A once-luxurious Miami Beach hotel that hosted The Beatles and President John F. Kennedy during its 1960s heyday was destroyed Sunday after falling into disrepair and abandonment in recent years. The 17-story Hotel Deauville collapsed in on itself after a series of explosions erupted, sending up a large cloud of dust. The hotel was built in 1957 and Kennedy spoke there at the New Democratic Convention in 1961. The Beatles appeared there in 1964, recording six songs for “The Ed Sullivan Show,” attracting an estimated television audience of 70 million people. Celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones and Sammy Davis Jr. appeared there. The property fell into disrepair over the years and closed in 2017 after an electrical fire. Miami Beach officials and the family that owns the hotel have been fined more than a million dollars for various code violations. It is not clear what will happen to the lot now. Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, a billionaire developer from New York, wanted to buy the property and build a 350-foot-tall (107-meter) hotel and apartment tower, but that plan has stalled. The area has a 200-foot (61-meter) height limit and a city ballot measure that would have allowed construction to fail Tuesday. City officials say Ross may still be interested in buying the lot if he can work out an alternative plan.
