The Nora Hotel opens in West Palm Beach with 201 rooms and a Pastis

Hoteliers Sean MacPherson and BD Hotels founders Richard Born and Ira Drukier have opened The Nora Hotel in West Palm Beach, Florida. It is their first hotel outside New York, where they built Hotel Chelsea, The Bowery Hotel and The Ludlow Hotel.

The longtime collaborators had watched the wave of Northeast transplants arrive in Palm Beach County since 2020, and the business boom that followed. They saw room for a timeless hotel with sophisticated style and an urban chic sensibility, and The Nora Hotel is the result.

Interiors are by Gachot, the New York firm run by partners Christine and John Gachot. The designers looked to the romanticism of early 20th-century Palm Beach, particularly the influence of architect Addison Mizner and the region's grand old hotels, without tying the scheme to a single era.

The brief was for rooms that feel collected and layered over time, with history, personality and a touch of whimsy. The palette runs to pink and green, with Spanish Colonial Revival grandeur and easy indoor-outdoor spaces, but avoids the prints and palm trees of the South Florida holiday cliché.

As a counterpoint, Gachot added sophisticated neutrals, rich textures and cypress woodwork. These bridge the sunny surroundings and the moodier, edgier perspective of downtown Manhattan. "There's a sense of discovery, with unexpected moments and thoughtful details that give each space its own personality," the Gachots said.

There are 201 rooms in all, and 14 of them are spacious suites with Juliette balconies. Plush custom furniture and hand-selected antiques give the rooms a residential tone, and the art collection was curated by The Madison Melle Agency.

Pastis, a lobby bar and Lillys

Pastis is on the ground floor, an offshoot of Keith McNally's mid-aughts Meatpacking District institution, brought back to life by James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Stephen Starr. The airy room has checkered tile, bistro chairs, lush greenery and soaring ceilings, and the menu includes escargots and French onion soup.

The lobby bar is meant for ice-gold martinis under the warm, flattering glow of ambient lighting. It is a separate space from the restaurant, aimed at the evening crowd arriving or leaving the dining room.

Lillys is the all-day rooftop concept, created with Mama Hospitality Group, the team behind Mary Lou's. It has a serviced swimming pool with playful fabric umbrellas around it, and a lounge for sunset cocktails.

The rooftop restaurant brings St Tropez to South Florida, with spiny lobster linguine and whole grilled fish dusted with herbes de Provence. Chilled rosé is, unsurprisingly, plentiful. The source calls the scene see-and-be-seen.

The Sisley Spa

The full-service Sisley Spa is described as the first in Florida. It has a steam room, a lounge, an outdoor terrace and four treatment rooms for facials and massages.

Facials use the plant-based skincare of Sisley, the Parisian brand. Massages are described as rejuvenating, and the spa is meant as the quiet counterpart to the lively rooftop above.

The Nora Hotel is at 1135 North Railroad Avenue, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33401, USA. It brings a Manhattan independent-hotel sensibility to a city where, by the owners' own account, the newcomers are from the Northeast.

No room rates or booking terms were given with the opening announcement, so what a night costs is not yet known.

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Images: The Nora Hotel; (Image credit: Michael Stavaridis)