Ocean Views
I had always felt an incredible peace in Florida’s climate, which made me feel at home.
I was that last dinosaur who waded through the Everglades just before the meteor hit, and now when the huge Jurassic ocean-crossing birds flew overhead, I would look skyward in admiration, even during tennis.
The constant blue skies, punctuated with white puffballs, had my attention, so I spent more time looking up than down, which suited me, as it helped me to avoid people.
Maybe like all Brits, I had spent too much of my life under a thick blanket of grey and was desperate to get into the light, the Italianate rays, sunsets, and a dawn worth jumping out of bed for.
The Atlantic Ocean never appealed to me as I found it threatening, not even an environment for animals as even the waves crashing on the beach sounded like warnings and frightened me to death.
Cruise ships continually passed on the far-off horizon and shone in the sun like jewels, but I wished them well and had absolutely no interest in joining them.
They never looked that big.
Miami Beach apartment blocks are huge long rectangular boxes, sub-divided into thousands of smaller boxes, facing the ocean at the front and the fascinating Inter-coastal waterway facing west. They often looked like luxury prisons, but I resisted saying so.
The new generations of condos are super luxurious, super smart, super expensive, and offer something to everyone.
South Beach, full of 1930s deco architecture, was saved from being demolished by a shear miracle after Gianni Versace bought and rented a spectacular building on the front and made it his own. South Beach never looked back, and from then on, we all missed the boat and wished we had bought something, but the truth was we didn’t have the guts; the area could have gone both ways.
We drove up and down the coast, looking again at ocean-side buildings, which I found fascinating because there were so many and the overall investment alone was staggering.
It was like a machine. They pulled down buildings in the US, that we in the UK would have given a lick of paint to and resold expensively and expected the client to be grateful.
The Real Estate agents all pointed out the view like we were blind and had not noticed the five or six trillion gallons of salty water right outside the door.
“You know, there’s nothing to see once the sun goes down,” said Tim defiantly.
He was right. Oceans go black at night, and all the really pretty lights are on the east side along the Inter-Coastal that was a lot cheaper.
The agent didn’t answer him, and I thought, “well, there’s a client who’s not buying today”.