Surfside

Surfside is a small town between Miami Beach to the south and Bal Harbour to the north, and it has stayed small deliberately. Incorporated in May 1935, it covers little more than half a square mile, and the 2020 census counted 5,689 residents.

The town's grid runs a few blocks deep from the ocean to Biscayne Bay, which puts almost every address within walking distance of both the sand and the shops at Bal Harbour. Language at home reflects the wider region: as of the 2000 census Spanish was the first language of just under half of residents and English of 42 percent, with Portuguese, Russian, German, Yiddish and French also spoken.

Almost the entire condominium market sits on Collins Avenue. Twelve floors is the customary height, and buildings hold anywhere from seven to a few hundred residences. Two projects changed the register in the 2010s: Fendi Château Residences, completed in 2016 as the Italian house's first and only residential project anywhere in the world, and the Four Seasons at The Surf Club, where Richard Meier's hotel and residential towers, opened in 2017, are built around the restored Surf Club — the Mediterranean clubhouse Harvey Firestone founded on New Year's Eve 1930, whose members and guests ran from Winston Churchill, who painted in his cabana, to Frank Sinatra.