Travel Blog

Last Thursday we were in Coral Gables and decided to stop by the new Loew’s Hotel, which was opening to guests that very day. I love hotels; also, I thought of people attending the grand opening of the Biltmore Hotel in 1926.

The Loew’s opening was much more low-key, though the staff was extremely welcoming. Even though we looked like we had just come in off the street (which we had), the concierge insisted we take the elevator to the ninth floor to see the pool and enjoy the view. Unfortunately, you need a room key to access the area, which we explained to an employee back in the elevator who took us back up and opened the door for us. From one side of the terrace we got an unobstructed view of the Biltmore.

Downstairs, I asked two workmen when the plaza will be finished. The hotel is part of a complex of shops, restaurants, and residences, including, they told us, the house of the only person who refused to sell his property to the developer. They pointed it out to us and we walked back to see it – it sits opposite the hotel entrance – a simple one-story house with an orange tile roof and a mango tree in the front yard. It looked forlorn sitting there dwarfed by the high walls of the new development that keep it in eternal shade. But it provides the development, the clear winner in the deal, with a charming object of curiosity. The valets told us the owner was offered two million dollars and a new house on the corner but he refused to budge. The concierge, who had come outside, said that in his two months at the hotel he had not seen the man once.

Back home, I messaged a friend who lives in the neighborhood. She said that the owner of the house is Cuban, and used as the reasoning for his obstinacy the fact that his family’s land had been taken from them in Cuba and nobody in this country was going to take his land from him. To which my friend, who is half-Cuban, noted, “Dude, Castro didn’t offer your family two million dollars.”