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Spa at Icon Brickell
Where else in the world do you find a day-glo yellow chandelier, and real books reaching to the 30-foot ceiling, in a spa's reception?
By: Mary Gostelow
Philippe Starck, who apparently has no idea of practicality, has designed the Spa at Icon Brickell, which is integral with Viceroy Miami.
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The spa’s reception area soars up through two floors. Its floor is mostly a six-inch deep pool, with a couple of inset transparent Starck chairs: set into this water are three deep hot tubs. There is a working fireplace at one end, and both end walls are filled, to the ceiling, with seven shelves of real books all covered in anonymous white paper wraps (how do you clean them? I asked).
I did not know what to expect when I drove to what had once been a forever-Sheraton, on the east of Brickell Avenue just south of the historic Miami Circle. Now you have this amazing icon, the dream of Miami-based Cuban-Argentinian developer Jorge Perez of The Related Group. He bought the land, consulted such friends as Bernardo Fort-Brescia of architects Arquitectonica and Philippe Starck. The result is a two-acre '21st century town center', raised 15 floors above the ground, with parking on the 14 levels below. Designed by Starck, this town center has a 300-foot infinity pool, an 80-person hot tub and a six-inch deep pool in which sit scarlet chairs, and yes, they set up lunch here, too. Around are trees, 12 private cabanas, a tall white bar with 24 silver backed-stools around. There are lots of white floor-standing lanterns with silhouettes of black Starck animals around the sides. At the far end a giant three-tier amphitheater allows you to hang out, look at the water, whatever.
Who is the 'you' who is going to use this? Obviously a 148-room hotel does not warrant such facilities. Around the town center are three towers soaring, in one case, to 57 floors. The hotel, run by the Kor Group, who are also responsible for the town center and the spa and the two restaurants. The hotel occupies floors one to 15 of one block: all the other areas consist of 1,782 private residences, all of whose residents can, and do use the town center and its facilities. At the grand opening party, March 5th, 2009, three hundred of them milled with owner Jorge Perez and the ubiquitous - at hotel openings, at least - Sharon Stone.
Not having been to the party, I was a mere ordinary guest. My car stopped between the Viceroy door and seven oddly-shaped columns that are apparently based on those on Easter Island. Designer Kelly
Wearstler has done this, and bedrooms and uniforms for the 200 staff, who do not wear name labels. In the lobby I admired an eight foot-tall half-head stone sculpture by Collin Mura-Smith (had the money run out for the other half?). By the elevator doors were two sinewy six-foot Vietnamese ladies (sculptures, of course).
Sensor-pad key cards are needed for elevators, which have giant metal sunbursts on the rear walls, and then for bedroom doors. Monarch Suite 1212, at 784 sq ft, is strong in impact. Its colors are dull pine, black, white and cream, and ceilings are pretty low. The parlor has sand walls and ceiling, a low chandelier over the four-seat marble dining table, and the shiny floor is big alternating triangles of green, and white-speckled black marble. The big desk is composed entire of one-inch alternating square of black and white marble. Comfy seating is various shades of green. A glass-front closet slides back to reveal a compact kitchenette. The all-wall window, with French windows opening to a four-foot deep black marble terrace, looks south along Brickell: it has bamboo blinds and cream drapes. Next door, the bedroom has soft pine carpeting, walls and drapes. There is a mid-wood outline-four-post bed, with an Asian painting at the top of its headboard, and fiber optic reading lights as well as bedside lights. There are two freestanding closets, and another desk. The television has over 800 channels (wow, how am I going to have time?), and there is a dock for my iPod. Beyond is the main bathroom (there is a half-bath back by the main door), with tub inset in marble, and two basins, and an unusually easy-to-operate shower, and Aromapharmacy toiletries. All bathlinens, waffle robes and bedlinens are by Kelly Wearstler for Sferra. I have a couple of local magazines, and the room service menu is in a turquoise box. I like the sleek silver pens.
The eclectic restaurant on the 15th floor, leading off ‘the town center,’ is called Eos, Greek for new dawn. Kelly Wearstler has
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designed it, with some exotic eastern finishes and layered geometric patterns, say the hexagonal brass inlay of the back bar and floor-tiles of Negro Marquina marble. Chairs and circular bankettes are variously hydrangea violet, hibiscus yellow, flamingo orange and coral pink.
Yes, we wanted somewhere where the town's residents as well as hotel guests could hang out, and be casual, says the hotel's General Manager, Florent Gateau. He has brought in New York chef, Michael Psilakis, and restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, to partner in this restaurant, which serves pan-Mediterranean food. While we waited, a black pyjama-clad waiter brought a marble slab with yummy ciabatta, and salted butter and red-red capsicum hommus. All plates are served family style. We tasted Hamachi yellowtail sashimi, Nigiri sushi, artichoke and pea salad, Burratta with fennel, Roasted mushrooms with bone marrow, Tagliatelle with a six-minute farm egg and truffles, and finished with Salmon la plancha. All this went extremely well with two Russian River wines, both 2003 vintage, a Chardonnay Orogeny and a Pinot Noir Marimar Estate.
After dinner we went up to Club 50, the invitation-only indoor-outdoor must-visit nightclub (read more about this here). It was buzzing, though there was nobody in the pool - which is adults only, by the way - at that time. Then, for me at least, it was time for bed.
In the morning, I headed for the gym. Right, you need to be fit to get there as it is just under 300 yards to get there from room 1212. You have to cross to the far end of the town center, to its dedicated entrance, a journey that also includes two elevators. Philippe Starck's design is totally over the top. You enter at the 15th floor and find a heavenly maze of tall-tall corridors either painted white or completely hung in floor length gauze. You go past a screening room, with ten-foot screen and three giant-giant sized royal blue velvet sofas, with different height golden legs so that those at the back can see the screen even if they cannot touch the floor. There is a kaleidoscope-colored billiard room, and an all-white party room, and finally you come to reception, overlooking the aforementioned library. Spa Director Patrick Huey, a multilingual former actor with a Master's from Yale into the bargain, runs this part of the complex, with a team who wear lovely gray silk t-shirts. You go down 23 purple-carpeted marble stairs to the ten treatment rooms, all oval shaped, white and lined in full-length white curtains. The products used here are Arcona, based in Los Angeles; Ola, from Hawaii, and the Swiss Valmont. Signature treatment is the 90-minute Rainforest Therapy which apparently re-aligns one's spine. On another visit I might choose to stay on the spa’s upper level, to go the spinning room, the Pilates room or the 2,500 sq ft gym, which was laid out with the help of personal trainer Marco Borges, author of Power Moves (I am told he was responsible for such exquisite bodies as Ellen DeGeneres and Heidi Klum).
Later, showered and hungry yet again, it was time to head up to the 15th floor Eos for breakfast. An equally tall Vietnamese male (sculpture) guarded the entrance. This time we sat in a lemon yellow bankette and, honestly, my pressed coffee was best for a long time, as were the English muffins. It is always commendable when such a high-profile freestanding restaurant pair as Donatella Arpaia and Michael Psilakis can move into a hotel and get breakfast right, and here they have achieved that. I looked outside, at the private, 24-seat terrace dining table which is great for family parties (perhaps for one of those whole baby suckling pigs?). And then, sadly, I had to clean my teeth, call for the hotel’s courtesy car, which would kindly take me anywhere within a three-mile radius.
Viceroy Miami, Miami, United States
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