The Pillars
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

I blew it this time, I think, as my cabbie dodges the spring-breakers who are loud into partying. We’re on Ft. Lauderdale’s ocean-side Route A1A, where palms promenade up one side and shops, restaurants and watering holes down the other. The driver’s not quite sure where The Pillars is, but he assures me it’s close. Oh wonderful, so much for a tranquil hiatus.

But wait. We’re turning off this street of April mayhem and into a hamlet of condo towers and houses. The driver’s confused, where would a hotel be in this area? I spot a small sign, The Pillars. It heralds a fine plantation-style home.

Definitely, things are looking up. Palms trace fan shadows on the pale yellow walls which hold my entry into another world. Beyond a spiral staircase, the hall opens up into the parlor. A grand piano commands center stage in the library corner. Exotic greens, studded with cardinal-red anthuriums, flower in the piano-top bouquet. Cooled white wine waits for the weary. Downy tropical-chintz pillows cushion a sofa in bold crimson and sage silk stripes. A cool blue pool, framed by islands of palms and white pillared verandas, lies enticingly outside glass French doors.

Merci Dieu, this is more like it. A note on the desk suggests dialing zero for assistance. Assistance arrives promptly offering other cool drinks, a hand with the bags and the explanation that staff doesn’t sit at the parlor’s desk, so guests will feel free to lounge.

All The Pillars twenty-three rooms and suites nestle around the central courtyard of pool and palms. White wicker chairs form tête-à-têtes on the verandas. The garden’s tropicals conceal nearby condo towers and draw the eye down a path that opens onto a long dock on New River Sound, a part of Fort Lauderdale’s Intracoastal Waterways.

Check out the lamp with the Chinese good luck cricket, this must be my lucky day. The bed covered with chintz-of-the-tropics has a woven rattan mat encased in mahogany at its head and a settee—slubbed silk embroidered with date palms—at its foot. The tone is Island-Plantation-meets-British-Colonial.  Tiny buttercup-yellow, lily-white and fuchsia-pink orchids spire over the couch. Antique prints of coconut palms embellish the walls and plaid silk capers on bamboo arm chairs. Red and white silk striped valances and white wooden blinds dress a wide expanse of windows. A small minibar fridge, a big bathroom, cushy towels, cotton bathrobes and a TV/VCR—tapes in the library—round out the luxuries.

Wish I didn’t have to leave to get dinner. Whoa, what’s this? A 24-hour room service menu. Pillar’s guests have signing privileges at the nearby Max’s Beach Place with its dark wooden interior, fusion Caribbean-American menu and ocean-view tables—but I’m not that ambitious. I order a pizza and a salad from room service, munch happily and plan what not to do the next morning.

For starters, breakfast is served in whichever nook or cranny I care to settle—at the dock, on a veranda, by the pool or even in bed. It’s the dock for me. Settling in to read my Pillars-provided morning paper, I end up scanning the trophy homes across the way for celebrities—my waitress thinks Barbra Streisand owns one and Robert Montgomery another. Giving up such worldly pursuits, I contemplate the gull perched on a nearby piling. The sea breeze sweeps the sun’s warmth into my winter-weary bones.

You mean walking to the dock for breakfast isn’t enough activity? There’s the pool. Not huge, but very inviting and iced tea is set out for after a swim—or even during a sun bath. Then there’s the garden. The Pillar’s leathery-leafed crotons, the world’s most colorful tropical shrub, display the entire color range—red, pink and purple to green, white and yellow. A Traveler’s Palm is in bloom with spiky flowers that are green Birds-of-Paradise look-alikes. The Traveler’s Palm—so named because the stems hold water for the desert traveler—is not, I’ve discovered, a palm tree at all. It’s in the banana family—and yes, it has no bananas.

Wonder how long I could stay without renting a car? It’s only about 500 yards to the beach, where the warm white sand, the Atlantic surf and the people-watching could entertain for days. Promenading, poking in shops and lapping lattes could take up another day or two. To range farther afield, the water taxis stop right at The Pillar’s dock. Ferry with them to shop the upmarket Las Olas Boulevard, to see the Impressionist Williams Glacken’s works at the Museum of Art and, on Saturdays, to cruise on up to Miami Beach. That’s quite enough for me.

Turns out this is just my kind of place. After a starlight swim, I dive between The Pillars high-count cotton sheets and listen to the palms play lazy jazz—about a million light years away from Fort Lauderdale’s youthful vernal revelers.

By Kate Crawford         August  2002

LINKS WITH ATTITUDE

Fort Lauderdale’s Water Taxis travel the area's 300 miles of rivers and canals, functioning both as sight seeing rides and convenient transportation right from The Pillar’s pier. 

Check here to see if there is another splendid special exhibit at Fort Lauderdale’s Museum of Art.