The Florida motel has always known the power of a good sign, a swimming pool and somewhere to hide from the sun. Perroquet, a redesigned 1950s motel in Fort Lauderdale, starts there and takes it up a notch. Located on Harbor Drive, between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean, the 37-room hotel keeps the familiar vernacular ingredients – courtyard, balcony, pool, palms, shade – and gives them a slick architectural treatment.
Come on down to Perroquet Hotel Fort Lauderdale
Hoteliers Clifford and Matthew of The Lane Organization brought in Belgian architect Bernard Dubois (recently behind The Standard Brussels) to rework the property, keeping the traditional U-shaped motel layout centred on a courtyard. On his first visit, Dubois says he ‘immediately loved’ the old motel plan, even before the building had found its new identity. His first move? To use a lush pairing of off-white and forest green across the façades, guardrails and corridor ceilings, referencing the region’s country clubs, tennis courts, and post-war motels. Dubois describes it as ‘a way of taking familiar codes and giving them a new clarity.’
Outdoors, red brick, green canvas, white railings and custom outdoor furniture give the courtyard a sculptural rhythm, while new planting turns the pool area into what Dubois calls 'a real jungle'. The trees screen the hotel from the street, draw birds into the courtyard and give the rooms a view of greenery rather than traffic. From outside, the building almost disappears behind them.
Thirty-seven rooms sit across nine categories, where a verdant palette turns slightly sulkier across linoleum floors, sheer curtains, chrome, leather and lacquered wood. Dubois designed the furniture himself, pulling from 1970s and 1980s chairs, 1990s chrome-and-leather silhouettes, Miami art deco geometry and 1930s rug patterns. The result delivers the clean snap of a boutique hotel, but also the delicious eccentricity of a roadside bolthole.
On the art front, curators Valerio Polimeno and Whitney Lane have assembled a collection that includes Salvatore Emblema, Giorgio Griffa, Jean Tinguely, Jean Cocteau, Lucio Fontana, Roberto Matta, Alekos Fassianos and Jeff Koons, with different works placed across the rooms. Elsewhere, the offer is deliberately straightforward: Sferra linens, Byredo toiletries, a self-service breakfast bar, deck chairs for the beach and a check-in style designed to leave guests to the pace of the place.
For Dubois, the contemporary motel is no longer bound by old ideas of luxury. ‘Many places that are the most authentic, charming and interesting aren’t the most traditionally luxurious,’ he says. Perroquet gives Florida a bijou hotel with panache, plenty of shade and a very good retro-style pool chair.
Perroquet Hotel Fort Lauderdale is located at 3081 Harbor Drive, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316, United States