Florida - 3
Emanuela Setterberg Di Vivo, the Italian-Swedish dynamo who’s spearheading Oetker Collection’s debut into USA as GM of the 41-room The Vineta, Palm Beach, is totally delightful. Meet her, and she’s immediately your NBF…
Vineta? The word’s often associated with a legendary lost city, rather like Atlantis - it was, in folklore, an extraordinarily wealthy trading city. In more modern branding, it often evokes European elegance, the sea, romance, and old-world mystery. It's therefore appropriate that when the building that is now the Vineta in Palm Beach was put up 100 years ago, it was then known as Vineta. Later, it changed to become Red Carnation’s Chesterfield Hotel, allied with its Chesterfield in London. When the property, which then had 53 rooms, was bought by the Reuben Brothers in 2022 for $42 million. It reverted to Vineta.
It's absolutely beautiful, designed by a Frenchman, Tino Zervudaci (he's done The Regent in Porto Montenegro, but basically he seems to be residential). Room #212 is about 15x8m, with cream walls rising to a 15cm cornice pale bluish grey, like the ceiling, which is outlined in white. There are two sets of windows, one with six panes each, has two windows starting from a height of about 80cm – remember the structure is an old centenarian beauty. The other pair, which have eight panes each, start lower, so it gives a very good view down to the turquoise pool with wavy lines on its base, surrounded by salmon-coloured lounges with cream umbrellas with salmon interiors.
The room is very well thought out – see below. The space is divided by a 2.5-seat powder blue flush sofa with complementary cushions matching two tweed chairs with half arms. A bureau at one end, with mock raffia work cupboard doors, covers the whole wall. Necessities in entry-way cupboards include a simply marvellous luggage stand, most beautiful wood and blue leather straps. The hangers include patterned fabric hangers, the same fabric as one of the bags on the night tray (one of these bags, by the way, is clearly marked Giving Bag, any clothes you want to leave behind will be given to a charity). There’s a fitness kit box, with gorgeous wood-shaft weights. The bed has a curlicue top outlined in white, and the pillows have blue scalloped surrounds. The bathroom has intriguing wavy lines of marble, grey alternating with white, freestanding shower toiletries…. In fact it’s all so delightful it’s tempting not to leave the room at all….
