MIAMI BEACH—One of Miami Beach’s most art-centric hotels, The Albion, owned by the Rubell Family, has announced that it recently completed a multi-million dollar renovation of its public spaces and guestrooms.
The hotel’s redo keeps it very much in the family, starting with interior designer Scott Sanders, who has designed homes for every member of the Rubell family during the last 17 years, in addition to designing the Rubells’ Lord Baltimore Hotel and their Capitol Skyline Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Sanders, who created Ralph Lauren’s interior design department, has taken Igor Polevitsky’s original Albion nautical deco architecture from 1939 and outfitted it with sleek custom furnishings that reference ocean liners and private yachts. “I wanted to give it that feeling of nautical luxury, where you’re hanging around in a bathing suit but everything you see is crisp and elegant,” he says.
The Rubells have owned The Albion Hotel in Miami Beach for nearly 20 years. In that time, the hotel has been the understated home to many of the people who spearheaded the transformation of Miami into one of the cultural centers of the world. The first conversations about Art Basel starting a Miami fair happened on the poolside terrace. Countless meetings of international curators, artists, critics, and collectors happened in and around the pool. Thomas Maier began designing clothing for Bottega Veneta from his private office at the hotel.
“It was like the Chelsea Hotel of Miami. People loved it, they knew the staff from the beginning, they had the room they stayed in every year, but it was getting more and more frayed, and then finally something had to be done!” says Mera Rubell, who personally oversaw the Albion’s recent renovation.
Also in the family: David Miskit, the hotel’s new manager, who has known the Rubell family since the 1970s.
“David Miskit was literally my piano teacher when I was a kid, and my parents recommended him to Steve [Rubell] to manage Studio 54,” says Jennifer Rubell. Miskit went on to help Rubell and his partner, Ian Schrager, manage their ever-expanding group of hotels, most notably as the opening general manager of Delano Hotel in Miami Beach.
The artwork in the hotel comes from the Rubells’ personal collection, including a lobby installation of 85 works by legendary Miami outsider artist, Purvis Young, whose work can be found in the American Folk Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the guestrooms, artist Sabrina Baron has created a series of works that explore the relationship between nautical flags and color field painting.
