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Gostelow Report: Poetic license at Miami Beach’s The Betsy

“Creativity takes courage, but then I never intended to be a hotelier. My wife, Lesley Goldwasser, and I were both financiers in New York and a friend needed help with a project in Miami Beach. We saw this building, bankrupt and sad, fell in love with its opportunity and bought it,” explains entrepreneur Jonathan Plutzik of what is now the 130-room Betsy Hotel, South Beach, Florida.

The Betsy, one of South Beach’s luxury classics, on iconic Ocean Drive, originally opened in 1942. Plutzik and Goldwasser brought in local architects Beilinson Gomez and their own residential designers, Diamante Pedersoli and Carmelina Santoro. It re-opened in March 2009, with 62 rooms, filled with art that included many original Beatles and Rolling Stones photos. “From the start I thought that no one comes to a hotel because of its technology – they are comfortable with the technology they bring with them, not alien pieces provided by a property. I believed there was a market for a hotel committed to deep cultural experiences, and guest experiences beyond thread count. The luxury aspect was a given.  Much more would have to be offered,” he recalled. 

The hotel has one or more writers in residence every week. Their only responsibility is to write while they are there, and give at least one salon, sharing their thoughts in the hotel, in a local school or elsewhere in the community that seems an extension of The Betsy family.

Jonathan Plutzik and Lesley Goldwasser by the rooftop pool on the air-bridge of The Betsy
Jonathan Plutzik and Lesley Goldwasser by the rooftop pool on the air-bridge of The Betsy

Eight years on, Lesley Goldwasser remains a full-time New York financier, but she oversees the hotel’s music program, and the couple’s 27-year-old son Zach Plutzik handles its social media and digital applications.

Jonathan Plutzik’s sister Deborah Plutzik-Briggs heads the hotel’s PACE — Philanthropy, Arts, Culture and Education – program. There are educational partnerships locally, and with charities in Lesley Goldwasser’s home country, Zimbabwe. During the annual Art Basel Miami, each December, The Betsy creates its own gallery-like exhibitions. Year-round, it hosts regular opera and jazz in the lobby, and in its Writers’ Rooms there are poetry readings by leading literary figures.

“To celebrate this year’s O, Miami Poetry Festival, which runs all this April, when front office presents its daily report, a poem, which may or may not be original, must be included,” explained Jonathan Plutzik.

In 2013 the pair bought the adjacent 1937-vintage Carlton Hotel, on Collins Avenue, immediately behind The Betsy, and as of December 2016 The Betsy now has 130 rooms and nearly 15,000 square feet of event space, which includes significant new event spaces, including the deck around a rooftop air-bridge pool, all intended for art pop-ups through to weddings and yoga.

“The two buildings, the original Betsy, which we now call the Colonial Wing, and what was the Carlton, our Art Deco wing, are also joined by a third-floor interior walkway that is covered, intentionally as a piece of public art, by what looks from outside like a massive egg sculpture,” said one of the owners – when together, they tend to finish each other’s sentences. They smile at the thought that The Betsy is a creative center that happens to have bedrooms (it also has superb food, by Laurent Tourondel, but that is another story).

“My extended family is filled with creativity in all forms,” says Jonathan Plutzik, whose late father was celebrated poet Hyam Plutzik. Copies of his books are among the must-read hardback selections in all bedrooms. He similarly enthuses about the just-installed Betsy Poetry Rail, outside the hotels on Collins Street: It has, set into the wrought-iron filigree, statements from 13 poets who have a special connection to Miami.

Was banking in fact good training for hotel keeping? “You have to anticipate and be prepared for the unexpected at all times. When we opened The Betsy it was in some ways liberating not to have any training; and with the support of talented hotel colleagues, led by our GM Jeff Lehman, we were able to think creatively about the hotel we wanted. And we are still evolving. Everyone, guest or passerby, who comes to our front desk is offered a lapel badge with Matisse’s saying, Creativity takes Courage,” smiled Jonathan Plutzik, before rushing off to a meeting.

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