We started out the day with a terrific breakfast at Balans on Lincoln Road. It's one of the few cafes there to open early. A few years back, we had a stint at selling orchids and bromeliads right next to Balans at the Sunday Farmers Market. That's when I took the picture of a couple shopping that became the basis for a painting. You can view my other artwork at http://www.floridagardengallery.com/.
After going back to the room, I headed north to the Fountainebleu. Ten blocks north of 44th and Collins, this amazing construction from 1954 is considered a masterwork of Morris Lapidus. This architect, who was snubbed by the cognoscenti of his day, has rightly assumed his role as one of the founders of post-modernism. His style is defined as MiMo (mid-century modern) and he is single handedly responsible for setting the style and tone for the whole section of Miami Beach north of 41st Street.
This was my first visit back since the latest remodeling, which was an attempt to restore it to the original Lapidus look that had been bastardized in previous attempts to "fix it up." And although it's managed to undue some of the previous harm, it is still not as good as the original. I can only imagine what the Mona Lisa would look like if a trio of less talented artists had been invited to over paint Leonardo's masterpiece.
Nothing about it now trumps my memory of it as a sixteen year old. Every year in high school, my debate team spent the week between Christmas and New Years at a competition held at Miami Beach High School that attracted National Forensic Leaguers from all over the country. My friend Brian and I donned suits that we brought just for the occasion and proudly presented ourselves to the maitre'd of the main dining room of the Fountainebleu. If anything seemed strange to him about seating a couple of unattended young men ( I looked fourteen), nothing in his demeanor betrayed it. The surroundings surely enhanced the taste of the vichyssoise and escargot, but I'm pretty sure they really were good.
Certainly we were living proof of Lapidus' adage that if you build a wonderful set, its occupants will have a great time acting in it. That evening we two starred in our production of a grand little play that is fondly enshrined in my memory. Little wonder that the botched attempts at improving on the site of our production seem so much like heresy to me. But a glimmer of some that is great from the original has been returned. The reconstruction of Morris' "Stairway to Nowhere" is most appreciated. Originally constructed solely as an entrance to the coat room, its real purpose was to allow the hotel's clientele, after dropping their outerwear and hats, to make a grand entrance to the throngs of guests milling around the lobby. Each was probably expecting that they would become the star of the history of their own lives. I think Morris would have been amused at the little drama a couple of boys played out in his place that December night in 1966.
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