On the phone with the night manager at a Miami Beach hotel, I ask him to speak up. Again. I’m seeking a room quote for my upcoming trip, and although my Vancouver apartment is silent (it’s 11 p.m. on a Saturday here), South Beach at 2 a.m. is clearly a three-martini time zone away. Music muffles the sound of people talking, laughing, clinking bottles, and even…splashing? Perhaps my call has reached the poolside bar by mistake. No, he confirms, this is the front desk. “Do you have any quiet rooms?” I ask cautiously. “Madam,” he answers politely, “if you’re looking for quiet, you might want to stay somewhere outside of South Beach.”

No doubt Britney Spears isn’t concerned about noise levels when she checks into one of South Beach’s many swank hotels. The three-kilometre-long triangle that forms the southern tip of Miami Beach is known as party central, with beautiful people lounging at stylish hotel bars, celebrity-run restaurants, and chic nightclubs.

I first became intrigued by South Beach when I saw the 1996 movie The Birdcage. The opening sequence zooms over the Atlantic to neon-buzzed Ocean Drive, jammed with cars, scooters, and pedestrians, and through the doors of the transvestite cabaret. That fictional club’s façade is that of the real-life (now vacant) Carlyle Hotel, one of dozens of art deco structures that draw those who appreciate art and architecture to South Beach. Artsy types who cringe at Miami Vice and Don Johnson’s pastel jackets and woven shoes might be surprised to learn that the 1980s series is partly responsible for reviving the once dangerous, dilapidated district.

Since I want to explore South Beach’s art deco on a good night’s sleep, I take the desk clerk’s advice and book a hotel just north of the action. When I arrive in Miami on a Saturday evening several weeks later, I get an unexpected tour of South Beach as the airport shuttle drops off passengers who, like me, are not hip enough to take a limo. The scene isn’t as frenzied as imagined in The Birdcage (or perhaps things just haven’t gotten going yet), but it’s undeniably glamorous. Palm trees sway over the outdoor restaurants that line Ocean Drive; servers weave through tables with trays of colourful drinks; heels and cleavage flash.

In rapid succession, two scenes unfold that I have only previously seen in fashion and gossip magazines. Three utterly stunning women stride down the sidewalk, tossing lush manes of hair behind them as if in a shampoo commercial. They must be models, because they appear to be of another species, with their fawnlike limbs, perfect proportions, and immaculate grooming. Then, as we idle at a stoplight, a young woman who might as well be Britney with her dirty-blond ponytail, acid-wash cutoffs, and skanky tank top argues with her boyfriend while placing her Chihuahua in a Louis Vuitton dog carrier. The British tourist in the seat behind me sniffs. “You can’t buy taste,” she mutters.

Perhaps not, but style is everywhere in South Beach, and often free for the looking. The posh art deco hotels mesh original period details with high-fashion touches. Even mid-range boutique hotels carefully fluff their lobbies. My renovated 1939 deco hotel throws together crimson walls, high white banquettes, metallic-coloured chairs, turquoise barstools, and a caramel shag carpet. Somehow, it works.

The following morning, I discover that even the beach wears accessories. Adorably funky, geometric lifeguard stands dot the long expanse. One hut is painted bubble-gum pink and papaya, another striped tangerine and lime, another American-flag style with red-and-white stripes. I make my way to the Art Deco Welcome Center just behind the sand dunes on Ocean Drive, and sign up for a walking tour of the deco district.

The centre serves as the headquarters of the nonprofit Miami Design Preservation League, which calls itself the guardian of Miami Beach’s historic architectural district. Established in 1976, the society offers education and cultural programs on design, preservation, and urban development, and hosts the annual Art Deco Weekend festival every January.

What exactly is art deco? According to the organization’s Web site, it’s a style that became popular after a design and decorative-art exhibition held in Paris in 1925. The term refers to several distinct periods from the 1920s to the 1940s. Think Fred and Ginger, slender cigarettes, and glitzy skyscrapers. The style’s modish hallmarks include symmetry, curved edges and corners, and ziggurat (stepped) rooflines.

Three architectural styles predominate in South Beach’s deco district: classical art deco, as described above; Spanish-influenced Mediterranean revival; and MiMo (Miami modernism), with its Jetsons-like Swiss-cheese cutouts and kidney shapes. Then there’s nautical deco, which injects buildings with a feeling of movement, paying tribute to grand ships with curved lines, fake smokestacks, porthole windows, and railings.

Our volunteer tour guide, Mercy Restani, explains that South Beach became an art deco haven after a hurricane levelled the area in 1926 and builders started anew. “This is the poster child for art deco,” she says, pointing to the 1938 Congress Hotel, a whitewashed, three-storey building with its name running vertically in a black-on-white marquee down the centre. “It’s perfectly symmetrical on both sides, like a piece of toast. You could cut it in half and fold it over.” Decorative “eyebrows” over the windows are another signature touch. “All the beauty is in the front,” Restani notes. “The sides are just like a shoebox.”

Preservation efforts prompted legislation requiring that art deco buildings maintain the original sign, and that any structural additions blend seamlessly with deco style. This has been remarkably successful, and even hotels that are now run by generic chains still appear charmingly retro.

Restani explains that this wasn’t always such an endearing district. In the ’60s and ’70s, it fell into economic decline, and the poor and the elderly inhabited the crumbling hotels. The 1980 Mariel Boatlift brought thousands of refugees from Cuba to Miami, many of them “undesirables” from the nation’s prisons who became squatters in South Beach.

Then in the mid ’80s, Miami Vice director Michael Mann began repainting the buildings in ice-cream pastels as backdrops for his scenes. Developers and the fashion industry took notice. “It brought the rest of the country down here,” Restani says of the show’s influence. Notoriety followed tourism. We pause at Casa Casuarina, a gaudy mansion that was once the home of South Beach resident Gianni Versace, who was shot dead on his doorstep in 1997. The mansion is now a private club. Members “can go in and have a cup of coffee for $45”, Restani says.

Raised in Miami and now a Miami Beach resident, Restani has seen much of South Beach’s renaissance firsthand—and the change is far from over. Cutting-edge fashion dictates that interiors never stay the same for long. The art deco hotels are “constantly renovating, upgrading, selling”, she says. Empty façades like the Carlyle’s hint of things to come—in this case, ultra-luxe condos.

But most visitors to South Beach are concerned less about the future than the present. Sun, sand, style, and sex against a backdrop of architectural eye candy—it’s not quiet, but it sure is pretty.

Access: The Miami Design Preservation League conducts art deco walking tours several times weekly for US$20 per person. The organization also offers iPod-based self-guided tours for $15 every day. For information, visit www.mdpl.org/. Book South Beach hotels well in advance, especially for weekends, when occupancy jumps along with room rates.