhibitionist, don’t sleep naked – they like to slip into your suite every morning to draw the drapes and set down a cuppa.
FOOD
Weiss promoted one of his young chefs, Justin Albertson, to develop a surprisingly demure Continental menu (think sole meunière), which satisfies, though not as fully as Parisian pastry chef Luc Buisson’s flawless breads or the off-beat pairings of sommelier Hakan Balkuvvar. Breakfast and lunch are offered to hotel guests only, on the garden patio.
VERDICT
A respectful restoration steers this South Beach landmark back to its artistic wellspring and elegantly onward.
Special to The Globe and Mail
