With boutique hotels and luxury condos on the rise, North Beach Village is slated to be the neighborhood with a blend of something borrowed and something new. GoRiverwalk writer, Alexandra Roland take you on a tour of this emerging neighborhood in the November issue of GoRiverwalk Magazine.

Spanning just a few blocks – between the Intracoastal and A1A, from Bayshore Dr. to Bonnet House – Abby Laughlin’s neighborhood, North Beach Village, is known for being a pocket of quintessence.

“I live here because I saw what was happening and I just thought that this was the last great chance to be in this neighborhood,” she says.

Laughlin is the government liaison for the Central Beach Alliance (CBA) Homeowner’s Association, which presides over an area that extends from Oakland Park Boulevard to B Ocean, from the Intracoastal to the beach, and incorporates her up-and-coming neighborhood.

On the wings of the automobile age, a tropical destination for the middle class family took shape in North Beach Village. But it was an area that almost wasn’t. In the 1940s, the land, owned by Hugh Taylor Birch, was bequeathed to his alma mater, Antioch College, after his death. A plan to establish estate homes in the area was quickly trumped. Its appeal as a tourist destination and potential economic driver seemed more profitable during the post WWII era.

John Weaver, president of the CBA, says his grandparents managed what was known as Blue Sails in the North Beach Village vicinity in the ‘60s, in the midst of the era when the area first blossomed. The Mid-Century modernity of the neighborhood is mostly intact today. So are the roads, which are uncharacteristically wide.

“We have the widest roads in Fort Lauderdale. It was the time of the automobile,” Laughlin says.  “The modern thing was to pave everything over. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Its heyday was interrupted as people simply stopped coming.

“With the decline of spring break and the decline of motor tourists, there were a lot of people who ran these as third-class motels. It was neglected for many years. And then the recession and lack of bank financing,” Laughlin says. Left behind were small, individually owned motels, which over time, most recently due to the recession, were abandoned and left dilapidated.

Ten years ago, Par Sanda, a Swedish investor and owner of North Beach Village Properties purchased approximately 30 buildings in the area. One hundred million dollars later, over a six-year period, he has renovated them into hotels and long-term rentals. “He felt that this area was truly something special and he saw a vision that perhaps a lot didn’t see at the time,” says Christine Sposa, vice president of hotel operations for North Beach Village Properties.

Sanda discovered the area while vacationing in Fort Lauderdale in the mid-2000s. “At the time when he arrived [in] this specific area, a lot of the properties were run down, dilapidated. Buildings were very old. A lot of the individual owners didn’t have the wherewithal to make the type of renovations that we did. And it created an opportunity for someone such as the developer to purchase the properties at the cost he did,” Sposa says.

The buildings, inclusive of 18 hotels and three restaurants, are still reminiscent of the Mid-century Modern detailing, which characterizes the area, but are updated and trendy -more “This-century Modern” as Laughlin likes to call it.

The Aqua Hotel is on the higher end of the North Beach Village hotel collection price point. Tropi Rock stands out as the most eccentric of the bunch. Tranquilo is the largest resort – Sanda just purchased the adjacent Vistamar Villa, which will be absorbed into the existing hotel – but coming in at 66 rooms,Royal Palms is a close second. North Beach Hotel is the flagship of the group. It’s bordered on the north by Birch Tower, a landmark condominium built in the late ‘50s by architect Charles McKirahan, who also designed the Manhattan Tower residences a few blocks west.

Catty-corner to that is a grouping of colorful chairs that sit in front of a new gallery that was scheduled to be opened in mid-October by North Beach Village Properties with an exhibit by a local photographer. North Beach Village Properties’ bike rentals, yoga in the courtyard of Beach Gardens Hotel, vintage hotel weekend parties – Sposa says they’re on their way. “I feel like we’re just scratching the surface. And we want to do more.”

To read the complete article, visit www.GoRiverwalk.com

Permission granted by GoRiverwalk for excerpt reprinted on MyFortLauderdaleBeach.com. Copyright November 2015