The Standard, Miami is hip, artsy, and completely devoted to shattering the traditional hotel rubric. Be prepared to enjoy the company of other guests. Naked.
EXPERIENCE
It would be easy to dismiss The Standard, Miami's upside-down logo, affixed to the original facade of this one-time motor lodge, as a kind of ostentatious irony. It would also be wrong. Sure, this ultra-trendy boutique hotel has been attracting the hipster crowd since it opened in 2005. But it's also completely earnest in its goal to turn the traditional hotel/spa experience on its head.
Exhibit A: The communal spa, which encourages guests to unwind en masse ŕ la traditional Turkish bathhouse (there's a hammam to prove it), rather than hole up in private rooms. Exhibit B: The video-art that loops on flat-screen TVs in all 105 rooms, along with the revolving cast of exhibitions installed throughout the hotel. Exhibit C: Amenities that include mood lighting, DVD libraries, and outdoor soaking tubs.
Exhibit D, while indisputably healthy, might in fact be a tad predictable: the on-site restaurant prepares Mediterranean dishes using, wait for it, organic ingredients.
The Standard, Miami is located on the edge of Belle Isle, a largely residential island in Miami Beach's Biscayne Bay. It can be accessed by car by following the Venetian Causeway. Miami International Airport is about 20 minutes away; Fort Lauderdale International Airport, about 45.