Tropical Deco: The History of Miami's Pastel Hues

What is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the city of Miami, Florida? Is it the eighties TV show Miami Vice? The sprawling city metropolis on the Atlantic? The rich and diverse international culture heavily influenced by its Cuban residents? Or is it something else? Like color? How about pastel color? For indeed, Miami IS a pastel paradise, an ocean of muted hues painted onto historic Art Deco properties.

It was in this city that one man’s vision for architectural revitalization started with a sweetly-toned swath of color- the Miami Color Palette. This man was Leonard Horowitz.

Leonard Horowitz

Black and white image of Leonard Horowitz in front of a piece of art hanging.

A native New Yorker and designer by trade, Leonard Horowitz landed in Miami in his late twenties after coming out to his father as gay, getting cut off from his family’s fortune, and fleeing to the tropical paradise to start over in 1976. It was in Miami that he was forced to take a job as a doorman and attempt to restart his design career anew. At this critical juncture, he had a fortuitous meeting with an unlikely person, a woman more than 20 years his senior.

Barbara Baer Capitman

A stop light with the street name Barbara Capitman Way with palm trees and a yellow building behind it.

Another New York native and transplant to Miami, Barbara Baer Capitman was the wife of a professor working at Miami's Florida International University. She relocated to the area in 1973, just a few years before Leonard Horowitz’s move.

Only two years after moving to Miami, Barbara Capitman’s husband died of pancreatic cancer. She found herself with a large amount of time on her hands, and her artistic nature yearned for a fulfilling and creative career. With a love for architecture and socializing, she soon befriended a young doorman with a similar love of Art Deco architecture; Leonard Horowitz. Together, their friendship would alter the landscape of Miami forever.

Miami Design Preservation League

This image shows a row of pastel-colored Art Deco buildings along a street with parked cars and a palm tree in the foreground, and a family walking with a stroller.

Joining forces, Leonard Horowitz and Barbara Baer Capitman began focusing on how to save the many original Deco buildings of Miami from demolition. Through vigilant fund-raising, the power of persuasion, and Barbara’s well-known arm-twisting style, the duo soon began to make major headway into renovating the fabric of Miami Beach.

By 1977, with the administrative help of Barbara’s son John, they established the Miami Design Preservation League in South Miami Beach. Instrumental in convincing developers to focus their efforts upon renovation, rather than demolition, the League gathered members from Miami’s political and social elite who sought to restore their once shining city to former glory. By late 1977 the preservation league was incorporated into the state of Florida and government grants were flooding in.

In 1978, the league hosted the first of many Art Deco Week celebrations, attracting thousands of visitors with an interest in the preservation movement of Miami. By 1979 the National Register of Historic Properties added The Miami Beach Architectural Historic District to its list. The first urban neighborhood addition, it was added with great fanfare. At this point, Leonard Horowitz began to brainstorm how to create local and industry-wide interest in preserving the historic Deco properties of Miami.

Pastel Color Palette

Pastel-colored Art Deco buildings with palm trees lining the entrance.

In a stroke of genius, Leonard Horowitz formulated a plan to spruce up the dated and worn Deco properties of Miami. This idea was the Miami Color Palette, a grouping of 40 colors created by Horowitz, an interpretation of the tropical flair of the seaside community. Though it was a break with the tradition of pure white deco aesthetics, Horowitz knew that the emotional influence of color would bring interest to structures long ignored.

"I formulated my palette on the basis of sunset, sunrise, the summer and winter oceans and the sand on the beach, which used to be much more golden,'' Horowitz said. ''They all are natural sources, and they are the same ones that the original designers used. Within them are an infinite variety of pastels."

He integrated original colors mainly used in the decorative arts of the deco period, as well as architectural trim pieces by researching historic documents. Keeping the original spirit of the movement was his main focus and not the literal recreation of history. "The buildings dictate to me spiritually, and I try to be sensitive to that. I consider the legacy of the architect, the use of terrazzo, of classical columns -- which, it seems to me, should always be white -- of bringing the colors from outside inside," he said. "That's the method of the past."

Freidman’s Bakery

The cover of the November 1982 issue of Progressive Architecture magazine features an image of a pastel-colored Art Deco building with a prominent geometric design against a clear blue sky.

With this newfound inspiration and color palette in hand, Leonard Horowitz found his first test subject in the unlikely subject of a neighborhood bakery. On the corner of 7th and Washington Avenue, Freidman’s Bakery was a stark white Deco building aching for some color. With funding from the city, Horowitz and his fellow Preservation league member Ernie Martin set about changing the façade into a riot of pastels- pink, green, and blue.

“My first reaction was, ‘Oh my God what have I done, because it was so unlike anything I had ever seen before,” said Martin. But Horowitz was undeterred. He loved the aesthetic and set about finding more willing property owners to take up the pastel cause. Building after building agreed to his color scheme, and soon the city was awash in color. By the end of the decade, more than 50 properties had been renovated with the help of the Miami Preservation League, and all of them featured Horowitz’s color palette. Freidman’s Bakery went on to grace the cover of Progressive Architecture Magazine’s 1982 issue.

Miami’s Reaction

A pastel Art Deco building featuring a blue sky behind it and palm trees.

It was at this point in history that new life was breathed into Miami, and it became the revitalized and international metropolis it once was. Neighborhoods unrelated to Art Deco history began to embrace the Miami Color Palette, and soon the city was awash in Tropical color. The changes in Miami brought renewed international cultural interest, and many movies and tv shows began filming there. Additionally, Miami became a center for fashion and design, the first of its kind beyond New York in the United States.

The Miami Preservation League exists to this day and has helped to bring many historic properties National Preservation status. They continue to host Art Deco Week yearly and have established an Art Deco Welcome Center which hosts an Art Deco museum and offers daily tours of the neighborhood. The preservation league is responsible for a great many lectures, books, and historical studies related to Miami, and continues to be a stronghold in South Beach Miami.

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