In its early days in the 1900s, the River Inn Miami was a boarding house for transient river workers—the city's oldest. Today, the small complex of clapboard houses near Miami's Little Havana has become a haven for a new breed of working class: nomadic creatives.
The River Inn is now the second location of the international coliving startup Roam, which sells members on unlimited access to a worldwide network of coliving spaces for a fixed monthly fee. Part youth hostel, part creative commune, Roam offers flexible weekly or monthly leases priced at $500 a week and $1,800 a month aimed at location-independent workers.
The River Inn has an emphasis on communal space, featuring co-working areas, a large shared kitchen, swimming pool, and later this summer a restaurant and bar. Renovations retained a number of original details while adding modern updates to the 38 fully furnished suites. Original mahogany doors, exposed brick fireplaces, pine wood floors, and antique furniture were all saved and restored—historical rarities in hurricane-prone Miami.
"We’ve locked in a moment in time that would have been gone," said developer Avra Jain, describing the site as "a true gem, brought back to the level that it should be and once was."
Roam's original location is in Ubud, Bali, but the company is nearly set to open a third site in Madrid, Spain with plans for expanding to 8-10 locations by 2017, including spots in London and Buenos Aires.
The Way WeLive Today: WeWork's Coliving Experiment in NYC [Curbed]