Carlyle Deco Hotel

By Josh Stein — Miami real estate sales associate, Florida license SL3057661. Selling Miami luxury property since 2002, with more than $1 billion closed.

1250 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida 33139 | Neighborhood: South Beach

The Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser calls this declaration THE CARLYLE DECO HOTEL CONDO. It then classifies every single home inside it as an ordinary residential condominium. That contradiction, written into the county’s own record, is a good place to start — because the more important contradiction here is what happened to the people who bought in.

What the county records at 1250 Ocean Drive

The county holds 21 folios at 1250 Ocean Drive, all in one declaration. Nineteen are saleable homes and two are retail units. The declaration’s common-element shares close at 99.9999% — complete to four decimal places, so nothing has been missed.

All 19 homes are classified RESIDENTIAL — TOTAL VALUE : CONDOMINIUM — RESIDENTIAL. None carries the HOTEL OR MOTEL code, despite the words “DECO HOTEL” sitting in the declaration’s own name. If you take one thing from this page about classification, take this: the name of a building — even the name the county files it under — tells you nothing about how it is classified, and the classification in turn tells you nothing about whether you may rent it out.

This is a small building of large apartments. They run 625 to 2,867 square feet, median 935, and the mix is nine one-bedrooms, six two-bedrooms, two three-bedrooms and two four-bedrooms, including two penthouses. Nineteen homes with four four-and-three-bedroom apartments among them is a very different proposition from the studio blocks elsewhere in this section.

For 2026 the county assesses the homes at $13,042,525, a median of $512,160 across a range of $229,162 to $1,708,911.

What happened to everyone who bought in 2006

The record holds 52 qualified transactions. Thirteen of them closed in 2006 and three more in early 2007 — the conversion, when the apartments were first sold off individually. Because this building is small and its units have traded repeatedly since, it is possible to follow almost every one of those buyers all the way to their exit.

I did that for all fifteen homes whose first recorded sale falls in 2006 or 2007 and which have sold again since. Fourteen of the fifteen resold for less than they first sold for.

One apartment in nineteen has recovered its 2007 price, and it took until March 2026 to do it.

I am not going to tell you why, because the county record does not say and I would be guessing. What the arithmetic does show is where the entry price sat: the conversion sold at $638 to $1,370 per square foot in 2006 and 2007. Nothing in this building has traded above $879 a foot since. The buyers did not choose a bad building. They bought at a particular moment, and the moment has not come back.

It is worth putting alongside Casa Grande, four blocks down the same street, which converted in 1997 instead of 2006 — and where every single apartment with a repeat sale on record is up, many of them by more than 200%. Same beach, same category, same kind of building. The difference is almost entirely when the first sale happened.

So where does that leave the building now?

Two consecutive years with no sales at all, and four sales in four years against 19 homes — about one home in 19 a year. The median last-sale year across the building is 2016, a decade ago.

The interesting part is the 2026 pair. Both sales this year — $795,000 for a 1,025 sq ft home in April at $776 a foot, and $630,000 for a 717 sq ft home in March at $879 a foot — came in above the 2023 per-foot median of $655, and the second of them is the only apartment in the building to beat its 2007 price.

Two sales cannot establish a recovery and I will not claim one. But they are the best recent evidence this building has, and they point up rather than down. The honest summary is that the 2006 cohort took a severe and lasting loss, and that the last two trades are the strongest in four years.

Who this building suits, and who it does not

Nineteen large apartments in an Art Deco building directly on Ocean Drive is genuinely scarce. If you want a two, three or four-bedroom on this stretch, the number of buildings that can offer one is small, and this is one of them at a per-foot level well below the newer oceanfront towers.

It suits you badly if you need liquidity or reassurance. Four sales in four years, two blank years, and a median last sale a decade old means you will be pricing with very little to go on — and the building’s own history shows how far prices here can travel.

On short-term rental: the words “Deco Hotel” in the declaration name grant nobody anything, and neither would a lodging classification if it had one. Florida’s state preemption, the City of Miami Beach’s zoning and licensing rules — among the strictest in the state — and the condominium declaration decide it together. Get all three confirmed by your own lawyer before relying on any rental income.

If you are selling here, price off the last two sales and not off what you paid, particularly if you bought in the conversion. A buyer’s agent can reconstruct the table above from the county record in an afternoon, and it is a difficult table to argue with. Your genuine advantages are the size of the apartments and how rarely one comes up.

The Carlyle — Frequently Asked Questions

Is The Carlyle a condo-hotel?

The county files the declaration under the name THE CARLYLE DECO HOTEL CONDO, but classifies all 19 homes inside it as ordinary residential condominium. No folio in the building carries a lodging code. The name and the classification disagree, and neither settles what you may do with a unit.

How many apartments are there?

Nineteen, plus two retail folios. They run 625 to 2,867 square feet with a median of 935 — nine one-bedrooms, six two-bedrooms, two three-bedrooms and two four-bedrooms including two penthouses.

Did buyers who bought at the 2006 conversion make money?

Almost none of them. Fifteen homes first sold in the 2006 or 2007 conversion and have resold since. Fourteen resold for less than they first sold for, with falls ranging from 3.3% to 67.3%. The one exception is up 1.9%, and it took until March 2026 to get there.

What have units here sold for recently?

Two sales in 2026: $795,000 for a 1,025 sq ft home in April and $630,000 for a 717 sq ft home in March, at $776 and $879 per square foot. Before that, two sales in 2023 at a median $655 per foot. There were no sales at all in 2024 or 2025.

Are prices recovering?

The two 2026 sales came in above the 2023 per-foot median, which is the best recent sign the building has. But two transactions cannot establish a recovery, and this page does not claim one. What is certain is that nothing here has traded above $879 per square foot since the conversion sold at up to $1,370.

Can I rent a unit at The Carlyle short-term?

The property record does not answer that. Rental rights are decided by Florida’s state preemption of vacation-rental regulation, City of Miami Beach zoning and licensing, and the condominium declaration and association rules. Miami Beach enforces aggressively. Confirm all three with your own lawyer before relying on rental income.

How does this compare with Casa Grande down the street?

They are almost mirror images. Casa Grande, at 834 Ocean Drive, sold its units off in 1997 and every apartment there with a repeat sale on record is up, many by more than 200%. The Carlyle sold its units off in 2006 and almost every one that has resold is down. The buildings are comparable; the entry points were not.

Interested in selling at Carlyle Deco Hotel?

Learn more about selling your condo at Carlyle Deco Hotel with Josh Stein. 

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Carlyle Deco Hotel in the Miami Beach Architectural District

The Miami Beach Architectural District, almost always called the Art Deco District, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1979. It runs from the Atlantic Ocean west to Alton Road, and from 6th Street north to the Collins Canal and Dade Boulevard. Depending on how you count, it holds between the over 800 properties built between 1923 and 1943 cited by the City of Miami Beach and roughly 960 historic buildings counted elsewhere. Either way it is the largest collection of Art Deco architecture anywhere in the world.

What it costs to own here: the three-story rule

Florida milestone inspection requirements apply to condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or more in height, at 30 years of age, or 25 years where the local enforcement agency cites conditions such as salt-water proximity (Fla. Stat. 553.899). HB 913 (2025) refined the trigger to buildings with three or more occupied stories, excluding garages and non-habitable areas, and applied the same threshold to Structural Integrity Reserve Studies, required every 10 years.

Renovating in a historic district

Interiors are generally straightforward. Exterior alterations are not: work visible from the street in a Miami Beach local historic district goes through the city Historic Preservation Board review process, codified in Miami Beach Code Chapter 118, Article X. Miami-Dade is also a High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, so impact-rated windows and doors are required, and inside the district those products have to satisfy preservation review on appearance as well as code. Budget more time than a comparable renovation off the beach, and use trades who have been through the process before.

There is a second layer buyers routinely miss. Local Miami Beach designation governs day-to-day alterations. National Register listing is what triggers the stronger state-law protections under SB 1730 and SB 1526. Many buildings here are locally designated but not individually National Register listed, and the two are not interchangeable. Ask which applies to this specific building before assuming it is protected.

Is the district protected from demolition?

Substantially, yes. The Florida Resiliency and Safe Structures Act (SB 1526, 2024), which allows owners to demolish and replace certain non-conforming coastal buildings, explicitly excludes structures on the National Register and several locally designated Miami Beach neighbourhoods including Ocean Drive and the Art Deco District. The 2025 Live Local update, SB 1730, effective July 1 2025, caps development inside National Register districts at the maximum height allowable within a three-quarter-mile radius and permits facade replication. Its protections attach to National Register districts rather than to buildings that are only locally designated.

Why supply here can never grow

The historic district southern boundary is 6th Street. That one line explains the entire South Beach price map. Everything south of it, including Continuum, Apogee, Portofino Tower, Icon South Beach, Murano Grande and Five Park, sits outside the preservation overlay, which is why 40-plus-story towers were legally possible there and nowhere in the blocks immediately north. Inside the district, the two and three-story stock is permanently capped. New Art Deco cannot be built. It can only be restored.

The neighborhood around Carlyle Deco Hotel

• Art Deco Welcome Center, 1001 Ocean Drive, the Miami Design Preservation League base. Daily 90-minute walking tours run $35 for adults and $30 for students and seniors; a self-guided audio tour is $25.
• Ocean Drive, the photographic core of the district, including the Colony Hotel at 736 Ocean Drive and its much-photographed neon.
• Espanola Way, three blocks of Mediterranean Revival, pedestrianised at weekends.
• Lincoln Road, the pedestrian mall from Washington to Alton, designed by Morris Lapidus in the 1960s.
• Collins Avenue, the Streamline Moderne hotel corridor running north toward the Raleigh redevelopment at 18th Street.

Who buys in the Art Deco district

Three buyers, consistently. Design-motivated primary and second-home purchasers, for whom this is the only walkable, ocean-adjacent product in Miami Beach at anything near this price point. Cost-conscious buyers deliberately targeting sub-three-story buildings to stay outside the milestone and reserve regime. And preservation-minded owners who treat design review as the price of a protected streetscape rather than as an obstacle.

Two practical notes. South Beach transacts at a high cash rate, and small older condominium buildings are frequently non-warrantable for conventional financing, so confirm financing early rather than late. And adaptive reuse has decisively proved the value thesis: the Shore Club restored its 1939 Art Deco building alongside a new tower and put a penthouse under contract north of $120 million, while the Rosewood Raleigh redevelopment is asking $150 million. Historic fabric is now the premium, not the constraint.