Miami Beach Stories
The Art Deco pastels are not original. They were painted in the 1980s.
· 2 min read · Miami Beach
When the Deco hotels were built, most wore plain white and cream with a little trim. Fifty years later they were peeling and half-forgotten, and a young designer named Leonard Horowitz, working beside preservationist Barbara Capitman, had an idea: repaint the old buildings in the colors of the sea and the sunrise. Seafoam green. Flamingo pink. Lemon yellow. Sky blue.
One designer, one palette, a whole district
Building by building, the palette spread down Ocean Drive, and by the time television came looking for a backdrop in 1984, the pastel city was ready for its close-up. Horowitz died young, but every repainted facade on this beach still carries his eye. The Miami palette is now simply what the world thinks Miami looks like.
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Quick answers
- Were the Art Deco buildings in Miami Beach always pastel?
- When the Deco hotels were built, most wore plain white and cream with a little trim. Fifty years later they were peeling and half-forgotten, and a young designer named Leonard Horowitz, working beside preservationist Barbara Capitman, had an idea: repaint the old buildings in the colors of the sea and the sunrise.