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      <p><span>With fashion collaborations, guest DJs, </span><span>and </span><span>a splashy pool schene, Sarah and Andrew Wetenhall keep the party going</span><span>. </span></p>
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      <p><span>Leaving a fashion PR job in New York to become the proprietor of The Colony, one of Palm Beach&rsquo;s treasured hotels, is not a typical career trajectory. But that&rsquo;s exactly what Sarah Wetenhall did, with her husband Andrew, when they took over his family hotel in 2016. Bob Wetenhall bought the fabled hotel in 1969, which for decades drew the likes of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/young-judy-garland-behind-the-scenes-wizard-of-oz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Judy Garland</a>, John Lennon, Frank Sinatra, and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/sophia-loren-netflix-documentary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sophia Loren</a>. But the property was in need of a refresh. Sarah brought in Celerie Kemble and her mother Mimi McMakin of Kemble Interiors to add a modern twist to this bastion of Palm Beach prep. While the couple is intent on keeping all the old-world charm (there is a wildly popular Bingo night), their mission is also to keep it </span><span>relevant</span><span>&mdash;a place &ldquo;that will speak to both grandparents and grandchildren.&rdquo; </span></p>
      <p><span>Here, Wetenhall tells us about raising her three kids and five-year-old business; <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/shawn-henderson-interior-design-home-interiors-in-context-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marrying the old with the new</a> in every detail throughout the property; pursuing like-minded partnerships&mdash;this season, Aerin Lauder, a longtime Palm Beach resident, will design the lobby&rsquo;s holiday decor, while Michael Kors will have a pop-up shop on the property&mdash;and living between Manhattan and Palm Beach. </span></p>
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      <p><span>L&rsquo;OFFICIEL: <em>We</em></span><span><em>&nbsp;know you spent much of the quarantine here at The Colony with your family, but you&rsquo;ve been coming for some time.</em></span></p>
      <p><span></span><span>Sarah Wetenhall: </span><span>Palm Beach has been part of my entire adulthood. It&rsquo;s definitely been a defining influence. It&rsquo;s where my father-in-law Bob called home since he owned it. He purchased the property in 1969 together with his business partner, and he took an apartment in the hotel at that time and had one until his death earlier this year. So for me, it&rsquo;s been where I went to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">visit my boyfriend&rsquo;s father or my father-in-law, depending on where we were in our life at that point in time.</span></p>
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            <p><span>L&rsquo;O: </span><span><em>What was the transition like into hospitality?</em></span></p>
            <p><span></span><span>SW: </span><span>I will tell you that we bought <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/hotel-jerome-aspen-new-years-celebration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the hotel</a> in December of 2016. I joke that I have very little memory of 2017. It&rsquo;s kind of like childbirth; you forget it for a reason, so you&rsquo;ll do it again. It was an incredibly steep learning curve, but in all the greatest ways.<br /></span></p>
            <p><span>What made that year so very challenging, frankly, is what I love about hospitality&mdash;no two days are the same. You never know what you&rsquo;re going to get. It&rsquo;s a little bit of everything. A hotel is a microcosm of the entire world, just shrunk down within one building. I spent decades building brands, and as a former publicist, I understood the value of storytelling, and also the importance of visuals. And in hospitality, the visual impact is an important part of your guest&rsquo;s experience. </span></p>
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<p><span>A hotel is a microcosm of the entire world, just shrunk down within one building.</span></p>

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      <p><span>L&rsquo;O: </span><em>You have a series of exciting activations coming up&mdash;an Aerin Lauder collaboration, Michael Kors pop-up, Khalilah Birdsong show&mdash;let&rsquo;s talk about some of those.</em></p>
      <p><span></span><span>SW: </span><span>Aerin Lauder is actually designing our holiday decor in the living room, which is what we call our lobby. We collaborated with Aerin during Covid. We have <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/facts-about-michael-kors-fashion-designer-age-husband" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Kors</a> coming in for the season in residence. Then we have <a href="https://www.instagram.com/khalilahbirdsong/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Khalilah Birdsong&rsquo;s art show</a>, and Pamela Tick&rsquo;s DJ residency. I think those four partnerships really encapsulate what we&rsquo;re all about, which is we have culinary excellence, a history of music ... there used to be a cabaret on the property in the &rsquo;80s, like a full-on dinner theater&mdash;and there&rsquo;s a long history of visual arts on the property.</span></p>
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            <p><span>L'O: </span><span><em>What do you hope guests will take away from a stay at The Colony?</em></span></p>
            <p><span></span><span>SW: </span><span>We call ourselves &ldquo;The Pink Paradise.&rdquo; We&rsquo;re Palm Beach&rsquo;s pink hotel. That&rsquo;s how we talk about her. The Colony is female. We want our guests to come and have their own attachment to Palm Beach. That&rsquo;s the funny thing when you talk to people about The Colony&mdash;and this is, frankly, one of the biggest surprises I had&mdash;everyone has a story about The Colony. People say it&rsquo;s like a club without dues because you walk in and everyone knows your name and your drink is waiting for you. That&rsquo;s what I hope our guests will take away: their own storied attachment. </span></p>
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      <p><span>L&rsquo;O: </span><span><em>Where are some of your favorite places to go in Palm Beach?</em><br /></span><span></span></p>
      <p><span>SW: </span><span>My kids live for the Lake Trail, which is a jogging and biking trail that runs up and down the entire length of the island. It used to be the island&rsquo;s best kept secret, but it is a great way to see a lot of the houses on the island because all the homes in Palm Beach are behind those hedges. It&rsquo;s a great way to get some really good real estate eye candy.<br /></span></p>
      <p><span>My children&rsquo;s favorite activity is <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/with-atlein-antonin-tron-channels-his-roots" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surf lessons</a> at midtown beach. And then we also love going out and boating because again, the lagoon or the lake right there is like the best of both worlds. Obviously, I eat at The Colony a lot, but I also eat at Le Bilboquet on Worth Avenue. When I&rsquo;m with the family and if we&rsquo;re casual, we love Pizza Al Fresco. Or Green&rsquo;s Pharmacy is another secret. It&rsquo;s a lunch counter within a drugstore. And then there&rsquo;s a place called Pan&rsquo;s Garden, a walled garden that&rsquo;s kept by the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, and it&rsquo;s like a little meditation garden. There are waterfalls and fountains, and it&rsquo;s absolutely perfectly preserved and so incredibly beautiful. And then my other favorite thing is going to listen to talks and presentations at The Society of the Four Arts. </span></p>
      <p><span>L&rsquo;O: </span><span><em>What&rsquo;s life like living between New York and Palm Beach with your husband and three kids?</em><br /></span><span></span></p>
      <p><span>SW: </span><span>It&rsquo;s wonderfully crazy, hectic, and happy. My kids are blessed to have that whimsy that is Palm Beach. But they&rsquo;re also very grounded by having their, quote, unquote, day-to-day life in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/history-of-new-york-high-society-socialites-astor-vanderbilt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York</a>. They go to school in New York. They ride the subway there. There&rsquo;s that New York grit in my kids. But at the same time, we have Palm Beach, which is so happy and full of sunshine. </span></p>
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<p><span>L'OFFICIEL Winter 2021&nbsp;</span><em>is now on newsstands and is available to order online<span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://store.emags.com/lofficiel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.&nbsp;</em></p>

Inside The Colony, Palm Beach's Beloved Pink Hotel

L'OFFICIEL USA December 2024 - Julianne Moore Cover

Inside The Colony, Palm Beach's Beloved Pink Hotel

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