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| Hotel terrazzo entrance |
I recently returned from a holiday in the US, and while in
Miami I came across a very interesting building ….’The Bancroft Hotel’.
Set just one block behind the main Ocean Drive in Miami, is this still beautiful 1930’s Art-Deco Hotel.
Set just one block behind the main Ocean Drive in Miami, is this still beautiful 1930’s Art-Deco Hotel.
Miami has very many Art-Deco building, which thankfully have mostly been renovated, after The ‘Miami Design Preservation League’ was formed in the 1970’s to save these wonderfully stylish building from being destroyed, and the sight of them today provides a wonderful step back in time to what must have been a very different Miami in the 1930's.
The Bancroft hotel does however look a little sad, when compared
with some of these other renovated building and looks to have been stood vacant
for a while and in need of some loving care.
Records show that it was built in the height of the art-deco
boom in 1929-30, under the ownership of an Archie Greenberg who came from
Worcester, Massachusetts. His parents, Max and Lena Greenberg originated from Poland,
and they were all living together in the newly completed hotel on the 1940
census, together with hotel staff and guests
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| 1940 census |
The original plans of construction go into details of all
the find art-deco features of the hotel, and in its heyday it must have been a
very stunning building, as the following pictures show.
An architect’s description of the building was as follows:
‘Asymmetrical facade
designs; Building rounded at southwest corner; Continuous eyebrows at every
floor level that conform to building shape; Wide bands of glass block stacked
on top of each other, divided by small-scale eyebrows; Exterior terrazzo floor
design; Horizontal banding: three concave bands run through window levels at
every floor level.’
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| 1930's postcard |
On the west side of the building is an original sculptural relief panel by Earl LaPan [1908-1996], a famous local art-deco painter and sculptor who lived locally, and who in the 1930 was commissioned to provide artwork for many of the new hotels being built at that time in Miami.
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| Earl LaPan sculptural |
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| West Side with sculptural |
Records show that the Hotel went into major alteration in
the 1980, when it was turned into private apartments and a restaurant, and as
mentioned earlier, the restaurant looked to be closed for business when I was
there.
Just how it got it’s Bancroft name, remains a bit of a
mystery. It is known that Archie Greenberg came to Miami from Worcester, Massachusetts,
and there was another Bancroft Hotel in that city, built in the 1920’s and run as
part of a large hotel group, and that hotel was named after a local historian
and politician called George Bancroft.... so maybe Archie Geenberg, was not the
owner of the Miami hotel but just the front-man for this large hotel group…who
knows?
Addendum.
Since writing this article, I have had a message from a relative of Archie Greenberg which gives a few more details about the man and the reasoning for calling the building 'Bancroft Hotel.
"Archie Greenberg was indeed very much the sole owner of
the Bancroft Hotel in Miami Beach and not a front-man. I was born and
raised in Worcester, Massachusetts and Archie was my much older cousin.
He was a wealthy man and a philanthropist who was a major benefactor to
Clark University in Worcester which is my alma mater. The Bancroft
family was quite prominent in Worcester history and there is a stone and
granite edifice, Bancroft Tower, on one of the seven hills in Worcester
that was built around 1900 to honor George Bancroft, who was a
politician at the time. When I was a teenager in the 1950's, it was a
great place to "go parking" with your date. Yes, Worcester had a
Bancroft Hotel, but whether it had anything to do with Archie's giving
his Miami Beach hotel the same name or not, I do not know."
Steve Adelson Woodridge, Illinois
5 comments:
Would like to see a record of ownership as my grandfather, Philip Levine, owned this hotel in the 1960’s/70’s. Not sure who he purchased it from or who it was sold to.
Archie Greenberg was indeed very much the sole owner of the Bancroft Hotel in Miami Beach and not a front-man. I was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts and Archie was my much older cousin. He was a wealthy man and a philanthropist who was a major benefactor to Clark University in Worcester which is my alma mater. The Bancroft family was quite prominent in Worcester history and there is a stone and granite edifice, Bancroft Tower, on one of the seven hills in Worcester that was built around 1900 to honor George Bancroft, who was a politician at the time. When I was a teenager in the 1950's, it was a great place to "go parking" with your date. Yes, Worcester had a Bancroft Hotel, but whether it had anything to do with Archie's giving his Miami Beach hotel the same name or not, I do not know.
Steve Adelson Woodridge, Illinois Steve.Adelson27@gmail.com 2/1/2021
The hotel also has a major addition on to it, still kept in the art deco style. The entire structure looks close and is locked up. It is a gorgous building. I hope someone renovates it but keeps its wonderful charm and beautiful wooded side doors. If only I had the funds to do so.
My name is Stephanie. I worked at the Bancroft in 1976 as night switchboard operator. There were two owners, a German man whose name I can't remember, and a Jewish man whose name was Mr. Baumrind. I have not been able to find any info on him, myself.
I'm at sui11@yahoo.com
I have an unused postcard from 1930, it is in excellent condition and would like to pass it on to someone, maybe the hotel or a family member. I found a collection of cards collected by an aunt in a box that had remained unopened for many years.They are mostly of Florida at that time. Im moving house and really think they should not be thrown in the garbage ! Please let me know if they are of interest to you.. J..
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