Here's What Quarantine Life Looks Like Inside Palm Beach's Iconic Colony Hotel
A jazzy tune drifts through the lobby on the baby grand piano as you breeze through on your way to the pool for an afternoon float and an icy cold drink. This after you've spent the morning in your hotel bathrobe dodging the "join with video" option on your Zoom calls so as not to give up your current location—and matching wardrobe. On tap for later this evening: dinner at Swifty's, the Celery Kemble–designed spin-off of New York's Upper East Side establishment that opened at Palm Beach's iconic Colony Hotel earlier this year.
This is the reality of Sarah Wetenhall, President and CEO of the Colony Hotel, who left New York with her family back in March to spend spring break in Palm Beach...and has not yet returned home. Yes, that's right: She—along with husband, Andrew; son, Drew (11); daughters Amelia (8) and Maggie (5); and dog, Palmer (2), a Cavalier King Charles spaniel)—is quarantining at the Colony, a.k.a. heaven for those of us palm frond, cabana stripe, pink hotel, and pink room design nuts.
Except, of course, it's not all cold drinks, splashy pool floats, and plush robes.
Indeed, as the coronavirus pandemic has brought nonessential travel to a halt this spring, the Wetenhalls made the difficult decision to temporarily close the Colony on May 1. With that suspension of operations came the furloughing of the staff; seven individual villas remain open to long-term guests (those who want to stay for a month or longer).
Dining at the hotel reopened in a limited fashion last week, with its cafe open for curbside breakfast and lunch and seated patio dining on the weekends. But the Wetenhalls are not ready to reopen the hotel to its full-scale operation just yet.
"Of course we're not happy that we had to close the hotel. This year was going to be a record season for us, and we would have rather finished out the season on a high note," says Wetenhall, who purchased the hotel in December 2016 and has undertaken a slew of chic refreshments to its classic interiors once designed by Carlton Varney (of Dorothy Draper & Company). But for now "we're taking it one step at a time and following all of the local guidelines. Our feeling is there is no reason to rush it."
In the meantime, Wetenhall is taking this "pause" to put together a short- and medium-term strategic plan and an outline for the necessary action steps for the hotel. "We're thinking through everything from the super mundane, like IT systems...to the sexier things like the pool expansion, a possible lobby renovation and re-conceived arrival processes, and strategic design partnerships" (like the Serena & Lily and Palm Beach Lately redesigned villa that debuted late last year).
"We are too practical to have voluntarily hit the pause button," acknowledges Wetenhall. But "now is the time for us to dream those dreams and then make them into an action plan."
While dreaming up the next chapter for the 73-year-old hotel, the Wetenhalls are juggling family life in quarantine like so many Americans—only at a hotel.
"My son's 'office' is the mezzanine, which overlooks the lobby. My 8-year-old daughter sits at the partner's desk in the general manager's office with me. And Andrew, who is used to a standing desk at home, has set up his computer in the bar," says Wetenhall. "Our youngest daughter has the run of the hotel, zipping through on her bicycle."
There are Zoom piano lessons on the lobby piano, swim practice in the hotel pool, chores in the hotel laundry facilities, cooking instruction in the staff cafeteria, and hide-and-seek games and family movie nights in the ballroom.
Wetenhall notes that her children miss their home, friends, and routines, but that her family is grateful for the opportunity to spend an extended period at the hotel, which has weathered many a tktk before the coronavirus pandemic.
"The hotel itself has been a story arc in our conversations as a family," says Wetenhall, who noted that the Colony was built in 1947 during a building boom in Palm Beach that followed World War II. "The hotel has seen a lot, from people coming back from wars to hurricanes, and she's still here. As parents, we have the opportunity to teach our children about resilience and about finding the bright side of any challenging situation."
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