West Palm Beach - Not Just For Jon Bon Jovi and Sly
West Palm Beach, South Florida, by Peter Brooker, July 2025.
WEST PALM BEACH
The Palm House Hotel is $500 a night and does not include free breakfast. The television works some days, not others.
John the barman is your classic journeyman barman-cum-raconteur and tells me he hung with Jon Bon Jovi once. "He has a place round here, so does Sly."
The Palm House Hotel, Fl
His colleague makes a Vesper upon request but gets both the measures wrong and its provenance.
'You know a Vesper,' he tells John after his interest is piqued. 'From that Bond movie, which one, Diamonds Are Forever?'
Jesus wept. Nice guys though, just not Bond fans.
We did 30 minutes by the pool before the heavens opened and were ordered back inside for safety reasons. When the heavens here you can't even drive in it.
Fields of Greens, Fl
We had breakfast at Field of Greens. Which was basically ice cream disguised as something healthy.
BEFORE LUNCH A VISIT TO THE FLAGLER MUSEUM
The Flagler Museum. One room is made nearly entirely of Satinwood. The guide tells me this museum has the most Satinwood in the world. In America, you can give anything a title as 'The World's Biggest XXX' and then let the title hang there until someone can disprove it.
Flagler built this house for his wife, the third one I think. The first one he had sectioned. When Flagler died, the wife was the custodian, then it became a hotel before falling into disrepute. The Granddaughter of Flagler, restored it, knocked down the ten-storey wing of the hotel, and now it's preserved as a building of historic significance.
The Flager Museum, Fl
Flagler also built (or paid someone to build) the Breakers Hotel which is one of the most famous hotels in the world. It burned down once, got rebuilt, and both the wife and I agreed the women clientele in The Breakers looked like they walked straight off a Victoria Secrets shoot.
The men less so. Honestly, who eats a surf and turf priced over a 100 bucks in board shorts and crocs.
LUNCH
At Renatos on Worth Avenue
Chicken salad, 2 carafes of wine, under mirrored ceilings. The brash over-exuberant and probably drunk middle age couple in the corner have voices only equalled in volume by the sound of the notifications on their phone.
Renatos, Worth Av, Fl
The off to...
The Lion Country Safari lets you feed lettuce to the giraffes. Giraffes have a 12-inch tongue that they use to lasso the lettuce into their gobs. I've never seen the wife look so happy. (Fill in your own 12-inch glib organ metaphor here).
You're 'avin a giraffe!
Where are Crockett and Tubbs I hear you ask?
DINNER
We had dinner at PB Catch, I had Seabass and the wife and I played guess the age gap with the couple next to us. I said 25, she said 10.
Dinner at PB Catch, Fl
Pete and Anastasia strolling through South Florida
About the author
Peter Brooker is the co-author of From Tailors With Love an Evolution of Menswear Through the Bond Films and is also Editor-in-Chief of From Tailors With Love, a blog, vlog and podcast dedicated to men’s costumes and cinematic style.
Follow Pete on Instagram: @therewillbebond (over 22k followers)
Follow Wilde & Harte on Instagram: @wildeandharte (2k followers)
Above: Pete with his Osterley Safety Razor.
