The Diving Belle Motel

Diving Belle artwork by Nicholas Kennedy
Diving Belle pool courtyard illustration by artist Nicholas Kennedy.


During their time topside, the Rescue Sirens live in an old motel-turned-condominiums: the Diving Belle.

 

Built in 1942, the Diving Belle embodies the classic Art Deco style so ubiquitous to Miami Beach. Legend has it that Veronica Lake stayed in one of its twelve rooms once when all the hotels on Ocean Drive were booked solid, but today its star has faded a bit in comparison to the newly renovated luxury hotels soaring high all around the modest motel, and the girls are the only ones who live there.

Despite its age, the Belle has a certain fairyland charm to it, particularly when it comes to the swimming pool: wavy seafoam-green walls surround an in-ground pool with a beautiful two-tiered concrete diving platform rising above it. Its smooth shapes resemble a petrified ivory ocean wave, and a constant stream of water spills over the edge of the platform and into the pool below. Strings of white miniature bulbs hang from the motel's eaves and are wrapped all around the palm trees peeking up above the walls, lending an enchanted touch to the courtyard.

The Diving Belle is owned and operated by Don Herbert, who likes the girls because they always pay their rent on time and otherwise keep a low profile. He comes in at around ten-thirty every morning and leaves by three PM, and he doesn't even bother dropping by on the weekends anymore, so the Sirens have the run of the place.

Each girl has her own room — complete with kitchenette, as Pippa is fond of pointing out  that opens out into the courtyard, making it convenient for them to hop in the pool and soak their tails during their late-night secret swims.