New era for old Tower Hotel

Little Havana landmark to be a boutique building

MIAMI — The Tower Hotel in Little Havana has lived many lives.

Built in 1920, it’s been a YMCA, a World War II hospital, a haunt for jazz musicians Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Chet Baker, the Tower Apartments and the Tower Hotel, and, most recently, the home of an immersive theater experience.

David Schechtman, whose family owned the Tower Hotel from 1955 to 2012, grew up inside the walls of the historic building, which bore witness to the transformation of Southwest Eighth Street into Calle Ocho.

“It’s seen the blues. It’s seen the whole American people down there. It was a Jewish community. And then it was Cuban through El Mariel (boatlift in 1980),” Schechtman said, “through all the different cultural and history changes.”

Now, the hotel is due for another major change.

In September, it will become Little Havana’s first boutique hotel, redeveloped through a partnership between the Barlington Group, which owns several properties in the neighborhood, and Selina, a hotel operator making its U.S. debut. Barlington Group’s managing partner, Bill Fuller, also co-owns Ball & Chain.

Preserving the history of the hotel will be central, said Fuller, as he and business partner Martin Pinilla, also a managing partner at Barlington Group, venture into what is essentially a gamble. Though Little Havana is a popular attraction for tourists — about 4 million visitors stop there every year — that popularity dropped off slightly by 3 percentage points in 2016 from 2015, according to statistics from the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The area also hasn’t had a hotel, and certainly not a boutique hotel, since before the Tower Hotel and the buildings on the lot were purchased by Barlington Group in 2012 for $1.7 million.

“I know it’s untested,” Fuller said, “(but) I know uniquely because of Ball & Chain the type of business the neighborhood commands at night and I think it’s long overdue.”

Henry Schechtman, who owned Ball & Chain for a couple of years in the 1950s, stumbled across the Tower Hotel in 1955 as he was trying to purchase one of the homes that also sits on the lot, said his son, David Schechtman.

Located at 1450 SW Seventh St., the 52-room, three-story building is around the corner from the club and about a threeminute walk to Domino Park on Calle Ocho.

Because of the proximity, the elder Schechtman offered the Tower Hotel to African-American musicians, who were allowed to stay only at hotels in Overtown during segregation. His son recalls that after their sets, Schechtman would sneak the musicians through the back alleyway to the hotel.