Hotel St. Augustine

A two-story building constructed in 1937, St. Augustine stands out for its brilliantly white Art Deco facade with classic vertical lines and ornate silver details. The hotel is alongside a row of residential buildings on a quiet street in So-Fi (the local term for "South of Fifth," meaning its just south of South Beach proper). Given the hotel's small size, calm surroundings, and low-key clientele, St. Augustine can feel like a home away from home (excepting the fact that few homes are this spotless and tidy).

Set along residential Washington Avenue on the southern tip of South Beach, St. Augustine resides in an area known as So-Fi (South of Fifth Street) -- Miami Beach’s historic Art Deco District. The hotel is a five-minute walk from some of So-Fi's legendary restaurants, like Joe's Stone Crab, or great dive bars, like Ted's Hideaway, but the street itself is quiet enough for guests to get a good night's sleep.- Four-minute walk to Ocean Drive and the beach

• Six-minute walk to Marjory Stoneman Douglas Ocean Beach Park
• 12-minute walk to South Point Park
• Nine-minute drive to Lincoln Road Mall

With only 24 studio-style rooms on two floors, St. Augustine is a small hotel with a bed-and-breakfast vibe. However, the hotel features a sleek minimalist design, rather than fussy kitsch. Spartan rooms don't have any wall art; the tangerine-hued classic school chairs at the white desks serve as the primary bursts of color. All rooms follow the same basic plan -- they are large, mostly white, and have open bathrooms. Rooms have one king, one queen, or two double beds; all are set on light wood platforms (no box springs) and have moss-green padded headboards. King beds' headboards extend to padded couches on either side. Media towers containing minibars, stereos, 42-inch flat-screen TVs with HBO, and DVD players separate the two bathroom entrances in Double and King Rooms (Queen Rooms have slightly different layouts, so their bathroom entrances are even more open). Bathrooms have wide countertops with steel-basin sinks, hairdryers, and H2O bath products (shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body balm, and bar soap). Most impressive are their walk-in Thermasol steam showers with multiple jets on the wall and one overhead -- a surprisingly luxe feature for a value hotel. Spa showers get natural light from their frosted-glass windows. Opposite to the showers are enclosed water closets. Bathrobes and slippers are provided. Rooms have their own air-conditioning units, but they can reportedly be noisy. Wi-Fi is free. Cribs and playpens are available for free on request and rollaway beds come at a nightly fee.

Hotel St. Augustine is a simple bed-and-breakfast-like hotel with few property features. A free continental breakfast (croissants, yogurt, cereal, juice, coffee, and tea) is available every morning in the lobby lounge, where free coffee and ice water are up for grabs throughout the day. There's no pool, but the hotel will supply guests with beach towels before they make the short journey to the beach -- this far down, the broad white-sand beach looks like it's out of a dream-vacation catalog. Expect a young, gay-friendly crowd partying it up till late at night in the spring and summer. There is a daily fee for parking at the on-site lot, but the fee is low for the area, and comes with unlimited in-and-out privileges. Wi-Fi is free throughout the hotel.