Normandy Isles

The Normandy Isles are two man-made islands in Biscayne Bay on the west side of North Beach, laid out in the 1920s by Henri Levy with French street names — Rue Vendôme, Calais Drive, Bay Drive — around a small town center at 71st Street and a public golf course on the northern island, Normandy Shores. The bridge from 71st Street brings the North Beach main street with it; the rest is residential and unusually green for Miami Beach, with the bay on every side.

Most of the housing is single-family and small 1940s–60s apartment buildings, so the condo market here is small and specific: King Cole, the 1963 MiMo tower on the bay at the island's southern point, a handful of low-rise buildings on Calais and Bay Drives such as 1795 Calais Drive, and the first new bayfront projects, led by 1930 Bay Drive.

Buyers come here for water and quiet at prices the oceanfront cannot match, with the beach a ten-minute walk over the bridge and the Normandy Fountain's cafés and the Sunday market in between.