Location: West Palm Beach, Florida, United States

Design Team: Stantec / Gachot

Area: More than 19,974 m²

Year: 2026

Photography: Michael Stavaridis

Design Features: The Nora Hotel anchors the centre of West Palm Beach’s Nora District, a roughly 40-acre urban redevelopment where former railroad warehouses meet new construction. The five-storey hotel is conceived as part of a walkable neighbourhood rather than a detached resort object. Stantec uses loggias, setbacks, gardens and active ground-floor rooms to connect the building to the street network.

Its architecture draws proportion, shade and depth from South Florida’s Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean traditions without reproducing one historic building. Pale walls, deep red-tile eaves, arches, balconies and tower-like elements break down a footprint of more than 19,974 m². Planting and covered edges keep the ground floor close to pedestrians, giving the new structure a sense of accumulated familiarity.

Gachot treats the interiors as a sequence that moves from urban living room to private residence. Reception, the lobby, Jack’s Bar and the routes to the guestrooms are linked by cypress joinery, checkerboard floors, warm metalwork and custom furniture. Pinks and greens recall Palm Beach, while neutral plaster, timber and restrained lighting prevent the palette from becoming overly decorative.

The hotel contains 201 rooms, including 14 suites. Curved headboards, pale surfaces, layered textiles and timber furniture continue the softer language, while window seats, terraces or Juliet balconies connect the rooms to tropical daylight. Art selected by The Madison Melle Agency, antiques and bespoke furniture keep the accommodation residential rather than standardised.

At ground level, Pastis and Jack’s Bar form the public face of the hotel. Above, Lillys is organised around a pool, terrace and dining space, while the Sisley Spa adds four treatment rooms, a steam room and an outdoor terrace. The sense of luxury comes less from a single showpiece material than from the transition between breakfast, afternoon retreat, evening sociability and overnight stay.

The Nora Hotel succeeds by giving new construction the social depth of an established place. Stantec calibrates the building’s relationship to the district, while Gachot creates intimacy through detail, colour and furniture. Together, these moves turn a large programme into a legible sequence for arrival, lingering and close observation.

Design Team: Stantec served as design architect and architect of record. Bringing architecture, engineering and environmental disciplines into one collaborative framework, the practice shaped the massing, facade order, street edge and the hotel’s relationship to the wider Nora District redevelopment. The result operates as a destination while maintaining continuity with the district’s lower warehouse fabric.

Founded in New York by John and Christine Gachot, Gachot works across hospitality, residential, retail and product design with an emphasis on service, craft and edited simplicity. For The Nora Hotel, the studio led the interiors, drawing on early twentieth-century Palm Beach life while combining bespoke furniture, antiques, art and materials without tying the rooms to a single period.

The hotel was advanced by NDT, Place Projects and Wheelock Street Capital, with BD Hotels and hotelier Sean MacPherson contributing to operations and guest experience. The Madison Melle Agency curated the art. This division of roles keeps the district scale, public dining rooms and guestroom details within one coherent hospitality narrative.