Miami Beach’s Design Past Inspires This Waterfront High-Rise

Block by block, South Florida’s bustling streets chronicle a century-long reimagining of paradise. Decades of designers have brought their own visions of tropical utopia to its azure coastline, from the early decadence of Art Deco to the modern style of the Space Age and the 1980s pastel revival. One couple dreamed of channeling all this glamour into their new abode, a waterfront high-rise, and recruited residential designer Brent Leonard and designer Ryan Scheftz for the task.

The prospect of diving deep into Miami Beach’s stylish roots thrilled the design duo. But rather than purely recreating a specific era, “We thought about our big-picture influences, subtly bringing in levels of history while incorporating modern elements,” Leonard muses. As veterans in high-rise construction, general contractor Frank Fuentes and his brother, builder Richard Fuentes, also became crucial to the transformation.

The apartment’s contours naturally suited a retro-modern approach—particularly in the main living area, a vast multipurpose space with an atypical shape, including a glass wall that leads to the wraparound terrace. Building interest to the room’s sinuous lines, the team constructed an undulating wall along the entry hall. “Our goal was to create this sensual curve so the whole vestibule flows into the main space,” Leonard says. A floating console “was also integrated to hug the wall, held up by a metal structural frame in the back,” Richard adds.

Further emphasizing the sweeping gesture, a curved shag rug creates a “soft, elegant pathway through the living area,” Scheftz describes. Importantly, this custom piece helped define dedicated spaces for living and dining. “The furniture arrangement needed to be fluid,” the designer says. Eschewing right angles, they rounded out two seating areas for smooth circulation, anchoring one with a circular dining table and the other with a rounded sofa that follows the curvature of the room. This elliptical layout allows for multiple points of interest, switching effortlessly between ocean vistas and intimate conversations, and everything is visually interconnected by the rug’s swirling patterns of high-pile yellow silk. “Because the room doesn’t offer a lot of wall space for art, the rug became the art,” Leonard explains.

With its swirling archival design, the playful rug also establishes the home’s retro affinity, recalling Miami Beach’s 1950s style. Nostalgia appears in moments like the apartment’s terrazzo floors and the living area’s scalloped white oak paneling, which casts shadows with the changing sunlight. Geometric wicker and bamboo pieces are peppered throughout, from a bedroom’s saucer-shaped rattan pendant to the study’s wavy mirror. A mix of vintage finds, like the living area’s midcentury lounge chairs, also showcases aerodynamic curves that were common during that period. “We were trying to come up with pieces that felt historical but modern at the same time,” Scheftz explains.

Color overall tends toward tonal, contributing to the home’s feeling of understated serenity inspired by Aman resorts, the clients’ favorite hotel properties. White oak warms the kitchen cabinetry with striated marble countertops, echoing white oak wainscoting in the study and the guest bedroom. Plush pearlescent carpets soften private areas like the primary bedroom, where the rippling high pile mimics the shimmering views of the ocean outside. Meanwhile, vast slabs of marble encase the entire primary bathroom, each piece “carefully lined up so all the veins flow into a pattern,” Frank notes.

The light woods and natural stones bring more contemporary ideas of paradise into the home. But, dotted amid this subdued backdrop, “We wanted to have a subtle 1980s Miami color scheme with pastel tones,” Scheftz says. As such, the guest bedroom embraces a sophisticated shade of Magic City pink, with geometric wallpaper and painted accents on the structural columns. Velvety upholstery in pale blues and greens also enliven midcentury modern archival designs, like the living area’s Pierre Paulin chair.

These pastel accents naturally complement the surrounding views, drawing guests outside to the curved terrace “that looks like the deck of a cruise ship,” Leonard describes. The space begged for on-board-worthy entertainment, which the team obliged with generous dining and living pieces that are as tactile as their interior counterparts, with pale green upholstery and rattan details.

Piece by piece, each eclectic reference builds into a lively urban oasis—proof positive that Miami Beach never fails to capture the imagination. “When you walk down the hallway, you see a spectacular sprawling beach scene,” Scheftz observes. “It’s a beautiful city.”