Colony Palm Beach

Palm Beach's Pink Hotel and What It Actually Delivers

The approach along Hammon Avenue gives little away at first. Then the facade appears: a pastel-pink stucco exterior flanked by manicured hedges and swaying palms, its colour the result of a custom Farrow & Ball hue mixed specifically for the property's 75th anniversary in 2022 and named, with characteristic Palm Beach confidence, "Pink Paradise." The Colony Hotel has occupied this block since the mid-twentieth century, and the exterior has the kind of civic presence that only time and deliberate upkeep can produce. For a certain strain of American resort hotel, appearance is institutional identity, and The Colony has understood this longer than most of its neighbours.

Independent boutique hotels on Palm Beach tend to fall into one of two categories: properties that have coasted on heritage without reinvestment, and those that have used heritage as a foundation for careful renovation. The Colony sits firmly in the second group. Since Andrew and Sarah Wetenhall acquired the hotel in 2016, the 89-room property has undergone a multiyear restoration that retained the original tropical eclecticism while replacing what was worn. The 2022 redesign, led by Palm Beach native Mimi McMakin of Kemble Interiors, organised the rooms around four distinct design frameworks, all operating within a tropical vintage vocabulary: pale green, ocean blue, sky blue, and Palm Beach pink, each featuring bamboo-inspired carpets, custom rattan furniture from Society Social, and details like panther-themed end tables that communicate a studied sense of play rather than generic luxury resort filler.

La Liste recognised the property with 92 points in its 2026 Leading Hotels ranking, a score that places The Colony in a competitive tier alongside properties that carry far larger marketing budgets and international brand infrastructure. For context, The Breakers holds a Michelin Key designation, as does The White Elephant Palm Beach, and Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach carries two Michelin Keys. The Colony's La Liste score positions it as a credible peer without the chain infrastructure, which is increasingly the argument for independent hotels in resort markets where guests are choosing between deep-pocketed brands and properties with genuine character.

The Swifty's Dining Programme

Palm Beach hotels have historically used their restaurants as afterthoughts, trusting that Worth Avenue and its surroundings would absorb guests at mealtimes. Swifty's, The Colony's signature restaurant, operates from a different premise. The format draws from New York-style cuisine, a reference point that carries specific connotations on Palm Beach: the Upper East Side dining room sensibility, where the room and its regulars are as much the point as the food, and where a raw bar and a well-composed champagne programme carry as much weight as the kitchen's output.

The poolside setting amplifies this. Swifty's terrace is arranged with wicker chairs and scallop-edged cloth umbrellas against a pale green palette that blends with the surrounding lawn and hedgerows. The space is effectively screened from street-level noise, creating an enclosure that functions as both restaurant and social arena. The weekly champagne brunch on weekends has become a fixed point in the Palm Beach social calendar, and the raw bar programme provides a credible counterpoint to heavier resort dining elsewhere on the island. Sunset-facing views from the terrace give the space a clear time-of-day logic: arrive for late afternoon drinks at the bar, stay for dinner as the light changes over the pool.

The hotel's food and beverage programme extends beyond Swifty's. A rotating schedule of pop-ups has included brand partnerships with names like Dolce & Gabbana for retail activations and Naturopathica for spa treatments, with Tracy Anderson fitness sessions folded into the broader programming mix. Live music, weekly trivia nights, and bingo events function as a retention mechanism that keeps guests on-property in the evenings rather than dispersing to the street. For a hotel of 89 rooms, this programming density is notable: it means the communal spaces stay active without requiring a conference business or a large F&B infrastructure.

Rooms, Villas, and the Accommodation Tier

Accommodation hierarchy at The Colony is where the property's independent boutique positioning becomes most visible. At the upper end sit a collection of villas, bungalows, and penthouses, each developed through partnerships with external design collaborators. Aerin Lauder and Serena & Lily contributed to individual accommodations, and Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop brand produced the Goop Villa, which combines hand-painted Lilly Pulitzer palm-motif bathroom walls with botanical Fromental wallpaper and a bathroom stocked with Goop skincare products. The approach mirrors what some design-led properties in other markets have done: treat each accommodation type as a separate design brief rather than a variation on a single template. The result is a hotel where upgrading isn't just about space but about choosing a distinct aesthetic.

Lobby anchors the property's design logic. Oversized plants, foliage-patterned furniture, and wicker accents establish the tropical register, but the de Gournay hand-painted wallpaper depicting a spider monkey sipping a martini is the detail that earns the room its authority. The monkey references Johnnie Brown, the spider monkey kept by Palm Beach architect Addison Mizner and adopted as the hotel's mascot — a piece of local history that gives the decorative choice a grounding in place rather than pure aesthetic caprice.

Position on the Island and Getting Here

Hotel's address at 155 Hammon Avenue puts it in one of Palm Beach's more useful locations for guests who want to actually use the island. Worth Avenue, the primary retail and dining corridor, is steps away. The beach is walkable. The Everglades Golf Club is in the immediate vicinity. For guests arriving from Palm Beach International Airport, the drive is short enough that the hotel's house car becomes a practical amenity rather than a luxury gesture. The 24-hour room service, outdoor pool, fitness classes, bar, and meeting rooms round out an amenity set that covers both leisure and limited business use without over-engineering the offer.

Booking at an 89-room independent hotel with an active social calendar and a position between the beach and Worth Avenue requires some lead time, particularly during the Palm Beach season running from roughly January through April. The Wetenhall-era renovation has raised the property's profile considerably, and the La Liste 92-point recognition in 2026 has drawn international attention alongside its traditional domestic following. Guests whose Palm Beach calendar is fixed should plan accordingly.

For a broader survey of where The Colony sits among island options, our full Palm Beach hotels guide covers the range from branded flagships to independent boutiques. Palm House and The Brazilian Court Hotel both operate in the independent-boutique tier for direct comparison. For dining beyond Swifty's, our Palm Beach restaurants guide maps the island's full table options, while the Palm Beach bars guide covers the cocktail programme context. Guests comparing The Colony against resort properties in South Florida more broadly might also consider Four Seasons at The Surf Club in Surfside or Beach Club at The Boca Raton and Yacht Club at The Boca Raton for a read on how the branded resort model compares at this price point in the region.

For American resort hotels with a comparable independent-boutique disposition elsewhere in the country, Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, Auberge du Soleil in Napa, and Little Palm Island Resort & Spa in Little Torch Key offer useful reference points. Internationally, properties like Badrutt's Palace Hotel in St. Moritz and Aman Venice in Venice represent the upper end of the heritage-independent model that The Colony is, in its own American idiom, navigating.