Beatles played here, then the hotel was left to rot
You are standing near the beachfront strip where a MiMo landmark hosted the Beatles and, decades later, was dynamited into rubble.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026 · A two-minute read · 1870–2022
The short answer
Akoya, Miami, occupies ground once home to the Hotel Deauville, a curved MiMo tower where the Beatles taped their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance in the Napoleon Ballroom on February 16, 1964. The 1957 tower, designed by Melvin Grossman, was closed after a 2017 fire and imploded on November 13, 2022, after years of neglect.
US National Register Historic Places — 2018 · Phillip Pessar · CC BY 2.0
February 1964
Two thousand fans watched the Beatles tape Ed Sullivan here
Two thousand screaming fans packed the Napoleon Ballroom on the night of February 16, 1964, when The Beatles taped their second appearance for The Ed Sullivan Show at the Hotel Deauville (Miami), a quarter mile north on Collins Avenue. The hotel had gone up in 1957, a curved MiMo tower designed by Melvin Grossman, all glass and swagger facing the Atlantic. For one night it was the most watched building in America. Elvis Presley had stayed there. Sinatra played its rooms. The Deauville was built for exactly this kind of attention, and it got it.
The Napoleon Ballroom outlived the rest of the hotel by only a few years.
1926 to 1957
A smaller resort came down to build the Deauville tower
Before Grossman's tower, there was a smaller resort on the same ground. Joe Elsener built the original hotel and casino in 1926, and in 1936 the showman Bernarr MacFadden, a physical-culture publisher who made his fortune telling Americans how to live, bought it and renamed it the MacFadden-Deauville. That older building came down to make way for the 1957 tower. Even then, the site was already being rebuilt for a bigger audience than the last one drew.
What happens to a stage once the cameras move on?
2017 to 2022
Neglect and a fire preceded the Deauville's demolition
An electrical fire closed the Deauville in 2017, and it never reopened. Alex Meruelo, the hotel's de facto owner, was accused by Miami Beach preservationists and city code officers of letting the building rot on purpose, so it could be cleared for something newer. A company tied to Meruelo was fined repeatedly for the neglect. Activists petitioned to save the tower. They lost. On November 13, 2022, the 17-story hotel was imploded in a single controlled blast. The Napoleon Ballroom, where the Beatles had played fifty-eight years earlier, was the last piece left standing, and it came down soon after.
1907 to 1938
A Spanish prince died in exile near this shoreline
The pattern of arrival and discarding was not new to this shoreline. On half a mile inland, across Indian Creek, a hospital once stood on ground built up out of the bay in the 1920s. Alfonso, Prince of Asturias died there in 1938, at 31. He had been heir to the Spanish throne until his parents' abdication and his own hemophilia disqualified him from marriage into the line. He ended up an exile in Miami, treated at a hospital on a manufactured island, and died there, a continent from the crown he never wore.
1955 to 2008
A vacant hotel tower was folded into a spa resort
Grandeur left empty is not unique to the Deauville. half a mile north, a 15-story hotel tower built in 1955 sat vacant for fifteen years, its rooms unused while the avenue kept building around it. In 2007 it was renovated and folded into a new luxury spa-and-condominium complex, its failure quietly absorbed into towers finished the following year. Nobody dynamited that one. It just waited long enough to be useful again.
1968 to early 1970s
A rock club hosted Zeppelin, then a supermarket replaced it
Even the venues built for the music itself didn't last. Thee Image Club opened on March 15, 1968, on the site of a demolished 32-lane bowling alley. Marshall Brevetz ran it as a three-stage ballroom with black lights and a meditation room. Led Zeppelin played there on back-to-back nights in February 1969. So did Cream, the Grateful Dead, and the Mothers of Invention. Within a few years the club closed and the building came down. A Publix supermarket sits there now.
Collins Avenue keeps rebuilding its brightest rooms, and keeps letting them go dark once the audience leaves.
Open this place in Strata
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and it will dig the ground you are standing on instead, wherever that is.
Allison Island, where Alfonso died, sits in Indian Creek near a cluster of man-made islands raised out of Biscayne Bay in the 1920s for Miami Beach's development boom.
Thee Image opened in 1968 on the site of a demolished bowling alley and hosted Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and Cream before closing within a few years; a Publix stands there now.
The 17-story Deauville tower was imploded on November 13, 2022, leaving only the Napoleon Ballroom where the Beatles once played, itself slated for demolition.
The Deauville hosted the Beatles' second Ed Sullivan Show taping in its Napoleon Ballroom on February 16, 1964, and decades later, after a 2017 electrical fire closed it for good, its 17-story MiMo tower was imploded on November 13, 2022.
What was here before the Deauville hotel tower?
An earlier hotel and casino built by Joe Elsener in 1926 stood on the site; Bernarr MacFadden bought and renamed it the MacFadden-Deauville in 1936, before it was demolished to make way for the 1957 tower.
Who designed the Deauville hotel?
Melvin Grossman designed the 1957 Miami Modern tower that replaced the earlier resort building and later hosted the Beatles.
Why was the Deauville hotel demolished?
The Deauville closed after an electrical fire in 2017 and never reopened; preservationists and city officers accused its de facto owner, Alex Meruelo, of allowing it to deteriorate deliberately, and it was imploded on November 13, 2022, after activists' efforts to save it failed.
What other historic venues stood near this stretch of Collins Avenue?
Nearby, Thee Image Club opened in 1968 on a demolished bowling alley site and hosted Led Zeppelin, Cream and the Grateful Dead before closing within a few years, and the Carillon Hotel tower stood vacant for fifteen years before becoming part of the Canyon Ranch spa complex in 2007.
Who was Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, and where did he die?
Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, once heir to the Spanish throne before his parents' abdication and his hemophilia disqualified him from succession, died in 1938 at a hospital on Allison Island near this shoreline, in exile from the crown he never wore.
