Tarnished Jewel of the Boulevard

Abandoned by its owner, the iconic Vagabond Motel faces an uncertain future.

When Eric Silverman bought the Vagabond Motel at 7301 Biscayne Blvd. for $4 million and announced his intention to restore the 1950s complex to its former glory, he generated publicity not just in Miami but across the nation. After all, Silverman often repeated, Frank Sinatra had stayed there. More significantly, he said he hoped his renovation would spark a South Beach-like renaissance along Biscayne Boulevard’s somewhat seedy motel row.

“Keeping some of the treasures that are really Miami is important to us,” the silver-haired investor told the Miami Herald in January 2006, not long after purchasing the property. “We think the beauty is to blend the old with the new.”

But that promise was never realized. Instead the 22,154-square-foot historic landmark became home to a small clothing store run by Silverman’s wife, and a sparsely attended weekend farmers market. Those operations ended more than three months ago, and today Silverman, once a ubiquitous figure on the motel grounds, is nowhere to be seen. Weeds have overtaken the landscaping. Code enforcement notices announce a variety of violations. City workers recently cleaned up some of the garbage and graffiti littering the property.

Where did Silverman go? Vagabond neighbors who used to see him regularly don’t have a clue. After agreeing to speak with the BT, Silverman, a Davie resident who once headed Hugo Boss USA and Dolce & Gabbana’s Western Hemisphere operations, did not return several subsequent phone calls seeking comment. His business partner and cousin, Octavio Hidalgo, could not be reached. The number for Eric Silverman and Associates, a realty firm, has been disconnected. The company Silverman and Hidalgo used to purchase the Vagabond, Milano at Ocean Drive LLC, officially became inactive as on September 25.

Fran Rollason, president of the MiMo Biscayne Association, doesn’t know his whereabouts but does know that he struggled to succeed. “He just had a hard time making his vision happen,” she says.

Teri D’Amico, co-founder of a movement to preserve examples of Miami Modern (“MiMo”) architecture, somewhat quirky buildings constructed between the 1940s and 1960s, says Silverman’s effort to revive the Vagabond was doomed. She feels she should know: D’Amico briefly worked for Silverman as the Vagabond’s interior designer. “This guy doesn’t take care of his property,” she says flatly. “He made it worse than before he bought it.”

The Vagabond’s previous owners, David and Wen-Yang Lin of Vagabond Motel Inc., are suing to foreclose on the property, claiming they are owed $2.7 million on a mortgage. Several other lenders are on the hook for as much as $1.7 million. Gary Anstey placed a lien on the property in September 2007 after Silverman and Hidalgo allegedly failed to pay him $26,000 for improvements made to the motel property. Unpaid property taxes run to nearly $200,000.

According to the city’s code enforcement director, Mariano Loret de Mola, the Vagabond has been slapped with at least $5000 in fines for violations that include operating an outdoor market without a license, not having a valid business tax receipt, improper outdoor storage of materials, and failure to register a vacant building.

It’s been a long fall from the Vagabond’s heyday.

Built in 1953 by Sidney Goldberg and designed by B. Robert Swartburg (architect of Miami Beach’s Delano Hotel and Bass Museum), the Vagabond quickly became a popular post-war destination for vacationing families thrilled to drive down U.S. 1 to Miami’s warm weather. The Vagabond’s popularity was such, in fact, that it supposedly hosted stars like Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, and Dean Martin, though such accounts may be mixed up with the Vagabond Club, which also operated during the 1950s and 1960s in downtown Miami.

Silverman’s original plan was to create a moderately priced boutique resort and spa, with a restored pool area and lobby, a clothing store, and a restaurant. But his plans changed repeatedly. Months after taking ownership, he decided to turn it into a condo hotel. In December 2007, he announced plans to transform it into an office and retail complex. Affordable studios for artists was another idea. The next year it was going to become a farmers market -- and he even helped persuade the city commission to pass a special law allowing it.

Silverman was perpetually dogged by zoning conflicts and permits he needed but didn’t acquire for this or that activity. He ran afoul of some nearby residents who complained that allegedly lax security was attracting petty criminals. His fellow property owners along the Boulevard were divided in their sympathies. The city, however, tried to help keep the Vagabond dream alive by granting him temporary permits for new signage and finding ways for him to legalize his farmers market. But by that time, it’s likely Silverman was distracted by the foreclosure action launched by the Lins.

In a response to the foreclosure this past March, Silverman and Hidalgo’s attorney, Brandy Gonzalez-Abreu, claimed the Lins had essentially led her clients to believe they were willing to negotiate new terms. Instead Silverman and Hidalgo were served papers that “unfairly surprised and harmed [them] by making refinancing efforts…difficult, if not impossible.”

Gonzalez-Abreu, who did not return calls from the BT, also claimed the Lins sold her clients the Vagabond under false pretenses, failing to mention that half of the motel property was zoned C-1 commercial and the other half R-3 residential, halting the renovation project and costing Silverman and Hidalgo revenue they had anticipated and needed. (At Silverman’s request, the Miami City Commission rezoned the entire 56,165-square-foot lot C-1 in December 2007.)

By 2009 much of the goodwill extended to Silverman by the city and many of his neighbors had evaporated. This past March D’Amico collected signatures from more than 20 property owners, including some who once supported Silverman’s market concept, claiming the dilapidated condition of the Vagabond attracted drug dealers and prostitutes and demanding that the city stop granting Silverman “special exceptions.”

On May 13, Silverman was found guilty of five code citations related to his unpermitted market and given two weeks to correct them. “Instead of fixing everything,” D’Amico says, “he closed up everything.”

If Silverman has indeed given up on the Vagabond, D’Amico believes the motel will be the better for it. She says it’s looking better already, thanks to the city. “Someone will buy it,” she predicts. “It is a unique property. It has so much potential.”

Michael Cannon, a respected real estate analyst and managing director of Integra Realty Resources--AREEA/South Florida, examined Silverman’s project several years ago on behalf of a client who considered extending a mortgage. Cannon agrees with D’Amico that the Vagabond is special and has a “tremendous history.” But he cautions that the Boulevard’s motel row is still in transition. “It took 25 years for Ocean Drive to become what it is today,” he observes, adding that it may take another 20 years before the MiMo District is no longer considered a risky investment.

For her part, Fran Rollason hopes something positive will happen with the Vagabond -- and soon. Its current condition, she says, is “a disaster for the neighborhood.”


News source: biscaynetimes.com


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