Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club review: the glamour of Miami’s golden age

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Miami

I’ve travelled to Miami a fair bit over the past few years. After lodging in many of the city’s variety of hotels, I have come to this conclusion: in my experience, Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club is, by far, the best place to stay. There is no point burying the lede.

The Surf Club is set in a striking 1930s building, fringed with palm trees and velvet furnishings beneath grand vaulted ceilings, with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean. Nowhere in Miami is quiet, but The Surf Club is. It is relaxing and serene. Everything is smooth and shiny. Everyone looks and smells expensive, as though they are sponsored by Loro Piana. Guests are cosseted and spoiled from the moment they arrive on the driveway until they are packed away in a car for departure. It is the Hotel California of Miami, with its trappings of indulgence (those that are luxurious and legal) and two Michelin Keys. There are two accomplished restaurants, a world-class cocktail and champagne bar, a fitness centre and spa, and three swimming pools.  

‘The Surf Club occupies a peaceful stretch of coastline in Surfside, around a 20-minute drive north of Miami Beach’

Its location is part of the appeal. Away from the parade of luxury hotels clustered in South Beach, The Surf Club occupies a peaceful stretch of coastline in Surfside, around a 20-minute drive north of Miami Beach. Walking along the beachfront on a Saturday morning in February, we hear little more than waves breaking on to the shore and the rustling of palm trees as the occasional jogger passes by. While the joys of Miami Beach are within easy reach, The Surf Club allows you to decide whether you want a city break or a resort-style holiday. Or both. Miami is simply one of its amenities. 

The Surf Club opened on New Year’s Eve in 1930, as an exclusive private members’ club founded by the tyre magnate Harvey Firestone. It quickly became a favoured haunt for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Alfred Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, while Winston Churchill enjoyed painting in one of the poolside cabanas (today, the pool bar bears his name). The club was famous for its wild, theatrical galas, some of which included elephants parading down its main corridor, late-night kayaking in the swimming pool and an Arctic-themed party that included 300 tables made of ice.

In its heyday, the hotel counted Winston Churchill, who enjoyed painting in one of the poolside cabanas, among its regular guests © Central Press/Getty Images

After its mid-century heyday, The Surf Club faded into decades of obscurity. It remained a private club until 2013, when it closed for a multimillion-dollar expansion and renovation, following its acquisition by Fort Capital for $116mn. The developer partnered with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts for the site’s new guise, and it reopened in 2017.

The original Mediterranean Revival clubhouse was meticulously restored and today forms the heart of the property, flanked by minimalist towers — the hotel rooms, suites and Four Seasons residences — designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier. 

With just 77 rooms, the atmosphere is boutique and intimate, the antithesis of the mega resort-style hotels elsewhere in the city. Staff remember names almost immediately. Service is polished without being invasive. Any toiletries or personal items forgotten at home (a phone charger in my case) materialise at your door within minutes. Technology is integrated throughout the room, but it is sensible rather than annoying: the curtains glide open at the touch of a single button, for example, while the in-room tablet is intuitive though not essential; there is still a phone should you need room service or the front desk. Everything simply works.

The ‘Bungalow’ rooms offer views and a private terrace

The rooms were designed by Joseph Dirand, the celebrated French architect and interiors guru known for minimalist elegance and luxurious monochromatic spaces, expressed here through travertine, cream-coloured bouclé fabrics, pale oak and subtle green-marble finishes. Our floor-to-ceiling windows drew the Atlantic Ocean into the room, while the cleverly positioned bathroom brought uninterrupted coastal views from the rainfall shower. It is a pleasure to be jet-lagged here: each morning I opened the blackout curtains before sunrise to watch the sky gradually warm above the sea while drinking a coffee in bed. At night, I left the terrace doors open so I could fall asleep to the sound of the waves.

This year, the hotel added a new private villa to the mix — a four-bedroom, five-bathroom pad designed for indoor-outdoor living, with a full kitchen and bar, garden, swimming pool and private beach access.

The Lido, ‘the all-day Italian restaurant led by Campania-born chef Michele Esposito’

For most guests, however, breakfast is served on the terrace of Lido, the all-day Italian restaurant led by Campania-born chef Michele Esposito, shaded by palms and alive with tiny birds hopping between the tables, keen for a bite of granola or avocado toast. Lunch here might mean delicately sliced vitello tonnato, grilled vegetables or a glass of something cold with a side of celeb-spotting (Mark Wahlberg was seated nearby one day). Dinner, however, is when the Lido hits its stride, as the high-ceilinged dining room fills for a menu that combines traditional Italian cookery with contemporary interpretations of classic coastal dishes. A feather-light cotoletta for two was crisp enough to shatter beneath our knives, while tiny rigatoni with an unctuous duck ragù gained brightness from a dash of orange zest. 

Elsewhere on the property, Thomas Keller’s The Surf Club Restaurant, a handsome, low-lit, jazz-club-like space, offers an altogether different experience. It leans into old-school American glamour with Caesar salads prepared tableside, prawn cocktails and vodka pasta finished with basil-infused booze sprayed from a perfume atomiser. Servers bring around a tray of meat for diners to see the cuts of steak available, as though you’re choosing your lobster from a tank. It tips into gimmickry, but the cooking well makes up for any cheesy theatrics.

The hotel has three swimming pools to choose from, ‘with poolside service extending on to a stretch of private beachfront’

Outside, three swimming pools cater separately to adults, families and guests seeking the atmosphere of the original cabanas, with poolside service extending on to a stretch of private beachfront. The gym is vast and bathed in natural light, featuring Peloton bikes, treadmills and extensive strength-training equipment, and there is also a programme of outdoor fitness classes. The spa, meanwhile, is more compact than one might expect, though after a dynamic massage that left me feeling several inches taller, I still managed to spend an hour alternating between the sauna, steam room, hammam and relaxation space overlooking the ocean.

This luxury, of course, comes at a price. Standard rooms regularly command some of the highest rates in Miami, and the bills continue to climb once you arrive. A glass of Barolo at the Lido costs $45. Around us, conversations drifted between private jets, Palm Beach real estate and name-dropping social, political and business connections. Many seemed to “know Elon”. Such is modern South Florida. 

Still, The Surf Club evokes more of an older vision of Miami: quiet, elegant and centring discretion over display. It offers a reminder of what drew people to this stretch of coastline in the first place. Walking beneath the palms after breakfast, it is easy to imagine Churchill setting up an easel nearby or the club’s early members arriving for a winter season by the sea. There are trendier hotels in Miami, more centrally located properties and certainly less expensive ones, but I am yet to find the place that I would rather return to.

Niki Blasina was a guest of the Four Seasons and Visit Florida