MIAMI BEACH – Sick of the city? André Balazs thinks he has the answer. The hotelier has taken over the former Lido Spa Hotel here to create the new Standard Spa – a do-it-yourself wellness center on tiny Belle Isle.
Although the space is an offshoot of his populist Standard Hotel brand, Balazs didn’t spare any expense on the project. Indeed, he recruited the team from his high-end Raleigh Hotel in nearby South Beach, including landscape designer Madison Cox and chef Eric Ripert.
Cox, who also worked on the rival Shore Club – which is as far in philosophy from the Standard Spa as a neon string bikini is from a floaty white cotton tunic – mined his employer’s brain for inspiration. “André had done an enormous amount of research on spas all over the world,” says Cox. “He had an idea book. There were images from the beaches of Saint-Tropez to Zen gardens.”
“I’ve long been fascinated by various bathing cultures,” explains Balazs, who is a self-avowed fan of the 10th Street Russian and Turkish Baths while home in Manhattan (he visits his new Miami hotel every 10 days). “In Europe or Asia, you could socialize with friends in various heat and water treatments, and expand your mind. It was a central part of life.”
Accordingly, the huge spa, to which all hotel guests have free access, departs from the traditional one-on-one scenario and encourages visitors to practice therapies on each other. But it’s a far cry from the heaving social meccas on Collins Avenue like The Shore Club and the Delano, another Cox project. Balazs and his team wanted to create a retreat from all that. “It’s meant to be the antidote to what people expect in Miami Beach,” Balazs says.
“We used the idea of different outdoor ‘rooms,'” explains Cox, that are designed to be shared by small groups, unlike at the Delano, which has one large communal space – the better to see and be seen. The peaceful gardens of the Standard feature plantings of large sea grapes, Bismarkia palms and a sculpture by Elaine Katzer that Balazs found himself. There are even built-in sensory experiences, like the crunchy, crushed shells barefoot bathers walk on to get to the hotel’s pool overlooking Biscayne Bay, where there is also an outdoor restaurant.
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That’s Ripert’s domain, and the fun-loving chef strove to craft clean, but not boring, cuisine. “Obviously, we are trying to do something healthy, and we are promoting organic food. But it’s not like going to the restaurant of the hospital,” he says. “It’s a lot of indulgence in the menu – like we do a red snapper with tomato vinaigrette and marinated vegetables. There’s olive oil, but that’s good for you as well. And for dessert, you can order a glass of rum and we give you some dark chocolate with it. It’s pleasure, but chocolate also has antioxidants in it.” Sounds like a detox program that will find many fans.