Consider this bit of Miami lore: Starting in the 1970s, jazz trumpeter Stuart King had a regular Monday night gig with multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan at the Unitarian Universalist church. That lasted 40 years, and now the section of SW 76th Avenue that runs in front of that church is called Ira Sullivan Way.
Long before that, Cistercian monks built a monastery outside Segovia, Spain, in 1133, which publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst bought eight centuries later. He had it shipped to America in 11,000 crates, then promptly lost a fair amount of money and sold the crates at auction. In 1964, an Episcopalian colonel presented them as a gift to the bishop of Florida, who assembled “the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle” in North Miami. The Ancient Spanish Monastery today stands as both a house of worship and a venue for weddings and photo shoots.
In another bit of history, legendary art deco architect L. Murray Dixon built in 1933 what was then the largest single-family home in the city of Miami Beach on Euclid Avenue and 14th Street. A decade later, it expanded and became Temple Emanuel, first for the Joseph-Jacob Congregation, then for the Orthodox group Knesseth Israel. By the beginning of the 21st century, it became a venue for some of the most exclusive parties in South Beach. You can see today’s Temple House in videos for Pitbull’s song “Crazy.”
(Courtesy of Sanctuary MiMo)
Interior renovations are turning an old Lutheran church in the MiMo district into a new event space.
Now consider Front of the House’s (FOH) new neighbor on Biscayne Boulevard, just four blocks north of Jimmy’s Eastside Diner.
It was a Lutheran church. Then it was an empty building. Now, it’s Sanctuary MiMo: a place for the community.
A Building Brought Back
This transformation has been the work of a team of people, but the leading light has been Simone Mayer, co-founder of FOH and room360. Mayer – and her all woman-led team – is a staunch advocate for preserving the history of Miami and the Upper East Side, the neighborhood along Biscayne Boulevard where FOH’s office stands right next door to Sanctuary MiMo.
Both buildings date back three-quarters of a century or more. They both have that look you start to recognize in certain parts of the city. Right angles. Mixed textures. Geometries of stone and reinforced concrete. Shady overhangs and long windows. It’s midcentury modern, but made for Miami.
(Courtesy of Sanctuary MiMo)
Simone Mayer (center), co-founder of FOH and room360, with her Sanctuary team in front of the renovated building.
FOH has an entryway with an unusually gleaming brick wall. It’s lined with tiny sheets of mother-of-pearl. While the team was renovating that building, the contractor wanted to remove it. The iridescent gray material was original to the building, back when it was the Atlas Sewing Company. So was the terrazzo inlay in the entrance, depicting the titan himself with the world on his shoulders.
In fact, quite a lot of the building goes back to the time it was constructed, a philosophy Mayer refers to as “adaptive reuse.”
“To take spaces that didn’t have a purpose and make them cool is what makes me excited,” she said.
(Courtesy of Sanctuary MiMo)
A corner of the current Overlook mezzanine with a view to the outside.
That might be what first drew her to the abandoned church next door. It wasn’t doing anything but decaying, yet it was a beautiful building that could be genuinely useful if someone was willing to step in and bring it back.
Despite Mayer’s respect for the past, not everything in the church was preserved. To come up to code, the doors had to be redone, and the windows had to be replaced with impact-resistant glass.
“The old ones were stained glass that was actually plastic,” said Mayer. “We couldn’t believe it! They’d been that way since at least the ’50s and maybe even the ’30s.”
But once inside the main doors, the original wooden louvers and chevron-patterned wall still draw visitors’ eyes to one wall where an altar once stood. The holes in the roof have been repaired, but sunlight still gleams through the glass brick that has let in light for decades.
“We kept a lot of the rusticness, then put a lot of glam in,” Mayer explained.
The Past Made Now
(Courtesy of Sanctuary MiMo)
Shady awnings and well-designed drainage make the ZenWest garden space a fine entertainment area in its own right.
All the ceilings are acoustic, all the walls have built-in sound systems that can put a different soundtrack in every room and there are no less than three Wi-Fi systems.
Rather than put walls where none were before, Mayer plans to install giant curtains to divide the space for various uses. The entry, now dubbed PreView, can serve as a welcoming cocktail space with the curtains parting for a dramatic reveal of the great hall, now known as MainEvent.
That vast space is just part of the 14,000-square-foot venue, however. Up one flight of stairs, there’s a lofted area being called Overlook that could serve as a VIP area for a large event, or a self-contained mezzanine space. Mayer sees it fitted with a projector screen for movie screenings.
There are also separate “green-room concept” VIP suites that could serve as preparation spaces for performers or, in one case, a dressing room for a bride with a doorway wide enough to accommodate the proverbial big white dress.
One well-lit room off what was once the altar faces Biscayne Boulevard and a pleasant screen of greenery. Dubbed StudioEast, it could serve equally well as a space for photography or for yoga, adjoining an outdoor garden area – ZenEast – for mingling. There’s a slightly larger ZenWest garden area on the opposite side from U.S. 1, ideal for outdoor weddings and picnic-style receptions.
Off the full commercial kitchen is another space Mayer thinks of as “DoLab,” a flexible space that could spend a week or a month as a pop-up restaurant, art class or whatever creative purpose the community needs.
“They’re appreciative of what we’re doing,” Mayer said. “The neighbors are over the moon.”
One of the most striking spaces is LevelUp, which dates back to the original 1930s structure. What was previously divided into smaller office spaces and meeting rooms has now been opened into one large space with exposed wooden beams that exude the faintest aroma of antique pine. The windows are all at treetop height, making the view oddly forested for a structure on a U.S. highway. There’s another small kitchen and bathrooms up here, ideal for a small business or exercise classes, or a design studio or … it’s easy to picture all sorts of things.
The space is so nice, Mayer originally wanted to keep it for herself – or at least, her company.
“We were going to do a connection with FOH,” she said, gesturing toward the window to create an imaginary bridge to the building next door. “Instead, it became something for the community. We’ve set aside 90% of all the space here for community use, and I can’t wait to see all the things people will do here.”
After five years and $5 million, with COVID cost overruns, freight challenges and all the usual “unexpecteds” that turn any renovation project into a roller coaster, the doors to Sanctuary MiMo are finally open. The bureaucratic hurdles with renovating a historical building were high, and the project took so long to complete, the staff at City Hall overseeing them changed three times.
“It was not easy,” Mayer said. “After all that, we feel we finally opened at the perfect time.”
New Beginnings
Part of Mayer’s vision is for the place to be able to serve as a one-stop shop for any big event, from a corporate bash to a bat mitzvah. The caterers can set up on premises, and hair and makeup can have their dedicated spaces along with musicians and DJs, emcees and officiants, all using the space to bring people together.
“Beyoncé could come in here – I’m just manifesting her!” Mayer laughed. “But it would be really exciting to see a fashion show in here, some photo shoots. I just want it to be a blank canvas.”
Mayer says she’s still learning the ins and outs of the events industry.
“I just need to breathe and enjoy the nurturing part of it, to see it grow,” she said. “There’s still a lot to do to make it profitable, but it’s a great place in a great city at a great time, and we’ve got a great team.”
The neighborhood, says Mayer, has a special quality that sets it apart. It’s a feeling of connection.
“In Miami Beach, there are all the noise ordinances, and Wynwood has become a real party space, but MiMo has something else,” she said. “Everyone is coming over here: boutiques, vintage stores, bakeries – there’s so much walkability here. Years ago, nobody would walk around here, but it’s really come a long way.”
Editor's Note: The following article has been updated to reflect a correction that the space was previously a Lutheran church, not a Baptist church.
Grant Balfour is a Miami Beach native, writer, editor, traveler, musician, bon vivant and our official Biscayne Tippler.
