Miami Beach’s historic International Inn to get a facelift 

The owners of International Inn in Miami Beach’s Normandy Isle are planning a significant renovation of the historic waterfront hotel.

On Tuesday, the Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board approved a certificate of appropriateness and five variances that will allow Tsay International, the hotel’s owner, to make major improvements to the 71-room property at 2301 Normandy Drive.

Tsay International, led by Ricky and Belsa Tsay, spent the past two years working with city staff to present an acceptable renovation plan, said Deborah Tackett, Miami Beach’s chief historic preservation officer. 

“When this particular historic designation was being proposed at the urging of this board, the owner was very concerned,” Tackett told board members. “This is a great success story about a fabulous post World War II building…that serves as a beacon landmark entrance to the city.”

In 2021, the city designated the International Inn a historic building, and Tsay International agreed not to object. In exchange, Miami Beach would allow the hotel’s owners to build an eight-story addition. 

For now, Tsay International is only focusing on restoring the International Inn, Jamie Moshe Straz with Miami Beach-based Studio 3 told The Real Deal following the board’s vote. Straz is the renovation project’s architect. 

“Any vertical building addition was not contemplated as part of this submittal,” Straz said via email. “If in the future, ownership plans on doing the tower, that would be a separate project at that time.”

Completed in 1956, International Inn was originally known as the Carnival Motel and was designed by Melvin Grossman, a renowned post-World War II architect. Grossman was also the architect for other MiMo buildings including the Seville Hotel, the Doral Beach Hotel and the Deauville, an historic oceanfront resort in North Beach that was demolished last year after the previous owners let it fall into disrepair. Billionaire developer Stephen Ross was in contract to acquire the Deauville property, but Miami Beach voters last year rejected a density increase tied to his proposal to develop a new resort on the site. 

The International Inn also went through decades of negligent maintenance and gained a reputation as a crime den, according to city documents. In recent years, Tsay International cleaned up the property, and did not oppose the city designating International Inn a historic building in 2021. 

The renovation plan would implement a “meaningful modernization” of International Inn, according to Tsay International’s letter of intent.

In addition to updating the hotel’s facade, Tsay International intends to build a new elevated pool deck, a new sea wall, a new boat dock, new landscaping, and convert the hotel’s catwalks into private balconies for the rooms on the second floor, the letter states. The owner also wants to expand its café and kitchen space, which will include an outdoor dining area with a retractable canopy. 

Rudolf Uhlmann with Miami-based ULU studio is the project’s landscape architect, and Allan Shulman with Miami-based Shulman & Associates worked on the historic designation and zoning approvals, Straz said. 

The waivers approved by the historic preservation board included keeping an existing side setback of three feet and seven inches. The city code requires a setback of 16 feet and six inches. The board also granted a request for the driveway path to be 18 feet wide instead of 22 feet wide.