I recently took a stay/work vacation in the Grove, as I needed to finish up a manuscript draft I’ve been delaying for too long.

What a discovery!

I stayed at the incredible Mayfair Hotel, which claims it pioneered the Boutique Hotel concept in the U.S. back when constructed in the 1980s.

Novelist and journalist par excellence Tom Wolfe called it a re-creation of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Instead of being hermetically sealed, the hotel is open to the elements with tropical plants overflowing each floor’s balcony railings and with ceiling fans along every open corridor – inspired by the original Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

The architect, Kenneth Treister, was one of the greats who practiced Miami Modernism (MiMo) – a needed response to the brutalist, reigning, anti-human International Style. His creation here goes overboard on all levels, from a 60 by 30 foot metal moth adorning the facade, to the Gaudí-inspired play with molded concrete, to the use of a thousand heraldic medallions on columns and elsewhere inside and out.

It was a great base to (briefly) explore the outdoor haven of Coconut Grove. [please hover over images for captions]