Castaways Motel in Sunny Isles and its world famous Wreck Bar: Celebrities, Wreckettes,Teamsters and ...

Florida State Archives/Florida Memory/
Dept. Of Commerce

By Jane Feehan 

During the 1950s and 60s, tourists flocked to 30 or so kitschy places on Motel Row in Sunny Isles (north Miami-Dade County). Only one would claim world-wide attention: the Castaways Motel and its Wreck Bar. 

The history of the Castaways includes celebrity visitors and entertainers, Teamster Union connections, underworld characters … and lots of fun.  

Restaurateur and night club entrepreneur Joe Hart built the motel in 1951. The Castaways opened officially in February 1952 and turned people away its first week. 

The motel sat on the west side of Collins Avenue at 163^rd Street (some accounts say he opened the first building on the east side of Collins and expanded across the street). Designed by architect Tony Sherman, who also designed Fort Lauderdale’s Yankee Clipper and Jolly Roger, the early Castaways offered 72 rooms, a coffee shop, cocktail lounge and a cascading waterfall entrance. High-pitched, open-beamed ceilings reflected a South Pacific theme that prevailed through its 1958 renovation and remaining years.

Hart had big plans for his successful motel from its beginning. In 1958, the Castaways expanded to 132 rooms and included what became its signature draw, the Wreck Bar. 

The renovation, which some claimed was Japanese in theme, others Chinese, was designed by Fort Lauderdale architect Charles McKirahan and built by Robert L. Turchin Construction Company. It was reportedly financed by the International Teamsters Union.

Financing of the motel came to light during a U.S. Senate Rackets Committee hearing chaired by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. According to news accounts, union boss Jimmy Hoffa revealed during the hearing that his union loaned nearly $1.3 million to the Castaways in 1956. The property, he said, was worth about $6 million. The boss, according to news sources at the time, also told the committee that his union brass frequented the motel and docked a yacht there. According to newspapers, it was the first knowledge of Teamster Union investment along South Florida’s Gold Coast.

Joe Hart and company kept up the mortgage payments and the Wreck Bar became world famous.

The bar, with its shipwreck motif, captain’s chairs, solid oak floors and brass fixtures, gave budding entertainers Ike and Tina Turner, Conway Twitty and others a stage. And the “go go girls"--all 12--known as the Wreckettes, danced to not only the music but also to the crowd’s beat of their Wreck Ball shakers. 

The bar had a 5 a.m. liquor license, attracting late night crowds when clubs closed around Miami.  The Castaways could count among its celebrity customers Lenny Bruce, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and the Beatles, who visited after their act on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

Things changed during the 1970s. Tourism declined; there were other places to visit around the country. The economy was in a downturn. Motel Row was beginning to look a little worn. 

Clientele changed. Local newspapers reported that its customers during those dark days included hookers, pimps and drug dealers (cocaine days) and allegedly underworld figures such as drug kingpin and head of the Dixie Mafia in Miami, Ricky Cravero.   

Joe Hart sold the motel and its famous bar in 1979 for a reported $14 million for 14 acres to a German group eying the possibility of gambling in Florida. Smart move. One by one the motels closed and developers moved in. 

The Castaways closed March 14, 1982; it was completely demolished in 1985. Ownership passed a few times and plans changed from building a new 1,000 room hotel to the present-day Oceania, a high end luxury condominium with an impressive entrance gate.  

 Copyright © 2020, 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Miami Herald, May 11, 1958
Miami Herald, Sept. 19, 1958
Miami News, May 19, 1952
Miami Herald, Nov. 25, 1951
Miami Herald, June 1, 1972
Miami Herald, March 28, 1982
Miami Herald, June 30, 1983
Miami Herald June 21, 1985
Miami Herald June 14, 1990
Miami Herald July 14, 1985

 

 Tags: Miami motels of the 1950s, Wreck Bar, Sunny Isles motels of the 1960s

 

 

Luxury, kitsch and convenience - Sunny Isles motels of the 1950s and ...

Thunderbird Motel circa 1960
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Motels played a key part in Florida’s tourism industry during the 1950s and 60s.  In 1946, the Florida Hotel and Motel Association reported there were only 1,311 in the entire state. But by 1955, the organization tallied 5,085 motels along Florida’s highways and beaches. A motel was defined as a place  a car could be parked in front of one’s room. That definition was modified over the years but it translated into cheaper accommodations than those offered by hotels.

Sunny Isles today

Miami area motels appealed to families seeking an alternative to expensive hotels along Miami Beach. Motels competed with the glitz of the Fontainebleau, the Eden Roc and other hotels.

Rates were kind to a family’s purse. A comfortable room at a glamorous Sunny Isles motel fetched $18-28 a day during the winter season, about half of what a Miami Beach hotel charged. The same rooms would sell for $10-16 a day during summer months. (Fort Lauderdale room rates ran as low as $6 during the summer but motels had fewer amenities.)

Nowhere were motels as splashy as those built in Sunny Isles (near 170th Street, the Fontainebleau is close to 40th Street).

Luxury, kitsch, and convenience reigned during the 1950s and 60s. Curbside check-in made it possible to register without leaving the car at some motels. Others offered supper clubs, beach cabanas, dance floors, children's programs and upscale restaurants with down-scaled attire; coats and ties were not required. The Sahara Motel posted two stuffed camels and a figure of a desert nomad at the entrance. Others touted elaborate interior waterfalls and kitschy architectural design. 

Not only were they flashy, motels were large.

Sun City, with 476 rooms, claimed to be the largest in 1955. The Castaways*, built about 1951, opened with 172 rooms (in 1958 it expanded to 300 rooms and eventually to 540 in the next decade). The Dunes built an indoor skating rink and a 350-seat convention room.

  

Motels in the U.S. declined in popularity with the advent of the super highway, highway interchanges  and lodging chains. In Sunny Isles, motel bookings decreased as resorts in other locales competed for tourist dollars. Land values went sky high and so did taxes.

By the 1970s, the Castaways Motel attracted  few families. By then, the motel was better known for its famous Wreck Bar and night life than for its family accommodations. Owner Joe Hart sold the motel in the 1970s; today the site is home to the Oceania Condominiums. The Dunes was replaced by a condominium; the Sunny Isles of the 1960s is now a wall of condominiums, barely more than a  memory of the motel heydays of the 1950s and 60s.

*Architect Tony Sherman designed the early Castaways; Charles McKirahan designed the expansion in 1958. The Wreck Bar at the Castaways drew celebrities, including Lenny Bruce and, in 1964, the Beatles after they finished playing on the Ed Sullivan Show at the Deauville Hotel.

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Sources:

New York Times, Dec. 11, 1955.

Armbruster, Ann.  The Life and Times of Miami Beach. New York: Alford A. Knopf, Inc. (1995).

Tags: Miami history, Sunny Isles history