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The best area hotel is not a hotel at all -- it's a B&B, one of the few stalwarts of its kind to survive surrounded by sprouting condos and opulent resorts. Hibiscus House in West Palm Beach offers luxury on a small scale, trading the quiet ambiance of a palm-lined street in West Palm's Old Northwood neighborhood for the valet-lined drives that accompany the area's heavy-hitter luxury hotels. Owners Colin Raynor and Raleigh Hill maintain eight unique bedrooms, most with private porches and four-poster beds, and serve up a vast and elaborate breakfast every morning with china and Waterford crystal. The house, a 1922 historic structure in the land of vinyl siding and concrete-slab construction, is the kind of sprawling, multiroomed manse that populates Faulkner novels. It sits in a verdant jungle of a garden fringed with high palm fronds that provides each room with its own lush view. There's no concierge and no Swedish massage, but those would just interfere with the simple delights of staying in a unique and lovingly decorated home, far from the fetters of conspicuous consumption that chain the denizens of Worth Avenue to their monocles and bellhops. Best of all, a stay in Hibiscus House wonâ??t totally break your wallet: unheard-of affordability for an accommodation in West Palm Beach that both feeds you and swaddles you in simple elegance.
