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Acqualina Resort & Spa
Soaring over the Atlantic on South Florida's fabled coastline, Acqualina Resort & Spa On The Beach, is truly an oceanfront masterpiece
By: Mary Gostelow
Reflexology by one of the beautiful swimming pools will be just one of the memories of Acqualina Resort & Spa, in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida - on the State's Atlantic Atlantic coast, North of Miami and South of Fort Lauderdale.
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I am sitting in my suite at The French windows open to let in the warm air and I can hear kids down there, two floors below at ground level. They are revelling in the three outdoor pools - one sensibly labelled 'adults only' and all surrounded by cream and red cabanas and sandwiched in the resort's lush gardens between buildings and beach. One of the pools has side-set fountains that erupt into the main water, causing lots of mirth as the kids duck in and out of the spray.
Why do I have the windows open? Because I hate air conditioning, full stop. When the weather is this beautiful, who needs it anyway? But the air conditioning here at Acqualina is easy to operate - as is everything in this oh-so-thoughtful property. The owners, led by Eddie Trump (no relation to The Donald, thank goodness) and his family, and the company's Chairman, legendary hotelier Klaus Trenter, have worked out what guests need.
Thirty-five minutes after leaving Miami International Airport, our car had purred up Acqualina Resort & Spa's tiled drive from Collins Avenue. A young man rushed to open the door, took our small overnight bags out of the trunk, and escorted us through imposing doors. It was like going into the side door of the nave of a richly-endowed renaissance church, or the hall of a Venetian palace. We looked to right and left, to a cream and salmon-colored area in total about 70 feet wide, 15 feet broad, with a high barrelled ceiling from which hung six multi-level ecclesiastical chandeliers. There were various flower arrangements, as if taken from altars - all white rhododendrons with trailing ivy, or tightly-held bunches of old-white roses tinged with pale pink. In front, as we entered this area, was the friendly front desk where a couple of young women in powder blue shirts and gray jackets, with the star-shaped pin that all the luxury resort's 250 employees proudly wear, welcomed us with big smiles and offered a welcome bellini or Champagne. The key holder contained a full-color map of the property, useful telephone numbers, and colored cards suggesting visits to Acqualina Boutique, Espa Acqualina and Richard & Company Salon, for hair (opening hours are on the reverse of each card). I was escorted in a C-direction round to one of the three elevators, which terrifyingly rise to 51 floors.
At floor five the elevator lobby is intimate, ten strides from one end to the other, but there are only four resort suites on each floor (both ends of the long, narrow building are residences, with their own elevators). On our floor, 503, which houses 503-A and 503-B, has its double white doors firmly shut. 504's door, at the other end, is open. Go in to its outer foyer, decorated with a headless female statue standing on a table, and turn left to 504-B. The key is an electronic metal thing. Stick it in, pull it out when a light turns green and then you can open the door.
What marvels has the luxury resort's designer Zeke Fernandez created here? Well, you enter a short foyer which opens to the parlor, with terrace beyond. To your right is an inner office with built-in day bed, leading to the main bathroom. From the parlor, you can turn right to the bedroom, and double back past the walk-in closet (with safe), and past a toilet to the bathroom. From the parlor you can alternatively turn left, past another toilet, into the open-plan kitchen and double back to your right past the dining area, with sit-up bar and circular table for four, and back on into the parlor. The whole area has polished soft sand stone floor, with mushroom rugs in parlor and bedroom, and mostly framed-panel walls painted off-white (the kitchen and dining room has sand fabric walls). The interesting art includes silver-framed old prints of Amsterdam, London, New York and Paris in the foyer, and six old botanic prints in the dining room. Above the buttoned cream leather bedhead is a framed likeness, lifesize, of a sexy woman's head, à la Jack Vettriano. There is Bose by the bedside, and 52-inch Panasonic screens in the bedroom and parlor, with smaller Sharp screens on the kitchen counter and office desk, and all offer 86 channels, noted by indication cards (it would be good to have BBC World and at least one Russian channel). Wireless internet is free, but there is a $19.95 charge, per any 24 hours, for fixed-wire via a unit in the office. Hardbacks on the office shelves include A China de Deng Xiaoping, Michael Crichton's Next and An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard.
A little yellow plastic duck, with a snorkel and a sign saying 'No one should bathe alone at Acqualina', sits on the bath rack, near fresh yellow daffodils. The bathroom has soft bamboo-colored wallpaper. It holds a big glass-sided shower, with somewhat slippery marble floor, and two separate vanity units. There are big containers of Lady Primrose toiletries (a reminder that Rosewood, who always use Lady Primrose as the toiletry brand was started by Rosewood's iconic founder Caroline Hunt, briefly managed the property when it first opened in April 2006). I like the stylish robes, made by Boca Terry: they are mushroom-cream colored seersucker fabric with softest off-white terry lining. The slippers are mushroom-cream, too. I want a lifetime supply of the bathtowels, in fact all the bath linens. These white towels are from The Madison Collection and they look good, feel soft - and best of all they really dry you.
The kitchen has dark wood built-in units with gold handle-knobs. There is a Wolf range, an InstantAid microwave, a Sub Zero icebox-freezer and a Swedish Asko dishwasher. The flat surfaces are mottled cream, brown and grey stone, also used for the vertical splash areas. The Illy Caffé comes with coffee packs, and Tea Forté silk tea bags and there is cutlery, glassware and white Italian-made Le Porcellane d'Ancap, marked Acqualina Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, for six.
Simple electric light switches are clearly marked, showing which works what (thank you, Messrs Trump and Trenter). I go out on to our balcony, big enough to host a cocktail party for 40. It has towel-covered loungers, scarlet chairs and a scarlet umbrella. Only 503-B, the mirror-image of our suite, has a similar balcony: looking up at architect Robert Swedroe's soft saffron and salmon structure, I
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see all units above ours must be the same format, but without the balcony. Apparently the hotel, a member of Leading Small Hotels of the World, has 97 such rooms and suites, just under the maximum number of keys the consortium allows. They are all condo-units, 'owned' under contracts whereby the owner has a set number of days free use a year. The 51-floor building, however, also contains 188 residences, whose owners include the clever, and subsequently lucky, guy who invented the sim card.
I head quickly for the gym, well stocked with LifeFitness equipment and stocks of one-time-use headphones and open 24 hours a day, and then have a brief swim. Then it is time to head down to the ESPA on the ground floor, managed as an outside concern. It has 21 treatment rooms and is staffed by three teams of therapists working 9am to 9pm. I am to have a facial from Samantha from Scotland, but first I am welcomed with a really cold towel, a thick berry smoothie in a small glass bowl, served with an orchid on a small tray. The ladies' locker room has push-digit security lockers, like working a safe, and I have a look at the wet area, with aroma-choice showers, steam and sauna, and an ice flow, and the outdoor area, with hot plunge pool and jacuzzi. I wait in the relax room, where each bed has a fiber optic reading light - but there is no time to read as Miss Scotland arrives, and takes me to a room where I get on a bed made up with soft cream towels and a dark brown coverlet. She puts a Woods lamp, as used by dermatologists, over my face, tells me she sees very little orange blotching or something like that and it is all good news. I fall asleep as she works.
We go for dinner, to the hotel's highly-popular restaurant, a branch of Il Mulino, the New York legend started a couple of decades ago by Fernando and Gino Masci. Here Il Mulino, leased out to that company, is a two-level area decorated with one wall of ceiling-high rows of bottles, and a ceiling-high side-set display of whole hams on stands, giant cheese wheels, masses of whole gargantuan eggplant (real) and bottled peppers and copper pots hanging from Sassicaia cases. Overhead hang large two-tier wrought-iron chandeliers with candle-like lights. Tables have crisp white linen, and white Villeroy & Boch china and bottles of olive oil. A plate of crisp-fried eggplant slices, and another of salami slices is brought, as are baskets of mixed breads and then garlic bread. A quarter of a whole parmesan is presented, and chunks are chiselled out, to be put on each side plate. Then the menu, the same as in all branches of Il Mulino (my first experience had been the Washington DC one, which is most handy for Thompson's new Donovan hotel). The menu offers Antipasti, Insalate, Zuppa, Pasta, Pesci, Pollo, Risotto, Carne and Vitello. My meal is fresh buffalo mozzarella and tomato slices, with a few basil leaves, and then Costoletta alla Parmigiana, a pounded breaded veal chop topped with imported cheeses, and a side order of steamed spinach. We drinks wines by the glass, finishing with grappa or limoncello.
This is a rare example of an outside operator that can also do breakfast. After an excellent night's sleep in cream Rivolta Carmignani linens and a dawn-break beach walk and run, we came down at 7.45 am to find we were first there, and the cheery waitstaff (all male, Il Mulino does not seem to 'do' waitresses) quickly offered us indoor or outdoor seating. It was a bit hot on the terrace and anyway we wanted to be near the splendid buffet. There were good fruits, including papaya, and black- and blue- berries and unsweetened prune puree, and fat-free yogurt and sweetened pots for those who must have sugar, and bread, pastries and bagels, a couple of toasters, and chafing dishes with waffles, scrambled egg (checked constantly by one of the waiters) and crisp American bacon. Tables had Bonne Maman jams, a bit odd having French produce in an Italian restaurant in the US but still. One waiter constantly poured and then refilled really good juice, and fabulous flavourful coffee. The basic buffet was outstanding value at $19, but by the time taxes and 18% service was added it, well, added up - though who would choose, instead, to have simple continental in the rooom, at $18 plus-plus? As we left Il Mulino, incidentally, I noted that the lobby's early coffee station, clearly marked Illy Caffé, was still operating, long after the breakfast room had opened; this is a rare happening, but a nice and generous touch, which was obviously appreciated by some who were perhaps not hotel guests.
By mid morning around the two kids-allowed pools was pretty busy, as was the beach. We needed to leave, to pick up our Silversea cruise to the Caribbean, and as we went out through the front door an imposing gentleman in a beautifully cut suit - was it Armani, Brioni or Zegna? - smiled and asked if there was anything he could do. His hotel name label said Thad, and he wore the Acqualina star. I thought he must be Chairman of the owning management company or something, but to be on the safe side I asked him what his title was. Doorman, he said. But you do not look like a doorman, I replied, and we both laughed.
I cannot wait to return here to Acqualina Resort & Spa, for more of Il Mulino's food and Samantha's magic, and enjoying that fabulous sunrise - and will I overhear, as this time, such memorable comments as one from another swimmer, 'I intend to look really good when I am preserved in formaldehyde'? Next time I shall make use of the complimentary overnight shoe shine. I hope I will not need the luxury resort's Proposal Concierge, but doubtless others take full advantage - and another service that is highly popular here is the AcquaMarine program for kids from five to 12 to learn the basics of marine biology.
Acqualina Resort & Spa On The Beach, Miami, United States
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