Watch out, South Beach. Fort Lauderdale is making its moves as a top gay spot.
By Gary Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Saturday night had edged into Sunday morning, and most of the patrons at Boom were propped languidly against the bar and walls when Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" suddenly blared from the speakers. As if on cue, nearly everyone in the Fort Lauderdale gay club hit the dance floor. Middle-aged men, Generation Xers, muscular and thin bodies, guys dressed in everything from wrinkled khakis to designer jeans -- all joined in a group boogie. One happy reveler who looked well into his sixties stood near the stage waving white flags. The song had struck the right chord.
The message in the music: that this balmy southern Florida enclave is quietly edging ahead of San Francisco, Key West, Fla., and other locales in the ranks of America's most gay-friendly cities. By the account o:f the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, last year more than 800,000 gay men and lesbians visited, placing it among the top U.S. vacation destinations for gays. It's now the fifth most popular U.S. destination for gay vacationers, according to a 2004 national poll of gay travelers conducted by Community Marketing, a San Francisco research firm. Lauderdale came in behind New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and just ahead of Miami.
Many rainbow travelers say they view the Fort Lauderdale scene as far more low-key, accessible and inclusive than Miami's hip South Beach, just 40 minutes south.
"It's a kinder, gentler alternative to SoBe," says Ed Salvato, editor of Out & About, a popular gay travel newsletter that gives Fort Lauderdale glowing ratings. "You don't have J-Lo or Madonna making a scene. There are no throbbing all-night skin clubs or a whole bling-bling thing. It's a good cross section of places where lots of regular guys hang out having a good time."
Although Fort Lauderdale has attracted a quiet following of gay retirees for decades, until a generation or two ago it was better known as a destination for a young, rowdy straight crowd. After the frothy feature film "Where the Boys Are" hit cinemas in 1960, using the city as a backdrop, spring breakers began to flood the beach by the thousands, beers in hand. In the mid-1980s, fed up with students roaming the streets, drinking and trashing properties, city planners started taking away the spring break welcome mat. The biggest move was to pass a 1985 ordinance banning drinking from open containers in public places. Instead, hoping to attract a better-behaved crowd, developers began to open trendy restaurants and boutique hotels and to spruce up the cluttered beach.
That makeover added a glow to Fort Lauderdale's considerable natural assets: 23 miles of wide, clean beaches, a climate that averages 66 degrees in winter and 84 in summer, and a vast network of inland waterways reminiscent of Venice.
A decade ago, the city's tourism officials also began to actively court gay travelers by promoting its gay-friendly lodging and other travel options at trade fairs. Last year they devoted more than $250,000 in marketing to gay travelers. "We watched that chance we took pay off big time," said Nicki E. Grossman, president of the visitors bureau. "Especially after September 11, 2001, gay and lesbian travelers were the first in the air, resuming their travel habits." Gay visitation is growing at an average rate of 10 percent a year, she said. Straight travel to the city is also booming, and the groups seem to mingle well together, she added.
Richard Gray, owner of the tony Fort Lauderdale gay guesthouse Royal Palms and self-styled ambassador of gay tourism for the city, has seen the city evolve from a seedy backwater to a trendy resort in his 14 years here. Originally from London, the effusive 47-year-old entrepreneur moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1991 and quickly began organizing and promoting the then-fledgling gay tourism infrastructure.
Driving around the 34-square-mile city in his blue Mercedes sports car, Gray pointed out the transformations a decade and a half had brought. The most dramatic change, he said, was the beachfront area, stretching about a mile along the A1A highway (a k a Ocean Drive) from Sunrise Boulevard to Las Olas. In the 1980s, it was a motley mix of cheap hotels and fast-food eateries whose best customers were the spring-break crowd. Now one side is lined with upscale shops and cafes; the other is a vast stretch of beach, where locals and vacationers sprawl in the sun.
A good base for gay travelers is the so-called Beach Area, the residential settlement of low-rise buildings just off the ocean from Las Olas to Terramar Street. In particular, quiet Terramar Street and Birch Road are home to a concentration of about a dozen gay hotels and guesthouses. They range in style from the upscale Grand Resort and Spa to the more basic Alhambra Beach Resort, but in general are neat and appealing.
A 10-minute drive from the beach is the downtown, which has a few gay clubs and a concentration of upscale clothing boutiques. A five-minute drive north of there is Wilton Manors, an enclave of homes, restaurants and cafes popular among gays. The past decade, Gray said, has brought a vibrant gay presence to this small middle-class city. The population of 12,600 is 30 to 40 percent gay, by his estimate, and the city elected successive gay mayors in 2000 and 2002. It is home to dozens of gay-owned businesses, including the popular lunchtime hangout Hamburger Mary's, the sports bar Georgie's Alibi and the Rainbow Laundry, a laundromat.
At the pretty Stork's Bakery and Cafe on NE 15th Avenue, Gray offered his take on Fort Lauderdale's special appeal. "It's always good to see so many rainbow flags flying," he said. "But the truth is [gays] can go just about anywhere [in surrounding Broward County] and get good service and a smile. This is about as tolerant an area as they come." Broward has a strong record of support for gay rights, he said.
Joseph Gallegos, city manager of Wilton Manors, concurred. "We have a lot of families and other folks who have been here for a long time, and they all seem to mix well with the gays and lesbians," he said. "The acceptance is pretty amazing."
At the Grand Resort and Spa, a small upscale hotel in the Beach Area, the hot tub and pool attracted a variety of guests on a balmy April evening. Seth, a fiftysomething business consultant from Boston, chatted about two female friends back home who had recently taken advantage of a Massachusetts statute allowing same-sex couples to marry. Ray, a Florida real estate developer in his forties, spoke of a recent home sale that netted him a hefty profit. All in all, much like cocktail party chatter anywhere.
There is a broad range of gay-friendly dining options in the area, including Galanga Thai Kitchen & Sushi Bar, a gay-owned restaurant a 15-minute drive away in Wilton Manors. When I visited, soft light, candles and a fully stocked aquarium made for a relaxing mood. The service was affable, and most of the tables were taken by same-sex couples out for a romantic evening. But it is the cuisine -- thoughtfully prepared pad thai, green curry and other original takes on Thai specialties -- that makes the place memorable. Zach Green, a 62-year-old gay retiree at the next table, said he had been there two nights before and had been thinking about the food ever since. "I'm leaving town in two days, but I had to come back here first," he said.
Georgie's Alibi, a five-minute walk down the street, is the kind of casual, low-key hangout where people drop in for a beer or two on a weekend evening, but head elsewhere for more action. When I stopped in, most of the patrons were casually dressed men in their thirties and forties. The music videos, featuring Cher, Madonna, Annie Lennox and other artists of their generation, were geared to fans weaned on 1980s and '90s pop hits.
And that, I discovered, was typical of Fort Lauderdale and its inclusiveness of gays in all age brackets. For many locals and visitors, that is the one aspect that sets the city apart from other locales popular among gays.
To Mubarak Dahir, editor of the city's gay weekly newspaper, the Express, Lauderdale is remarkably welcoming to gays and lesbians who are middle-aged. "Unlike South Beach, [New York's] Chelsea or just about any other gay scene I know, this one isn't obsessed with youthful glitz," he said. "In any of those places, a guy in his forties who shows up in a club feels like an intruder. Here he's perfectly accepted."
Many patrons at Georgie's praised this corner of Florida for its easygoing, unpretentious style. Zach Baylor, a 42-year-old visitor from New Jersey and self-proclaimed Georgie's regular, sounded a typical note. "I spent five years in Hollywood and two in South Beach and didn't make a single friend," he said. "Here I have made a half-dozen in a year. What does that tell you?"
At Boom, a club a few doors away comprising two cavernous rooms, the energy level was higher. The age of the crowd ranged from early twenties to sixties, and the place pulsed with lively dance music as lights glimmered across the dance floor. Drag queens sashayed through the room. Around midnight, with the help of Aguilera's passionate lyrics, the place began to rock. It became the kind of scene where a guy could easily linger until early morning. Gays up early enough (or still awake) at breakfast time on Sundays flock to the Floridian. Perched on a corner downtown, it's decorated with formica furniture and peeling autographed pictures along the walls. The pancakes and eggs are easily a couple of cuts above regular diner fare, I would soon find. But it's the chance to gab that has made this the place to be. From same-sex couples with kids to young guys with pierced noses and that up-all-night look, the crowd, which included many straights, could not have been more diverse.
From the Floridian, it's a 10-minute drive to the three-block-long stretch of beach favored by gays, around the corner of the A1A highway and Sebastian Street. Here, too, the mellow mood contrasts with the daily muscle-and-skin show in Miami's South Beach.
This was more like an adult sandbox. A heavyset man dragged his skinny partner into the chilly water and chased him around. Two fathers taught their toddler to swim. A couple of women rested arm in arm on an oversize pink beach towel.
People-watchers wouldn't strain their eyes much here. A group of elderly men on chaise longues flipped through copies of Better Homes & Gardens and other magazines. A middle-aged guy in a Panama hat yakked on a cell phone. When a guy in a red Speedo showed up with pectoral muscles that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo, the codgers dropped their magazines, the telephone guy cut his call short and silence fell from the highway to the ocean. But when the hunk wandered away, everybody breathed again and carried on playing in the sand.
But in this tourist mecca, it's not all about the beach. Non-sandy venues include the downtown Museum of Art, whose world-class exhibitions include "Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," set to open in December. Butterfly World, 10 minutes north of downtown, features thousands of rainbow-hued creatures fluttering across 10 acres. Sawgrass Mills, 20 minutes west of downtown, is one of the biggest discount shopping complexes in the country, with Nieman Marcus Last Call, Nordstrom Rack and other well-known stores.
Bonnet House, a five-minute walk from the beach, is a rambling plantation mansion where 20th-century American portrait and landscape painter Frederic Clay Bartlett and his wife spent their winters. About a dozen rooms are opulently decorated with his and others' paintings, lifesized carved animals, sculptures and other artwork. Bartlett, a lesser-known artist of the early to mid-20th century, had painted exotic landscape murals on some of the walls and ceilings. A small cottage on the grounds has three alluring rooms, including one covered in seashells, another filled with orchids and a third decorated in bamboo. It is surrounded by a lush 35-acre garden of palms and other tropical plants.
Sunday afternoon is a time when most gay clubs feature "tea dances," usually events in which the younger set lets loose to celebrate the end of the weekend. At the Voodoo Lounge, a SW Second Avenue warehouse downtown, the party was well underway.
Muscular male dancers wearing only tight swimsuits and boots strutted along one bar. At another, gay men and women in their twenties and thirties lined up for Long Island iced tea and other cocktails. Techno music blared from oversize speakers, keeping the expansive dance floor throbbing. In the next room, an emcee entertained patrons with jokes, a kissing contest, an impromptu version of "American Idol" and a drag show. Although probably as hot as Fort Lauderdale clubs get, the scene was still a couple of degrees more low-key than at South Beach counterparts.
"It's a tame kind of event, but what can I say?" said Tad Baker, a 27-year-old in jeans and a white T-shirt. "We're tame kind of folks."
At some point it's great for visitors of every persuasion to get out of the clubs and onto the water. A cruise on the Jungle Queen, a paddleboat, offers a chance to see the vast network of canals and waterways laced in and around the city. Pushing off from its port near the Beach Area, the mid-size covered boat steers along the inland passage that runs along Florida's inner coastline. Along the way, you can see the multimillion-dollar mansions of entrepreneurs and celebrities, including Tiger Woods and Jimmy Dean of sausage fame.
At a small private island, caged macaws, chimpanzees and other exotic creatures were on display. Jim, a wildlife trainer, jumped in a cage with three alligators and proceeded to wow the crowd by propping open the mouth of one and sticking his hand inside. On the way back, the guide pointed out the fleet of yachts that use the waters off Lauderdale's coast as their parking lot.
Back at the Royal Palms guesthouse that night, three men played in the pool as a gardener watered the orchids and Heather, a transgendered staff member serving chablis at the outdoor bar, chatted about her new boyfriend, her garden and her social life. "It was tough here at first," she said, "but now I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
As she spoke, I thought of Aguilera, the author of the ode to finding inner beauty whose music had rocked the dance floor at Boom two nights before. I wondered if she had any plans to give a concert in Lauderdale. I have no doubt that she would bring the house down.
Details: Fort Lauderdale
GETTING THERE: JetBlue flies nonstop from Dulles to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for $153 round trip. United, Spirit and other carriers offer rates for less than $175 from Dulles and Reagan National (prices tend to run higher in the peak winter season). Taxis into the city run about $18, but since the attractions are spread out, you're best off renting a car.
WHERE TO STAY: There are more than two dozen gay hotels and guesthouses scattered around the city. Most cater largely to men, but women are welcome as well.
The Royal Palms (2901 Terramar St., 800-237-7256, http://www.royalpalms.com/ ) is a deluxe 12-room property two blocks from the beach with large, nicely furnished rooms with kitchenettes. Rates for doubles, including buffet breakfast and cocktails, start at $179 a night. Around the corner is the Grand Resort and Spa (539 N. Birch Rd., 800-818-1211, http://www.grandresort.net/ ), an attractive 34-room property with a full-service spa, pool, hot tub and complimentary buffet breakfast. The rooms are spacious and the garden lovely. From May 1 to Dec. 22, standard doubles start at $95 a night.
For budget travelers, the 10-room Alhambra Resort (3021 Alhambra St., 877-309-4014, http://www.alhambrabeachresort.com/ ) has basic but clean rooms. The gay beach is a couple of blocks away. Doubles go for $69 a night between May 16 and Dec. 15.
Prefer larger properties? The Sheraton Yankee Trader Hotel (312 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., 888-627-7109, http://www.sheratontrader.com/ ) is gay-friendly and right across from the beach. Doubles start at $89 a night.
WHERE TO EAT: Galanga Thai Kitchen & Sushi Bar (2389 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, 954-202-0000) serves superb Thai specialties and seafood in a romantic setting. The curries and sushi are particularly tasty. Dinner for two, with a couple of beers, will run around $65.
Hamburger Mary's (2449 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, 954-567-1320, http://www.hamburgermarysftl.com/ ) has a lively, campy atmosphere and way-above-average burgers and fries. Lunch for two runs around $20. The Floridian (1410 E. Las Olas, 954-463-4041), with solid diner fare, is the place to be on Sunday mornings. A platter of eggs, toast and coffee runs around $20 for two.
For a splurge, you won't go wrong at Trina (601 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., 954-567-8070, http://www.theatlantichotelfortlauderdale.com/trina ), in the new oceanfront Atlantic Hotel. The grilled fish and chicken dishes are best. If the prices (around $110 for a dinner for two, with dessert and a couple of glasses of wine) are too steep, pop in for a tropical cocktail.
CLUBS: Georgie's Alibi (2266 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, 954-565-2526, http://www.georgiesalibi.com/ ), a casual sports and video bar, is an excellent place to start the night. Beers run for around $4. If you're up for dancing, slide over to Boom (2232 Wilton Dr., Wilton Manors, 954-630-3556), a few doors down, where the music is good and the crowd eclectic.
On Sundays from around 5 p.m. on, the Babylon T Dance (111 SW Second Ave., 954-522-0733, http://www.garysantis.com/ ) is the party to catch, with hot dancers on the bar and cool music. Admission $5 before 7 p.m., $7 afterward. Drinks run around $4.50.
MUSEUMS:
· Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art (1 E. Las Olas Blvd., 954- 525-5500, http://www.moafl.org/ ), at the city's Riverwalk, is two floors of modern and contemporary art, mostly American and European with a Cuban collection as well. The Tutankhamen show is slated to run Dec. 15 to April 23. Admission is $6.
· Bonnet House (900 N. Birch Rd., 954-563-5393, http://www.bonnethouse.org/ ), the former home of artist Frederic Clay Bartlett and his wife, is well worth a tour. The well-preserved mansion and gardens offer a delightful window into how this eccentric couple lived. House admission $12, grounds only $8.
INFORMATION: The Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-22-SUNNY, http://www.sunny.org/rainbow ) has packets specially designed for gay visitors, including gay-oriented lodging and entertainment tips, as well as general tourism information.
-- Gary Lee