The Hauntingly Beautiful Biltmore

Okay, so The Biltmore in Coral Gables, Florida isn’t really hauntingly beautiful.  But it is beautiful.  And haunted, as well.

So it’s got that going for it…as well as the biggest hotel swimming pool in America.

The tallest building in sleepy, tree-lined Coral Gables, this 1920s landmark hotel is said to have been modeled on Seville, Spain’s famous cathedral.  Having fallen in love with that Gothic treasure in May 2007, I’m not sure we’d entirely agree, but here they are side by side — judge for yourself.

What a stay at The Biltmore absolutely resembles is an old-fashioned resort vacation, where the hotel is the destination.

We drove from the Keys to The Biltmore on Christmas Day 2008, and as we pulled up the hotel’s sloping, lamp-lit drive to the front door, could hardly believe its glamour.  It could have been the contrast between our road-grimy bedraggled-ness and the doorman’s white gloves, but whatever — we were suitably wowed.

I’ll start with the really sexy part:  In winter, it’s more than half the price of a South Beach hotel without skimping on any of the fancy. While Miami hotels offer ocean glitz and streamlined modernity, the Biltmore offers sumptuous elegance…and free self-parking.

The Biltmore’s ornate lobby is a marvel.  The ceiling’s painted like a Ukranian Easter egg, and fabric-draped cupolas have portholes that reveal tiny, exotic finches perched inside.  A 30-foot Christmas tree twinkled as if to say, “Well, hi there.”

By the time Adam returned from parking the car, I’d been handed a cool towel, a glass of champagne, and had booked a glorious afternoon tea just steps away.  By sunset, we’d already sipped our Russian Caravan to a guitar serenade, strolled beneath exotic banyan trees at the edges of the impossibly emerald golf course, and kissed by a trickling fountain in a garden courtyard we had all to ourselves.  Our continuing fears about the economy aside, we were fully smitten.

But, ah — I’d mentioned haunting.

As our bellman carefully laid out our things in our simple 6th floor room, with its endless view of the Gables’ fluffy trees and red-tile roofs, he cheerfully apprised us of the Biltmore’s checkered past.  Al Capone and his cronies were frequent guests here in the ’20s, and were apparently responsible for an on-site mob hit or two; the murder victims have been restless ever since.  Panicked reports of ghost sightings on the 7th floor finally inspired the hotel to stop booking it, and the whole floor was turned into the spa. As the bellman jokingly put it, what’s an extra pair of hands here and there while you’re getting a massage?

We hung at the pool instead.  The Biltmore’s pool really is the largest of any hotel in the U.S. It’s L-shaped, shimmering turquoise, and framed by faux Greek statuary and arbors of bouganvillea…but it’s not heated. And even with 80-degree December days, by late afternoon only my crazy husband (who I call “my polar bear”) and aged English folk would attempt to actually swim.  The irony of such a massive expanse of water is that the real attractions here are the huge romantic patio/cabanas, the two-story waterfall over the bar, hilariously formal European crowd (even the children), and my favorite sport — jewelry watching.

Taking the tiny, wood-inlay and brass elevators was almost as fun.  While we’d wait for it up on our floor, we’d scope out all the old photos of Coral Gables when it was still a goofy boom-time land development dream; gotta love mustachioed men in white linen suits perched on the sticky shore of a mangrove swamp.  When the elevator would finally arrive, there’d always be an earnest young sunburned kid from Austria (or Germany, or Switzerland) in painfully clean clothes, lugging a massive, tricked-out golf bag towards the ground floor.  Each time we’d flatten ourselves to the elevator walls, we’d silently reflect that without golf in our lives, we were missing out on a whole different version of the Biltmore.

We contented ourselves instead with earth-toned outfits and fabulous food at Fontana.

Christmas dinner beside the palms and soaring fountain at the hotel’s outdoor Mediterranean restaurant was elegant, romantic and deeply perfect.   (I barely needed a sweater in the warm evening breeze, but hey, it looked really cute with the dress.)  We remarked in passing to our gracious Italian waiter that the complimentary mini-antipasto plate was a work of beauty, and like magic, another appeared in its place.  The menu was a holiday special, but no matter; we can say with confidence that anything here made of pasta or seafood will make you weep for your lost childhood, like the critic in Ratatouille.

I’ve saved the best for last:  Fontana’s legendary Sunday brunch ($75 per person).  Miami and Coral Gables locals flock here in hordes, so if you’re a guest, be sure to book this when you book your stay.  Learn from our first-seating mistake and book a sit-down time no earlier than 11:30 am; unless you nearly starve yourself, you will never make it through even half of the ludicrous quantity of food here. We’ve never seen anything like it, and we’ve been to Las Vegas and the Deep South.

There’s a four-protein carving station, an omelette bar, a groaning bread table, an entire antipasto section, cereals, waffles, cheeses for days, espresso drinks, enough sushi to feed the whole city, and just when you’re sure you’ll die, an entire room of dessert.  The latter has cookies, petit fours, cakes, pies, mousses, bars, and a chocolate fondue fountain.  If you’ve made the crippling error of ordering a mimosa and don’t remain vigilant in your refusals, you will see your glass refilled every 15 minutes of your meal.

But if you’re cool with spending your last day on Earth here together, then be sure to do one key thing — leave room for the blinis and caviar.

*For more of our photos from The Biltmore and Coral Gables, click here.

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