Name: Motel Ankara
Address: 2360 Collins Avenue Miami Beach FL
Architect: Reiff & Feldman
Style: Miami Modern Architecture
Description: Built in 1954, designed by architects Reiff & Feldman, the Ankara Motel, has been through many changes over the decades. Serving first as the typical 1950’s and 60’s motel, of which there were legion along Collins Avenue. It became the Waterside Inn for many years, before becoming a youth hostel in the 1990s. It was purchased by a developer, Ken Fields, who renamed it The Creek South Beach, and turned it in to the first and maybe only artist designed hotel in Miami Beach – rooms were designed by individual artists and murals were painted along exterior wall and corridors. After designing and receiving approvals for a nine story addition in the parking lot. Fields sold the property to a developer who built the expansion. Currently it is the South Beach Gates Hotel. Almost all of the original façade and the pool has been preserved and restored. A beautifully executed example of maintaining a properties historic features while modernizing and expanding.
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