Pastel
Dreams
FLORIDA
How Palm Beach Reminded Me What Fun Looks Like
From sunset cruises to flamingo steakhouses, a trip back to Palm Beach offered beauty, breezes—and a very good reason not to start that novel just yet.
By Eric Barton | April 28, 2025
We crossed onto the island over the Middle Bridge, palm trees blurring as I leaned back in a Volvo S90—the kind of car that suggests its owner has a Peloton and firm opinions about Scandinavian upholstery.
The windows were down, the air salt-sweet and thick, and I let the breeze rearrange my hair into something that said: I’ve come to Palm Beach to work, and by work, I mean to eat well, swim often, and maybe—finally—start that novel.
I’d come by invitation from the Palm Beaches tourism board, but the real excuse was Palm Royale—that fantasyland of a show that reminded me why I'd once loved living here, back in the aughts, and why Palm Beach still felt like the perfect place to finish something I'd started.
The Volvo hummed south past buildings that looked transported from Cannes and hedges trimmed into aggressive anonymity. I was headed to the Colony Hotel, a flamingo-colored fantasy where everything is dipped in pastel and the staff treats you like a visiting royal. It’s the kind of place where you half-expect Kelsey Grammer to emerge, Scotch in hand, rehearsing Shakespeare. He was, after all, reportedly staying in the penthouse.
At left, my Uber driver
At check-in, women in gold-hued Zimmermann gowns—actual, unapologetic ball gowns—offered me champagne with a practiced grace. My corner room had pink walls, striped curtains, and a view of palm fronds doing the hula in the breeze.
Passing the Colony’s happy hour bar—Palm Beachers patrolling in linen and lacquered heels—I made for the pool, a shimmering mirage ringed with oversized umbrellas. There, lounging like a sponsored Adonis, was Bachelorette alumnus Tyler Cameron, responsibly sipping sparkling water as the ladies around him ordered something the color of neon Gatorade. I asked to take an armchair nearby and we talked about what he’s up to these days. He’s pitching, he’s hearing pitches, and he’s living his best life. “I honestly don’t know what’s next,” he said with a laugh, making the unknown sound suspiciously like a plan.
Buccan’s Sweet Corn Agnolotti
After a quick drink, Tyler offered me a ride to dinner—three blocks away in a supple Range Rover that smelled like baseball glove leather and cologne endorsements. He dropped me at Buccan, a restaurant at least as good as all that you’ve read about it, where I joined a table of fellow writers. We ate lobster potstickers that exploded like little Miami grenades, sweet corn pasta that tasted like a Midwestern summer, and a tomahawk pork chop that justified the accolades awarded to chef Clay Conley. He’s an affable chap who stopped by halfway through dinner to talk about the meals he’ll soon be hosting at his farm in Ocala.
By the time I wandered back to the Colony’s bar, the crowd there had shifted to sunburned couples ordering espresso martinis as if the night should never end. I had one last old fashioned and headed upstairs, convinced the novel would surely begin in the morning.
Lilly Pulitzer Palm Beach
Day 2: Pastel Salvation
Morning arrived with an unsubtle glare. I grabbed a bubblegum-pink cruiser from the Colony’s valets and biked to the mainland and back, passing the manicured fortress of Mar-a-Lago and oceanfront mansions hidden behind hedges. I sweated through my steely REI shirt and realized: I wasn’t dressed for Palm Beach.
Worth Avenue gleamed like a mirage, and I drifted into the Lilly Pulitzer boutique, where a bubbling seashell fountain gurgled in the center of the pastel riot. There I met Lilly Leas Ferreira, granddaughter of the Lilly Pulitzer. When she heard I was running late for my next stop, she agreed to give me a ride in her pastel Moke.
The Flagler Museum High Tea
We cruised to the Flagler Museum, where I sat very upright in a glass-encased solarium that could double as a ballroom, nibbling cucumber sandwiches next to the actual railcar that Henry Flagler used like a rolling palace. It was technically high tea, but it felt more like time travel.
Back at the Colony lobby before dinner, I ran into Suebelle—Palm Beach’s Instagram oracle—holding court on the finer points of floral arrangement. That night, instead of starting the novel, I fell into a deep internet rabbit hole, watching her videos on everything from wedding etiquette to the moral hazards of cheap champagne. "You're really filling a hole. There's something empty within you," she said about addiction, as if she was talking directly to me.
HMF at The Breakers
Dinner was at HMF inside The Breakers, a cavernous lounge with a bar long enough to land planes. I sampled wagyu sliders and baja-style fish tacos and watched a baked Alaska get torched with the kind of drama usually reserved for opera.
Later, back at the Colony's outdoor bar, the string lights swayed gently in the ocean breeze, twinkling like a secret being passed from palm to palm.
Buccan Sandwich Shop
Day 3: Mansions and Mojitos
By morning, guilt nudged me back onto another pink bike. I headed north on the Lake Trail, with the sparkling Intracoastal on my left and a parade of architectural fantasy on my right: Tuscan palazzos tangled in bougainvillea, minimalist glass palaces, Georgian manors with columns so pristine they seemed to resent the humidity. This was wealth with the mute button turned off, as bold and enduring as the sun overhead.
Lunch was a falafel wrap from The Sandwich Shop at Buccan, eaten standing on the sidewalk like a happily misplaced local. The chickpea crumbs trailed down my shirt as I wondered, half-seriously, how I could make this a permanent assignment.
In the afternoon, I boarded a Visit Palm Beach sunset cruise, mojito in hand, watching as the West Palm skyline slowly blurred into gold. It felt almost staged, too beautiful to explain but impossible to forget.
Dinner was at Pink Steak, a steakhouse where the flamingo theme is both earnest and joyfully over the top. A giant golden bird soared over the dining room like something out of Jurassic Park. Tables of beautiful people picked at well-seared steaks, spooned lobster-coconut bisque, and forked at seabass plated like sculpture. I sipped a cold gin martini and marveled at the scene.
Pink Steak
Poolside at The Colony
The night ended, fittingly, at the Colony’s Polo Lounge, among a gaggle of wedding guests clinking glasses and plotting the kind of late-night escapades that always sound brilliant at 1 a.m. I had one final Negroni and tried to fix the moment in my memory—the low hum of conversation, the salt air slipping through the door, the easy unreality of Palm Beach.
I’d be gone before dawn. The novel would remain unwritten. But for three days, I had lived inside Palm Beach’s pastel dream—one of the most beautiful, lively, and effortlessly joyful places I know.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. While he doesn’t own a pastel-colored piece of clothing, he still relishes in the Lilly Pulitzer-hued reality of Palm Beach. Email him here.
