Florida’s sunny charms tend to be anchored around its waterways with many of the toniest addresses staking the seemingly endless stretches of beachfront, so all the more to applaud the arrival of The Dalmar in Fort Lauderdale’s up-and-coming Flagler Village. Taking up the 6th-25th floors of a corner block designed by SOL-ARCH, the 209-room hotel is the work of DesignAgency.
The building’s unprepossessing exterior gives little hint of what lies within, not least the seemingly unending spaces that unfold in a sequence of room-sets, each flooded with natural light or mood-lit with stylish relish.
The relaxed but quietly luxurious mood is heightened by a retro vibe of low slung couches flanked by copious stands of leafy pots, cool white terrazzo, breeze-blocked and jade quartzite walls, and tropical motifs emblazoning upholstery and mixed media artwork by local artist Thrush Holmes. The bedrooms meanwhile are calm cocoons lined with broad-planked timber floors and slender Mid-Century-inspired furniture.
The 100-ft saline lap pool on the sixth floor is a sunlit bolt-hole, the 25th floor bar a moody escapist retreat with views of downtown Fort Lauderdale, whilst the Terrace Grill serves up char grilled octopus hit with Calabrian chilli, and a buttery, lemon-scented Dover Sole Meuniére that’s finished tableside.§
