View From the Top

Evidently, Starwood Hotel & Resorts is bullish on our little burg. Thumbing their noses at pesky, persistent rumors that the southern tip of Florida will eventually be as completely submerged as the Lost City of Atlantis, the optimists at Starwood have debuted two luxury resort/residences here in the past month — first the $210 million the Resort at Singer Island, opened in early April, and last week the $225 million St. Regis in Fort Lauderdale, which rose on the site of the late lamented Candy Store Lounge, purportedly home of the world's first wet T-shirt contest, on Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard. The business plan for these two "luxury collection" resorts looks nearly identical — a moneymaking scheme of hotel suites and posh residences, with the hotel rooms equipped for easy conversion to condos should the market for $800-a-night sea-view boudoirs suddenly tank. Plus tropical pools, plush spas, and each with its own high-end restaurant focused on gourmet Caribbean-inspired seafood — Solu at Singer Island and Cero at the St. Regis.

The two resorts have another thing in common — they're aiming to grab Mobil five-star designations in two risky locations. Fort Lauderdale has never exactly been a playground for jetsetters, despite the best efforts of our marketing mavens, and Singer Island is just depressing. What must have once been one of the most beautiful tropical oceanside landscapes in the world, the island named for the sewing machine dynasty has been colonized by ugly, 20-story high-rises, ossified towers rising like bones upended in a desert; all you need are a few Blade Runner-style choppers whizzing between rooftops to complete the picture of futuristic anomie. That's your beachfront, thank you very much. Across the street, you've got your '70s concrete-block bungalows whose middle-class owners have been none too happy, over the years, to watch their ocean access steadily whittled down to a point and finally vanish. Nowadays, the old residents must drive down to MacArthur Park Beach like the rest of us, a patch of pristine wilderness at the northern end of the island that must have been extra nice when John D. Mac used to skinny-dip there with his Air Force flyboys.

Any intimations of ruinous sprawl that might have haunted your journey into this dystopic Transfuture vanish, at any rate, when you step from your car into the waiting arms of the hunky uniformed valets and skip through the massive front doors of the Resort's lobby. Looking around at the swooping, curved, floor-to-ceiling screens; the luscious, pillow-strewn chairs in jewel tones of gold, white, and blue — from the time you first set foot on these richly tapestried marbled floors the color and texture of wet sand, you are happy.

Happy. Is this the price of contentment — $210 mil? The Resort is no great shakes to look at from the outside, just one more bony tower, but the interiors, designed by Santa Monica firm Hirsch Bedner, are sigh-inducingly lovely (Hirsch Bedner likes to claim that its hotel interiors function as backdrops for guests who become "actors in a fantasy environment"). At just over a month old, after all, few Gucci- and Fendi-clad fannies have creased the lounge seats, few spike-heeled pumps have punched itty-bitty holes in the striated wood plank floors that lead to the dining room, and the staff — still shiny, still solicitous — is too new to be jaded; they're as excited about working under such gorgeous uplighting as you are to be basking in it. The restaurant is sited on the ocean, of course, with floor-to-ceiling windows, white leather banquettes, free-spirited abstract oils, and a walk-in wine storage room. An open kitchen (more curves) dominates the front — staffed by efficient, ponytailed line cooks. White linen-covered tables set with square gold chargers and watery, asymmetric bowls are tucked by the windows and back behind semitransparent drapes. The waiters wear beautiful ties.

Carlos Jorge is executive chef here. After you're settled in, Jorge and his minions send out a sprightly little amuse bouche, a dab of sweet-salty crab meat and jeweled cubes of pink grapefruit and chopped mint balanced on a pristine green leaf of baby chard. Just a single precious mouthful. Then around comes the guy with the bread tray — warm rolls, plain, raisin, or multigrain — to slather with soft, sweet butter.