Kimpton Angler's Hotel South Beach

The pool

• Rooftop pool
• Marked 4 ft
• Pergola shade + loungers
• Second ground-floor courtyard pool
• Guests only
• Sunrise to sunset

Why it's on the list

Two pools on a property built from four surviving 1930s villas — a quiet courtyard pool at ground level, and the rooftop that is the reason it is on this list: four feet throughout, pergola shade, loungers the length of the deck. Guests only, sunrise to sunset. Two blocks back from the Ocean Drive noise.

The stay

The Angler's is the historic one — built in 1939 by Henry Maloney, left to rot for decades, and brought back in 2007 as a 46-room boutique by architects Allan Shulman and Ralph Choeff, with interiors by Wallace Tutt, who had done Versace's mansion up the street. An 85-room addition in May 2018 took it to 132. The result is Mediterranean rather than Deco, built around courtyards and four original villas, and it sits on the south end of Washington Avenue — two blocks from the sand, one street back from the part of South Beach that never stops. At $$$ it is the pick for anyone who wants South Beach without living inside it; the rooftop pool is the draw, and the courtyard pool downstairs is there when you want nobody around.