This Mediterranean Revival building went up in 1928 as El Paraiso Apartments, designed by Martin L. Hampton, the same architect responsible for Miami Beach’s City Hall and several other landmark buildings along Collins Avenue. It opened with just two hotel rooms alongside eighteen residential units, modest by comparison to the neighborhood’s later glamour.
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Force leased the building for troop housing, one of many Miami Beach properties requisitioned for the war effort. It’s a contributing building in the Collins Waterfront Architectural District and joined Historic Hotels of America in 2015. Today it operates as the smaller, more residential-feeling counterpart to the neighboring Faena Hotel, itself a reimagining of the 1947 Saxony Hotel, so guests get two very different eras of Miami Beach architecture within the same walkable district.