The Fontainebleau, the quintessential Miami Beach resort, will reopen this fall following a $1-billion re-creation. While the resort's original circa-1954 buildings were stripped to their studs and bare concrete, the designers on the project took painstaking care to preserve and reproduce many of the design elements produced by original architect Morris Lapidus, including the signature circular ceilings, bow-tie design motifs and the famous “Stairway to Nowhere” in the lobby.

When it reopens, the property will have 1,504 guestrooms, 11 restaurants and lounges, a 40,000-square-foot spa and a dramatic oceanfront poolscape that features a free-form pool designed as a reinterpretation of Lapidus' bow-tie signature. In addition to the hotel's two original towers, the developers added two all-suite buildings that include 658 junior, one- and two-bedroom units.

Fontainebleau Resorts will open another property in Las Vegas in 2009.