Most visitors who make the trip to St Thomas find their way at least once to downtown Charlotte Amalie, with its enviable shopping and broad array of restaurants. Far fewer, though, ever stay in Charlotte Amalie overnight. But St Thomas’ newest hotel, the Pink Palm, is quickly changing that.
Cobbled together from a series of historic homes on a hillside overlooking Charlotte Amalie Harbor, the Pink Palm Hotel opened its doors last year, about a quarter of a mile up from the waterfront.
It’s also a very different kind of hotel for the island: the scene here has a laid-back whiff of the Hamptons or South Beach here, no surprise as it’s the brainchild of the owners of the American Beach Hotel in Greenpoint, NY.
The bar and rooftop pool scene here is a whole vibe of its own: it says something that people will pay for a day pass to come hang out in the Pink Palm’s emerald-tiled pool and laze on the poolside loungers and swing chairs, sipping cocktails from the El Barsito restaurant.
Entered via a locked gate at street level, grounds and guest rooms rise in terraced levels, with the top plateau reserved for reception, the pool, shop, restaurant, and a promised boutique shop and pocket spa.
The hotel’s 28 guest rooms are charmingly distinctive in decor, thanks in part to the unique dimensions of each building and a clever designer’s eye. A palm tree mural, open-frame bed and rattan armoire in the Petite Queen Room is unabashedly Caribbean in inspiration, whereas others boast midcentury influenced furnishings and backlit tray ceilings that suggest more of a downtown vibe.
The hotel’s stylish setting, Ortigia Sicilia bath amenities from Sicily and Matouk linens, plus spacious accommodations ranging upward from 350 square feet, are classic luxury boutique. Here on the hillside, prices remain surprisingly reasonable, typically staying in the $200-600 range nightly.
The hotel has also put a renewed spotlight on the charms of Charlotte Amalie, which recently underwent a dramatic waterfront transformation and boasts endless stores, restaurants and bars— contained in a series of colonial-era streets and alleys just off the harbor — all just an easy stroll away from the hotel.
Serving breakfast to guests, cocktails all day into the evening, and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, the hotel’s El Barsito offers a mix of large and small plates (the latter perfect for poolside noshing).
Other activities guests can indulge without ever having to get in a car are hopping a ferry to St. John for a day trip, strolling to the Frenchtown district for a paddle to historic Hassell Island, and climbing the 99 Steps to Blackbeard’s Castle.
It’s a different kind of hotel for St Thomas: a true-blue boutique hotel — and instantly the best of its kind on the island.