Miami Beach Hotel That Hosted the Beatles Is Demolished
A hotel owned by the music legend Sir Paul McCartney was destroyed by fire on Thursday in Miami Beach, a popular tourist destination.
Police are investigating the cause of the blaze at the five-story Lummis Suites Miami Beach at 471 S.W. 9th St. The hotel had hosted thousands of guests since the late 1970s, helping to set a standard for the type of luxury hotels that have become popular for tourists in recent years.
“The main building of the four-story Lummis Suites Miami Beach building suffered a devastating fire on Thursday at 1:30 a.m.,” the Miami Beach Fire Department said in an email to the Miami Herald. All of the hotel’s four floors were engulfed in flames, but no one was hurt, authorities said.
In addition, a neighboring office building caught fire about an hour later at 1:38 a.m., and firefighters extinguished that blaze at the same location, officials said.
“The fire was discovered around 1:37 a.m. by the first-floor guest unit,” the email says. “Firefighters responded immediately and placed the building under lockdown due to the threat of the fire progressing quickly. The main hotel building was successfully evacuated, no injuries were reported by hotel guests, and the fire was extinguished.”
It wasn’t immediately known how the fire started, or whether the fire sparked from a lightning strike, but officials said that there were no structural issues that could cause the blaze, and all of the hotel’s rooms were intact.
“Hotel guests were not affected in any way, and all of the hotel units remained undamaged,” the email says.
The hotel came under heavy scrutiny in 2012 when the New York Times reported that it was owned by a person known to be a gay and lesbian activist, and a member of the church under the Southern Baptist Convention.
“The Lummis Group, which owns the Lummis
