In the 1950s Hawaii was a newly discovered mecca for rank-and-file tourists seeking a place in the sun for their vacation. Economy airfares put the Hawaiian Islands within reach of the middle class and visitors increasingly chose Honolulu over Miami Beach.
To counteract this shift in tourist dollars, some Miami Beach hotel operators attempted to give their guests a touch of Hawaii by renaming their properties and adding Hawaiian themed floor shows and luaus.
The Waikiki Resort Motel was located at 18801 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles. The 60-room Waikiki was designed by architect William Friedman and built in 1953. It initially cost $24,000 to build, but after two additional buildings were added the Waikiki grew to 342 rooms and had a beautiful 300-foot beach front.
I stayed at this motel on vacation as a child in the late 60s. Do you know if its still there or when it was torn down if its gone?
I’m told that ALL the low-rise motels in that area are now long gone, and have been replaced by high-rise condos.
Ain’t progress grand?
I used to go to Waikiki as a kid during late 80’s through the mid 90’s. It was the best , lots of great memories. We would stay for a week every year during August during my birthday. This was the best Birthday gifts I have ever received, Thank you Mom and Dad.
It’s still there. between the Trump towers. Stayed there 2 weeks ago, 25 years since last 🙂 A bit down hill, but still ok.
i am from quebec canada and the firs time i went in miami in 1970 for two weeks we stayed at the wikiki motel it was fantastic
thanks
My father worked there in the 60s and 70s and we spent our summers there. I haven’t been to Miami Beach in over 30 years so I know not if its still there although I tend to believe it’s not. I moved to the real Waikiki actually!
I will never forget this place! Lots of wonderful childhood memories in the 80’s and early 90’s. I joined as a member in facebook. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/5672857712/
My Grandfather Jake Goldstein used to manage the hotel from about 1944 to the early 1960’s with his wife Naomi and my father use to be a bellhop in the summers.
I stayed at the motel in the early 60’s when I was a kid. It was a great time in Miami Beach with motels and hotels along the beach. Across Collins Ave. it was still very residential with private homes, not hi-rise condos. I remember the shuffleboard and high dive tournaments, the ice cream shop, the movie and bingo nights. Not far from the motel there was the Rascal House and Wolfie’s. I had great memories of my Christmas vacations at the Waikiki Motel.
We went to the Waikiki for about 7 years in a row in the late 60’s, early 70’s, as a family. It was our yearly treat from my grandfather and we’d stay for at least two weeks. It’s still there, as are the two pools, one fresh water and the big one being salt water. It’s now called the Sunny Isles Beach resort. My sister went o Miami a few years ago and asked if she could go to the back and they let her. She took some shots and not much has changed. The building where they played bingo is still there as is the “craft room”, where we sued to make clay crafts and paint them ourselves. The Aloha Lounge is still there, just not sure what it’s called now. The Pineapple Bowl Coffee Shop building is still there, but not used. Ahhh, the shuffle board we played. The Marco Polo is still next door but I don’t think they have the high divers anymore. 🙂 I must take a trip one day with my wife and kids. What amazing memories. I think they petitioned a couple of years ago to keep the Rascal House going, but the owner’s may have caved to the almighty dollar. Too bad if they did, that was THE place to eat. Thanks for the memories on this friends, what an awesome time in life.
I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s spending 2 weeks each summer at this motel. I remember the hot fudge sundae’s at the coffee shop. Kenny and his crew on Sundays with their zaney pool show and the hot dogs on the grill. The Royal Castle burgers, Rascal House, and Jahn’swith it’s Kitchen Sink ice cream, and the restuarant down at the pier where every kid got a “prize” when they left. Would like another 2 weeks.
My family spent the last two weeks of June there every year from 1964 to 1979. I have wonderful memories also of the Rascal House, Jahn’s, Guido’s Italian Restaurant and Lum’s that was across the street. I made many clay decorations in the craft room and recall the year that hurricane Alice came through and the big window in the craft room blew in and all us kids had to hide in the laundry room. Was there to see when little Mickey Brasic fell down the manhole! It was an awful situation and glad he was ok afterwards. His mom Helen and dad Kenny and brothers Kenny and Gary were great friends of my family. Their cousin Brett also worked there in the summer. Ernie worked the front desk for all the years that I remember. And I believe the lady that cleaned our room was Ellymae….she was great! I recall the calypso bands that played and the guys that would make hats out of palms for men and women. Wow, I could go on….I digress!
Would LOVE to see family/any photos from 60s and early 70s, if anyone here has them.
My (half sister and half brother) use to work in the restaurant but trying to find them and no trace so if someone know!!polo and suzy!!
was a great resto !!!
I remember going there in 1976 with our family for our very first vacation (that involved taking a plane! We have great memories of the place.The Rascal house was certainly a great place to eat. I also remember Wolfie’s We were all so excited to be in Florida for the very first time.Took in all the sites and rested on lounge chairs at the Waikiki Motel.The weather was perfect and we celebrated my 16th/birthday in style along with my Twin sister and parents and brother.Have not been to Florida in a long while but would like to return there with my children one day to show them all the great places.
We went every summer for a month in the 70s. I don’t know if it’s still around or not.
We used to go for two weeks every summer in the mid to late 60’s when I was a kid… It was like home to us. I did a google maps search several years back and it was there, but another time I checked and it’s now gone 😦 The land is too valuable for those mom and pop motels anymore. How times have changed. Great memories and photos!
My father worked there and we spent summers there through 1975. It was unreal for us. We were rather poor and to spend time in a motel, as it was called then, was sublime. I left Florida 40 years ago and I understand that it is quite a different structure now. Then, Collins Avenue wasn’t a big deal nor was it expensive. I recall my grandparents living in South Beach and we hated to go there because there was even less to do or see!!
I remember my family’s 1958 vacation road trip from Long Island, that took a week driving down 2-lane US1 at 40 miles per hour, and the long night-time journey through the jungle on the 2-lane Tamiami Trail (it’s still just 2 lanes, preserving my ancient memories of old Florida!) Exhausted and suffering from ‘white line fever’, we finally pulled into the Waikiki in the wee hours of the morning, saw the VACANCY sign, and checked in. I don’t remember much that we did there; I was 7 years old, but I do remember going door-to-door, asking parents if they had a 7-year old kid I could play with on the beach!….
….fast-forward over half a century – my partner Deb & I decided to try to find the place. She Googled it and came up with an old ad mentioning “$2 rooms with air conditioning’! I didn’t know exactly where it was, but I vaguely recall it was on the ocean side of the main drag, Collins Ave, a few miles north of the great Fontain-Bleu hotel that towered over the beaches. The ad mentioned it was located at 18801 Collins, so we turned off the Tamiami Trail onto rte A1A and found Collins.. We drove north a few miles….and we passed giant hi-rise after giant hi-rise, none of which was there way back then. Finally we saw that street number – 18801 – on a construction site barricade stretching 300 feet along Collins between two huge towers. Excitedly, we parked a block away and crossed the 6-lane highway, and stood in front of the wall. I realized at this moment that our adventure had turned into an archaeological search for signs of the old Waikiki. It was a dirt parcel now, having been very recently leveled, and now slated to be the site of just another resort tower. Fortunately, one of the hotels had a ‘public access path’ to Waikiki’s beach, and we hurried down the brick pathway, bordered on one side by construction fencing and black tarp fabric that we couldn’t see through. We finally got to the beach, and the full moon was rising over the waves, and it must have been a wonderful sight for motel guests on balmy summer evenings. There was a row of palm trees along the back of the site, and I noticed that two of the palms were planted closer to the beach than the rest of the row, and I think they may have been at the beach entrances from the two motel units. I sat on the sand by the ocean, and Deb photographed me sucking my thumb, with a handful of sand in one hand. We walked the whole 300 feet from the south boundary to the north, and I imagined where the two units stood, and approximately where along the north unit my parents’ door had been. It was bittersweet. I hadn’t been back to Florida since ’58, and I still remembered the Spanish Moss hanging heavily from the Cypress trees in the swamps. Not much of that now. Looks like Sunrise Highway on Long Island now, the major 6-lane artery along the South Shore.
I missed all the tourist traps in the jungle, which are still there, but look weird between the CVS and the strip mall and the banks and the big box stores. But my last memory of our ‘discovery’ were the motel’s parking “entrance” and “exit” arrows, still clearly seen on the pavement we saw as we peeked through a hole in the barricade. I was tempted to chalk WAIKIKI MOTEL on the barricades, but I didn’t have any sidewalk chalk.
I remember my family’s 1958 vacation road trip from Long Island, that
took a week driving down 2-lane US1 at 40 miles per hour, and the long
night-time journey through the jungle on the 2-lane Tamiami Trail (it’s
still just 2 lanes, preserving my ancient memories of old Florida!)
Exhausted and suffering from ‘white line fever’, we finally pulled into
the Waikiki in the wee hours of the morning, saw the VACANCY sign, and
checked in. I don’t remember much that we did there; I was 7 years old,
but I do remember going door-to-door, asking parents if they had a 7-
year old kid I could play with on the beach!….
….fast-forward over half a century – to October 2015 – my partner Deb & I decided to try to find the place. She Googled it and came up with an old ad
mentioning “$2 rooms with air conditioning’! I didn’t know exactly
where it was, but I vaguely recall it was on the ocean side of the main
drag, Collins Ave, a few miles north of the great Fontain-Bleu hotel
that towered over the beaches. The ad mentioned it was located at 18801
Collins, so we turned off the Tamiami Trail onto rte A1A and found
Collins.. We drove north a few miles….and we passed giant hi-rise
after giant hi-rise, none of which was there way back then. Finally we
saw that street number – 18801 – on a construction site barricade
stretching 300 feet along Collins between two huge towers. Excitedly,
we parked a block away and crossed what had become a 6-lane highway, and stood in front of the wall. I realized at this moment that our adventure had
turned into an archaeological search for signs of the old Waikiki.
It was a dirt parcel now, apparently having been very recently leveled, and now
slated to be the site of just another resort tower. Fortunately, one of
the hotels had a ‘public access path’ to Waikiki’s beach, and we
hurried down the brick pathway, bordered on one side by the WaiKiKi’s demolition fencing and black tarp fabric that we couldn’t see through. We finally
got to the beach, and the full moon was rising over the waves, and it
must have been a wonderful sight for motel guests on balmy summer
evenings. There was a row of palm trees along the back of the site, and
I noticed that two of the palms were planted closer to the beach than
the rest of the row, and I think they may have been at the beach
entrances from the two motel units. I sat on the sand by the ocean, and
Deb photographed me sucking my thumb, with a handful of sand in one
hand. We walked the whole 300 feet from the south boundary to the
north, and I imagined where the two units stood, and approximately
where along the north unit my parents’ door had been. It was
bittersweet.
I hadn’t been back to Florida since ’58, and I still remembered the Spanish Moss hanging heavily from the Cypress trees in the swamps. Not much of that now. Looks like Sunrise Highway on Long Island now, the major 6-lane artery along the South Shore.
I missed all the tourist traps in the jungle, which are still there,
but look weird between the CVS and the strip mall and the banks and the
big box stores. But my last memory of our ‘discovery’ were the motel’s
parking “entrance” and “exit” arrows, still clearly seen on the
pavement we saw as we peeked through a hole in the barricade. I was
tempted to chalk WAIKIKI MOTEL on the barricades, but I didn’t have any
sidewalk chalk.
—————————————-
…fast-forward one week to today, Nov. 4, 2015 – A sad day; apparently this year (2015); this is a Google Maps photo of the Waikiki Motel being demolished. It appears that a NewYork-style Deli, a real-estate agency, and a roofing construction company made their offices in the South building in the months before the demolition. Go to
https://www.google.com/maps/@25.9499893,-
80.1206946,3a,90y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sD7ugjAWGH-cprW0akqi4bQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
We stayed at the Waikiki Resort Motel throughout the 1960’s and FYI our beach boy wast “Steve Carlton”. Check that out
I loved Waikiki so much, went there twice with my parents in early 90’s.
Stayed at the Waikiki Beach Motel in the 90s. While other middle or upper class hotels around were pretty much dead at night, the bar at the Waikiki was thriving!
We would drive down from Detroit for two weeks every year (1966 to 1976) for our summer vacation. Very fond memories of this place as a child. Great restaurants which have since closed, i.e. Rascal House, Black Angus, Juniors, etc. There was a small elephant in a cage outside of the Black Angus, I think, it’s name was Taboo and we could feed it peanuts, go figure. We would alternate days in each pool and the ocean, depending on the jelly fish situation, it may have been all pool days. A big treat was to go to the Newport for dinner then the penny arcade across the street on Collins Ave. I have a big smile on my face thinking of all these fun times and places.
As I posted earlier, my father worked there in the 60’s and 70’s and we spent our summers there so reading these sweet comments is a joyous thing. Thank you kindly. Deborah Cohen
As I read through all of the posts for the Waikiki… I have to wonder how many of us were there st the sane time. I always met and hung out with other kids – some even from Canada. I remember standing on the beach with a group of people watching the Apollo 8 take off from Cape Canaveral as my parents watched the launch from our room. Once it got high enough you could see it! Then we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon from our room for on the black and white television! Another memory I clearly have is when a pedafile walked up to me and a friend I had made, one evening as we had just pulled ice from the ice machine. He asked if we knew the time… we giggled and told him there was a clock in the office! We giggled because his precious cargo was hanging out of his pants! First time I had ever seen one since I was maybe only 13 at the time. He asked if my hand was cold holding that ice? Then he said let me feel… and grabbed my hand and stuck it on his wang! You can’t make this stuff up! It happened back then too… 1970! We ran to the office and told the manager… they never asked for my parents or personal info. We left the office and went up onto the upper patio between the two buildings and hung by my parents. I never told my mother about the incident until I was an adult! I was afraid she would never let me run around anymore! All of a sudden, several cop cars arrived beneath us, lights and all! I recall my mom remarking about what must be going on! OMG I was a wreck! They never found him and I spent the rest of my week with my hand hanging off the side of my bed! I was grossed out! Plus being a child, I was afraid I would get pregnant lol! Who knew… I was naive! Oh what great memories of the WAIKIKI!