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The open-air market that characterizes Española Way on the weekends is a standing tradition with both locals and return visitors to South Beach. Española Way’s Spanish Village is one of Miami Beach’s most attractive areas for a relaxing stroll, people watching, a refreshing drink and rejuvenating meal. This multicultural market features a variety of wonderful gifts: handcrafted jewelry, handmade clothing and shoes, accessories, candles, pottery, fresh cut flowers, orchids, and much more. Merchants and craftsman from over 20 countries create a charming ambiance and produce irresistible merchandise, while delighted tourists and locals wander the street. On Friday and Saturday evenings the market becomes “FestivArt,” an artist’s showcase. Seventeen local artists exhibit, produce, and sell their paintings and sculptures, while live musicians entertain the crowds. Sidewalk café’s, surrounding the market, beckon the thirsty and hungry. On the 2nd Thursday of every month “FestivArt” makes reappearance, offering the community another chance to browse and buy a street found masterpiece.
Española Way’s Spanish Village was built in 1925, during the height of the first real estate boom in Miami Beach. Miami Beach pioneer N.B.T. Roney and his architect Robert A. Taylor planned a village modeled after the romantic Mediterranean villages in Spain and France that would attract artists and art lovers. Roney thought to create an intellectual, bohemian environment, much like New York’s Greenwich Village or the Left Bank in Paris, but upon completion Española Way quickly became something very different. The Spanish Village attracted a more raucous crowd: bootleggers, bookies, even the mob. Al Capone is rumored to have set up a gambling ring in The Clay Hotel while he hid from the police. More in line with what N.B.T. Roney intended, Desi Arnez is said to have started the Rhumba on Española Way in the late 1930’s and the street was briefly known as “The Rhumba Capital of the World.” With the decline of Miami Beach, Española Way fell on hard times. Irving Zieman, author of Miami Beach in Rhyme, wrote in 1954 “Some thirty years back Española Way was considered swanky up-town, Now they rent fancy rooms for eight dollars a week---What a shoddy, sordid let down! Just a few blocks north on the ocean side They charge forty dollars a day; Yet the sun is the same, and sleep still depends On love being YEA or NAY.”
Española Way, the most delightful and surprising street in Miami Beach, is now the proud home to artists from all over the world and with the completion of the Plaza de España in the fall of 2002 Roney’s Spanish Village will a fitting tribute to the early days of Miami Beach and its international ambiance. Weekly events highlight the creative and exciting atmosphere that Roney envisioned more than 75 years ago. Come visit Española Way and be a part of Miami Beach History.
In 1925 Miami Beach pioneer developer N.B.T. Roney hired architect Robert Taylor to design a Spanish Village on property he had purchased on Española Way. Taylor conjured up an entire village complete with alleyways and courtyards extending from the main thoroughfare of Española Way. Roney’s development stretched from Washington Avenue to the west side of Drexel Avenue. Taylor’s vision of an authentic Old World village with narrow, winding alleyways had to conform to Miami Beach’s established street grid, so the 70’ wide expanse of Drexel Avenue dictated a large open space in the midst of the Village. For nearly 75 years the wide swath of Drexel Avenue cut uneventfully through the Spanish Village. Taylor’s richly designed Mediterranean Revival architecture had inspired talk of some sort of fountain or monument at the intersection Drexel and Española. This remained little more than talk until 1997, when the Miami Beach Community Development Corporation, led by President Denis Russ and Past Chairperson Matti Bower, was invited by the Province of Huelva, Spain to tell the story of the renaissance of the Miami Beach Art Deco District to tourism and hospitality officials in Huelva. The trip inspired Roberto Datorre, then Chairperson of Miami Beach CDC, and Randall Robinson, Miami Beach CDC Planner, to commemorate the new friendship between Miami Beach and Huelva with a monument at the intersection of Drexel Avenue and Española Way in Miami Beach’s own Spanish Village. A Sister Cities relationship was also initiated between Miami Beach and the town of Almonte in Huelva.
In December 1997, Linda Polansky, owner of the southern half of the Spanish Village, hosted a Design Charrette in the Clay Hotel to produce a design concept for the Plaza de España. Neighborhood residents Jeff Speck and Cesar Garcia-Pons sketched a simple yet elegant plan of a plaza with an Iberian-style checkerboard paving pattern, a fountain at the very center of the intersection of Española Way and Drexel Avenue and twin entry obelisks framing the Drexel Avenue entrances to the Spanish Village. At Polansky’s insistence, the design of the plaza and the fountain would do justice to Robert Taylor’s faithful evocation of Old World Mediterranean-style architecture down to the smallest detail. At her behest there would be no discrete sidewalks, curbs, gutters or roadway, instead this would be a true plaza with one level paving surface from building face to building face, just like the Plaza Mayor in Madrid or the Piazza San Marco in Venice.
Meanwhile, Roberto Datorre, now Miami Beach CDC President, enlisted his uncle, Pedro Pan Datorre, an architect in Murcia, Spain, to produce the design of the fountain. Pedro Pan’s design consists of a 16’ diameter basin clad in clay brick and inlaid with hand-painted ceramic tile crowned with a double bowled cast iron fountain rising to nearly 9’. All of the materials for the fountain as well as the services of Pedro Pan Datorre are a donation to the City of Miami Beach from Spain.
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Peter Fragos
305.937.2238 / 1.800.646.2289 Fax: 305.931.0985 / Cell:305.409.9791 peter@search 4 Miami homes.com Turnberry International Realty 2875 North East 191 Street, suite 601 Aventura, FL 33180 Specializing in Miami Beach Estate, Homes and Condos, Commercial properties throughout Miami, Aventura, Key Biscayne, Fisher Island, Bal Harbor and North to Boca Raton. |
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Possibly one of the busiest clothing stores on Lincoln Road, Bebe
is a familiar name to many and a reliable source to most. No
matter what your plans are for the evening, this retail haven is
sure to provide the outfit. You will find everything from sweats
with the Bebe insignia to fur trimmed coats, off-the-shoulder
peasant tops, and funky-cut leather pants. Always trendy (and
sometimes over priced) Bebe has its finger on the pulse of the
fashion world, so you are sure to be the talk of the party.
Helpful hint: Shopping at a store where else does too could lead
to huge fashion faux pas, so dig a little and find great pieces
that are hidden on the racks less traveled and avoid buying the
outfit off of the mannequin in the window at all costs.
Miami
has a reputation for its high fashion and haughty attitudes, but
tucked away on Lincoln Road Ete forces shoppers to leave all those
preconceived notions at the door. This quirky little shop
specializes in very reasonably priced accessories by
artists/designers like Paul Frank. Baby doll tees run about $18
and knee length bath robes with the signature Paul Frank monkey
$63. They carry a whole line of cartoonish travel bags as well as
swimsuits and cover-ups for both men and women. Having made it’s
home on South Beach thirteen years ago this small boutique has
become a Miami Beach staple.
Where can you shop with Jennifer Lopez, P. Diddy, and Gloria
Estefan for the hottest new accessories from designers like Miu
miu, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, and Moschino? Where else?
Neo Accessario. The boutique is quaint and truth be told you won’t
find a huge selection, but the items the store stocks are nothing
less than the best. Hot finds include men’s boxer briefs by D&G,
Mui mui belts, and Moschino bags for ladies. Owner Allen Bensousin
also owns Neo Scarpa, the stylish, upscale shoe boutique located
at 817 Lincoln Road.
If
you are looking for fabulous shoes this is only place you need to
go on the beach. They carry both men’s and women’s styles in
almost every design and color you can imagine. Must haves include
light green suede men’s loafers by Bruno Magli ($345) and for
women the trendiest thing in the store is the denim and
camel-colored lace up ankle boots by Guiseppe Zanotti ($380.)
Other designers the store carries are Prada, Miu miu, Calvin
Klein, and Enrico Fantini. And if you are in the market for the
bag to match you are in luck because they have that too.
These two sister stores (one for men and one for women) are
located but a few doors from each other on Lincoln Road, however
each store has a vibe all its own. The men’s store smells of
burning incense and dance music pounds while you shop up and
downstairs for Miami must-haves like white flat front linen pants
($125) and a pullover hot pink linen shirt ($118) to match. While
just steps down Lincoln in the women’s boutique instrumental music
plays in the background and you can hear the soft clicking of
women’s heels on the hardwood floors. The clothing is hanging
neatly along the walls and is arranged by color making it
extremely easy to find what you’re looking for. Though some items
seem to be over priced the good news is the store has great sales
throughout every season.
Looking
for classic well-made clothes that are modern, but never too
trendy? At White House/Black Market you will find all those things
and more. You won’t come across any big name designers though,
every item in the store bares their own label, but they have
everything from lingerie to jewelry to shoes and matching bags to
nick knacks for the house. This one-stop shop is one of the few
boutiques on Lincoln Road that isn’t one of a kind (there are
several locations throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands), but it is one of the few that you can leave with
something for day or night and feel great about the fact that you
will still be able to wear it next season.
Things didn’t start to improve
on Española Way until the early 1980’s when Linda Polansky purchased The
Clay Hotel and began extensive renovations. Polansky’s hard work and
vision, combined with the resurgence of interest in Miami Beach that
occurred with the hit TV show “Miami Vice,” gave Española Way just the
boost it needed to begin living up to its original potential.
In October 1997, a delegation from
Huelva visited Greater Miami to learn about tourism and resort
development practices. During this visit the wide open space of Drexel
Avenue in the Spanish Village was dedicated as the Plaza de España, as
is the custom in cities, towns and villages throughout Spain. A year
earlier Miami Beach CDC had embarked on a program of public space
improvements in the Flamingo Park Neighborhood. Through community and
property owner input it was determined that Community Development Block
Grant funds being raised for the improvements would be devoted to the
Epañola/Drexel area. 
The City of Miami Beach contracted
with the Corradino Group to produce engineering and construction
documents for the Plaza. Savino and Miller produced the Landscape
Architectural plans, carrying out the vision of Polansky, Speck and
Garcia-Pons.