By the 1970s the Deco district had faded into a stretch of peeling paint and aging retirees, and the bulldozers were circling. It was saved by an unlikely crusade: a preservationist named Barbara Capitman and the Miami Design Preservation League fought to protect the old hotels, and in 1979 the district became the first twentieth-century neighborhood listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The pastel was repainted, the neon relit, and South Beach — SoBe — reinvented itself as one of the most photographed places on earth.
Our Miami Beach logo carries the Florida alligator over “Florida Territory · Est. 1845,” the year Florida became a state — the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Florida town. Printed in clean retro black-and-white that reads like an old crate label, the alligator stands for Florida as a whole; what makes this one Miami Beach is everything behind it — the Art Deco strip and its neon, the candy-colored lifeguard towers, the man-made island, and the winter playground where the sand meets South Beach.
Why People Visit Miami Beach
Miami Beach rewards visitors who want style with their sand: the world’s great Art Deco strip, a wide Atlantic beach, walkable streets, and neon nights. Add the South Beach glow and the year-round Florida sun, and the man-made island makes an easy case for itself.
