DUNEDIN, FLORIDA – A sleek and sexy rooftop bar with killer sunsets. Fabulously inventive food. And a cool, Jazz Age history that’s reflected all around the property.
This sleepy Florida town, best known by Canadians as the spring training site for the Toronto Blue Jays spring training games, has been something of a sleepy, under-the-radar destination for years. But not any more. With the opening of The Fenway Hotel in town late last year, Dunedin is suddenly on Florida’s front burner.
On a recent evening in January it was difficult to even find a place to stand at the rooftop bar at sunset, let alone get a seat. The bar was packed with a mixture of young and older folks, although to me the age skewed much more to millennials than to the boomers who you often see strolling the town’s delightful and very walkable Main Street.
A lovely sunset from the Hi-Fi Bar at The Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, Florida. JIM BYERS PHOTO
It’s a lovely boutique property in a small city that’s pretty much been home to modest chain hotels and is already attracting a new kind of clientele. In short, this hotel is a game-changer.
Over dinner one night at the stunningly good HEW Parlor and Chophouse, a Dunedin lawyer sidled up next to me at the counter overlooking the open kitchen, where young staff barked out orders and put the finishing touches on dishes at lightning speed.
“This is hands-down the best restaurant in town,” the man told me. “We came last week and had an amazing steak, so we came again tonight.
“There’s nothing even remotely like it” in Dunedin, he said. “I travel all around the U.S., and it’s great to have a place like this in town.”
I stopped a server at a small restaurant in town and asked what he thought.
“Everyone I talk to raves about the place,” he said. “I’ve been for drinks but not for dinner. It’s an amazing property. Everybody loves it.”
The Fenway Hotel opened in 1924 in the quiet town of Dunedin which sits just north of Clearwater and maybe a half hour west of Tampa. It operated as a fashionable hotel for years, complete with a downstairs speakeasy. The hotel also was home to radio station WGBH, the first station in Pinellas County.
A stunning Florida sunrise lights up The Fenway Hotel in Dunedin. JIM BYERS PHOTO
The hotel became a private club during World War II and was later part of a college and then a university. After a foreclosure, The Taoist Tai Chi Society of the USA bought the property, then sold part of it to Mainsail Lodging and Development, a company that saw the potential for a new hotel in a town with a growing arts and cultural scene and thousands of visitors from Canada every year.
The property is part of the Marriott Autograph Collection, a special designation Marriott gives to hotels with a certain cache and distinctive qualities. You know you’re getting quality, and Marriott Rewards program members also can collect or use their points.
They’ve done an outstanding job of restoring the building, which sits on a large patch of lawn directly across a two-lane road from the Intracoastal Waterway (technically known as St. Joseph Sound), where sailboats glide in the sun and where graceful dolphins can often be spotted.
To the west, it’s a couple of kilometers of open water before you get to the north end of Clearwater Beach. There are a few large buildings to the south near Pier 60, but most of the view from The Fenway is of open water and the low-lying Clearwater Beach peninsula. Further north is Caladesi Island, part of Honeymoon Island State Park and with nary a condo in sight.
A room at The Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, Florida. JIM BYERS PHOTO
That means sunsets from the lawn or the third-floor Hi-Fi Bar are virtually unimpeded by buildings or anything else that’s man-made. They’re also framed by slim, towering palm trees that dot the front yard at the hotel, which sits across the road from a beautiful, linear park that runs all the way from Clearwater to downtown Dunedin. There are few places I enjoy a walk more than that park.
The owners have taken advantage of the hotel’s history by smartly playing up the Jazz Age connection. The loudspeakers by the pool play soft jazz tunes, complete with an old-style announcement that the music is coming to you from the rooftop of the Fenway Hotel. I’m not a fan of music on the p.a. system at a pool, but it works splendidly here.
There are plenty of other musical touches. My room had a cymbal mounted on the wall that said Fenway Hotel. There was a throw pillow on the bed with a quote from Louis Armstrong (“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”)
A terrific beet salad at HEW Parlor and Chophouse at The Fenway Hotel. JIM BYERS PHOTO
They have free bikes you can use (Dunedin is very bike friendly and sits on the Pinellas Trail, a paved walking/biking trail that stretches from St. Pete north to Tarpon Springs, roughly 80 km’s in all). Rather than spend, I don’t know, $1,000 on a simple bike rack, someone at The Fenway had the smarts to have a bicycle rack that’s topped with what looks like a piano keyboard. A little thing, but it gives the place a ton of character and that “Hey, honey, remember that” feel that most folks love in a hotel. I know I do.
Another fun bit is the Alexa machine in the room, which is decorated to look like an old 45 record and set up to play all kinds of music for you and offers up local restaurant suggestions. If you want to get cheeky, ask Alexa what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.
Rooms vary in size. I was in Room 346, which was quite large and faced out to the Intracoastal Waterway. Rooms have locally produced snacks and a lovely bar and a mini-fridge. There was no coffee maker in my room, but they had a fresh pot of good, strong Joe in the lobby each morning when I went downstairs.
There are only 83 rooms in all and just three storeys, so it’s a cozy affair.
A cool cymbal on the wall of my room at The Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, Florida. JIM BYERS PHOTO
There’s live music in the lobby several nights a week, and occasionally out by a pool. When I was there they were putting on a poolside fashion show in conjunction with the Dunedin International Film Festival (DIFF, as opposed to TIFF in Toronto).
Off to one side of the lobby you’ll find a collection of stories and cool old photos about the hotel’s history, complete with fun, black-and-white photos of folks with a golf club, or sipping a drink out on the lawn.
They also do Tai Chi and yoga on the lawn, and there’s a nice, on-site fitness centre.
They installed a nice, small bar in the lobby that has a very good happy hour from 2 to 6 p.m.. You can get craft beer (Dunedin Brewery was the first craft brewery in Florida) for $5 and select glasses of wine for the same price. Featured cocktails are $6, while featured Bourbon or Scotch is $8. They also have great food deals, including a burger for $7 and steak frites for $17, which means you could get a steak, frites and a glass of wine for $22.
Just past the bar is a small but bright and sunny event space that they use for weddings or special occasions.
The Hi-Fi Bar is a lovely, open-air spot with patio heaters for those occasionally cool Florida nights. They serve local craft beers, wine and terrific cocktails. including the Speakeasy Sipper, a smooth whisky drink with George Dickel #8,
HEW, where I had a nice breakfast and a truly magnificent dinner, is done up with black and white/jazzy prints and a couple of special side rooms for small parties or private dining. The décor is in shades of grey and cool blue, with wicker chairs and booths that feature a tartan print; a nice nod to Dunedin’s Scottish roots. They also serve cock-a-leekie soup at dinner and a true Scottish breakfast in the morning.
The linear park across the road from The Fenway Hotel is a great spot to catch the sunset. JIM BYERS PHOTO
No offence to Scottish soups, but for my meal at HEW I opted for the beet salad with greens, grapefruit radish slices and goat cheese, which was both artfully arranged and tasty as all get out. My main course was local bison with peppercorn sauce; hands-down the best meat dish I’ve enjoyed in my many years on this planet. The meat was perfectly rare and seared on the outside for a smoky, sweet taste that matched perfectly with the peppercorn spice. A side dish of roasted corn only added to the meal.
At breakfast one day I had a massive bowl of oatmeal that would’ve fed a small family. It came topped with baked apples and toasted almonds and was served with a small bowl of molasses for an old-timey touch I quite enjoyed. The sourdough toast could’ve used more bite (hey, I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we take that stuff seriously.) But the homemade berry jam more than made up for the minor shortcomings of the bread.
A evenning fashion show at The Fenway Hotel pool in Dunedin. JIM BYERS PHOTO
The hotel is just a few blocks from downtown, which you can reach via the waterfront walk I mentioned or by skimming through a nice area of charming, low-rise homes. Staff encourages folks to get out and shop and try local restaurants (more on that in a follow-up blog next week).
There’s a nice Best Western Plus up the road and a reliable Holiday Inn and Suites, as well as some B and B’s in downtown Dunedin, which I adore. But this is the first boutique, luxury-style property in the city.
Like I said, a real game-changer.
The Fenway Hotel and Visit St. Pete/Clearwater took care of my hotel and meals and a rental car for this trip. They did not approve or read this story prior to publication.
JUST THE FACTS
The Fenway Hotel is at 453 Edgwater Drive in Dunedin. Rooms in February were recently listed at $205 USD per night and up.
For information on the Dunedin area, go to Visit St. Pete/Clearwater.
