The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sunny Isles Beach

This is a condominium and nothing else. There is no hotel here and no condo-hotel component: the property is exclusive to its 212 private residences, while the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, which licensed its name here and runs the property, supplies a hotel's standard of service without a hotel's traffic. Fortune International and Chateau Group developed it together.

Arquitectonica designed the fifty-two story tower, Michele Bonan (the Italian designer behind Casa Tua, the Grovenor House and Cipriani) handled the interiors, and Arquitectonica GEO laid out the landscape. The site runs 2.2 acres along 250 linear feet of Atlantic oceanfront at the south end of the city, immediately north of Bal Harbour.

Five floor plans run from 1,605 to 3,640 square feet, with penthouse homes reaching 6,320 and five of them taking private pools beneath high ceilings. The mix covers two- and three-bedroom layouts with and without dens, four-bedroom homes and the penthouses above. Every residence faces the ocean; many are flow-through plans catching the ocean, Intracoastal and city at once. Each is served by a private elevator. Amenities gather on the thirty-seventh floor around a bar and lounge, with a sunset pool, an ocean-level pool, spa, restaurant, kids club and guest suites for residents' visitors.