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Fort Lauderdale was once a place where the wealth floated through on its way to somewhere better. Miami had the parties. Palm Beach had society. Beyond the annual boat show and spring breakers, the Venice of the Atlantic Coast lacked the glue that comes with a sense of belonging.
But suddenly, the money is staying, behind velvet ropes, as a private members’ club boom gives yacht owners a reason to linger in Fort Lauderdale.
“Fort Lauderdale has changed, and so have the people who live here,” said local restaurateur Marc Falsetto. “They travel, they know great restaurants, and they crave something refined.”
Falsetto’s new restaurant, Caviar Club at 833 E. Las Olas, is an 80-seat steakhouse that opened this fall. Its interiors are an ode to 1980s maximalism — but less “Miami Vice” and more burled walnut, brass fixtures and Dover sole filleted tableside. The design comes from New York’s Garrett Singer Studio, the firm behind Torrisi and Gary Vaynerchuk’s Flyfish Club.
While Caviar Club is welcoming to the public, Falsetto said he has already sold out of “Founding 100” memberships. Perks include a concierge-run reservation app with preferred access, a Hundred Acre wine library he claims is the largest outside of New York’s Polo Bar, a vault by the Macallan and reciprocity with other clubs through the booking platform Dorsia. Falsetto sold out of memberships in three weeks, and the waitlist now hovers around 300 applicants.
“Everybody wants access right now,” said Falsetto.
Across town, another development is taking a different approach. Pier Sixty-Six, a 1950s resort and Fort Lauderdale landmark, was acquired by Tavistock Development Company in 2016 and quietly reopened in January 2025 after a sweeping renovation.
Part of the property’s new era is the addition of a private club — with a hefty $75,000 initiation fee and $15,000 in annual dues. There’s also a hotel, residences, a marina that handles 400-foot yachts, 12 food and beverage outlets and a 40,000-square-foot event space.
“There are a lot of beautiful buildings being built in Florida,” said Pier Sixty-Six general manager John Myers. “But what separates us pretty substantially is that those buildings are beautiful, but there’s no energy around their physical spaces.”
Next to arrive is Viceroy Residences Fort Lauderdale, where Naftali Group and the H.wood Group are installing a 15,000-square-foot restaurant and private members’ club. Residents also get a complimentary one-year social membership at the Fort, a nearby pickleball club, as well as automatic membership and access to H.wood’s wider network — which includes Delilah locations in Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and New York. Delivery is scheduled for 2029.
“Expanding our footprint into South Florida is a top priority,” said John Terzian, co-founder of the H.wood Group. “[Fort Lauderdale] is quickly becoming a global destination.”
They’re not the only ones betting on large-scale luxury development. Developers Related Group, Tate Capital and Rok Acquisitions just announced the Bahia Mar Club, a 1-acre private waterfront retreat exclusively for residents of the development’s forthcoming St. Regis Residences. Designed by landscape architecture firm EDSA, the planned club will include tennis and padel courts, a St. Regis-serviced clubhouse, a lap pool, a lawn for yoga and tai chi, and a sunset terrace with fire pits.
There is currently an operational DoubleTree by Hilton on the site of the future Bahia Mar Club. Demolition is scheduled to begin in April 2027 and should wrap up before the following year’s International Boat Show.
“Very few coastal developments in the world offer homeowners exclusive access to this much private waterfront land,” said Pérez. While the Bahia Mar Club wasn’t conceived as a response to the city’s club boom, he said it “fits right into it perfectly.”
The other sales pitch is value, relatively speaking. Pérez said comparable beachfront properties in Miami Beach or Bal Harbour sell for $3,500 to $4,000 per square foot, versus $2,200 to $2,500 in Fort Lauderdale. Residences start at $4.9 million, while resort residences start at $3 million, and he said the project is 30% sold. Buyers range from boaters to empty nesters to a solid contingent of snowbirds from the Northeast. Construction begins in late 2027, with delivery in 2030.
The timing reflects a broader shift in Fort Lauderdale’s luxury market, where developers are selling a ready-made social life — one that’s more low-key than Miami and more welcoming to outsiders than Palm Beach … assuming you can cough up the cash for those initiation fees.
