Tower of Power

The Tower Club is downtown Fort Lauderdale’s spot to see the city’s dynamic growth.

By Edward Schmidt Jr.

Photography by Doug Scaletta. 

First-time visiting Associate members at the Tower Club, located on the 28th floor of the Bank of America building in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are advised to arrive a few minutes before their reservation. It’s not that the club’s staff won’t have their table ready at the appointed time. The early arrival is recommended so guests can spend a few minutes in the club’s cozy lobby/lounge. There they will find the walls dotted with framed photos and various artifacts tracing the history of downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Adding to the lobby/lounge’s comfort quotient are plush burgundy couches, wingback leather chairs, a large chandelier, and expansive windows affording stunning panoramas of downtown and the Atlantic Ocean.

“The photography exhibit gives people a quick idea of what Fort Lauderdale is all about,” says Tower Club manager Kathy Trebbi. “It illustrates the history of our city and helps dispel stereotypes.”

Oh, those stereotypes! Once a suds-and-fun spring break haven for college kids, Fort Lauderdale has reinvented itself as a multifaceted, high-energy, business center and convention-oriented city. The view from the city’s revitalized and refurbished beachfront is decidedly different from the one Connie Francis and the gang made famous in Where the Boys Are.

While Miami and Orlando have grabbed more headlines touting their growth, Fort Lauderdale has quietly evolved as a major banking and high-tech center. There are more than 110 Fortune 500 companies in the area and Greater Fort Lauderdale is the Latin America operations base for corporations such as Microsoft and Citicorp Latino.

Fort Lauderdale now has a cosmopolitan lifestyle all its own. For every T-shirt shop and beach gift store, there is an art gallery or upscale shopping complex. For every beachside, open-air bar, there is an alfresco bistro serving cutting-edge cuisine. Ironically, those same college kids who used to party all night in the 1960s and ’70s now return to Fort Lauderdale either for business or an upscale beach vacation.

RENAISSANCE CATALYST

Trebbi, who has worked at the Tower Club for 15 years in various capacities, including the last eight as manager, is a star witness to the evolution of the club and the transformation of Fort Lauderdale from strictly a beach and boat haven to a major Florida business mecca.

“In many ways, the arrival and growth of the Tower Club has mirrored the reinvention of Fort Lauderdale,” Trebbi says.

In 1974, when the club made its debut atop the Landmark Bank building, now called the Bank of America building, Fort Lauderdale’s downtown was not exactly brimming with dynamism. Longtime stores were boarded up, business tenants were fleeing to the suburbs, and there weren’t any cranes and bulldozers pushing up high-rises. Like many American downtowns in the mid-1970s, Fort Lauderdale was reeling from the migration of businesses and residents away from urban centers.

The Tower Club was Fort Lauderdale’s first business club and it served as a signal to the local business community that hope was still alive for a rebirth of downtown. Conceived to serve the needs of Broward County’s financial and business community, the club had more than 1,000 original members. Along with other ClubCorp clubs, it was among the first business clubs in the nation to accept female executives on their own rather than through their husbands’ memberships.

Business has always been the focal point at the Tower Club, but networking, socializing, entertaining, and education are also major components of the club’s personality. In its embryonic years, the Tower Club sponsored a speaker’s forum that hosted such notables as Jimmy Carter and Alexander Haig. The club, with its understated, 170-seat, traditionally furnished dining room, also is a magnet for celebrities passing through Fort Lauderdale. Among those who have dined at the Tower Club are Muhammad Ali, Wendy’s CEO Dave Thomas, Florida governor Jeb Bush, and President Bill Clinton. The club’s most well-known member is author Dick Francis, whose entire collection of horse-related mystery novels is on display in the lobby/lounge.

TWO CLUBS IN ONE
“The Tower has always been more than just a place for a power lunch or client dinner,” Trebbi says. “Fort Lauderdale is different because we have so much residential real estate in close proximity to downtown.”

According to Trebbi, social events such as weddings, anniversaries, and private parties comprise about half of the club’s business. “During the day, it’s mostly business lunches and at night it’s predominantly social functions,” she says.

The club caters to its members by hosting such events as wine tastings, cooking classes, theater excursions, theme nights, and family parties, including breakfast with Santa and circus night. Each of the four private, special event dining rooms has an expansive view of downtown Fort Lauderdale and beyond. On a clear day, patrons can see the downtown Miami skyline to the south and the front boundary of the Everglades to the west from different vantage points.

Spectacular panoramas and social events entice many diners to the Tower Club, but Trebbi believes it’s the cuisine and service that keep them coming back.

Executive chef Stanley Sikora, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, is adept at preparing traditional favorites such as tableside Caesar salad and Steak Diane. But he also experiments with such highly creative daily feature items as chargrilled grouper fillet served with sweet potato and white bean relish, and fresh mahimahi marinated in jerk seasonings, pan-roasted, and served with a coconut curry sauce.

“This area of south Florida has a huge number of great restaurants with big-name chefs, so we know our cuisine has to be outstanding and creative to compete in the market,” Trebbi says.

Contributing greatly to the club’s ability to flourish in a very competitive South Florida dining scene is its absolute dedication to personalized service. There is an intensive, organized effort by the club’s staff to provide every member and guest with a highly personal and warm experience. The staff is dominated by longtime employees who have a high level of pride. In fact, combined, the six department heads boast more than 60 years of service at the Tower Club.

A detail-oriented manager, Trebbi leaves no member’s whim or desire to chance. A computer database lists preferences and requests of most of the 1,450 members. Preceding each lunch and dinner, the staff, including chefs, servers, maître d’, manager, and hostess have a meeting to review diners’ preferences. Looking a bit like a professional sports team about to embark on a big game, the staff meticulously addresses their goals for the night and talks about the special needs and desires of their diners. Each staff member is given a computer printout that lists specifics, such as one diner loves peach pie, another always wants white wine with lunch, and another has just returned from a cruise in Europe. Recently, a server learned during dinner that a diner was a diabetic and he scurried to a local drugstore to surprise him with some diabetic candy for dessert.

“That type of incident is emblematic of the great pride we have in personal service,” Trebbi says. “During the years since the club opened, cuisine fads have come and gone, but personalized service never goes out of style.”

LIFE’S A BEACH
Of course, the beaches of Fort Lauderdale never go out of style either. For leisure visitors, the 23-mile stretch of golden sand is where Fort Lauderdale begins and ends. There is water, water everywhere in Fort Lauderdale.

Few municipalities in the world can compare themselves to Venice, Italy, but the Greater Fort Lauderdale area does with its more than 300 miles of navigable water and canal travel lifestyle. Many of its residents have docks instead of driveways, thus the nickname, Venice of America. In fact, it’s possible to dock your boat two blocks from the Tower Club.

Chartering a yacht in Fort Lauderdale is almost as easy as renting a car in most places. More than 44,000 boats are registered in Greater Fort Lauderdale, which is the site of the annual Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, the largest boat show in the world with more than 1,500 boats on display.

Looking for something a bit larger? Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades features the nation’s largest collection of five-star ships. More than 35 depart from the port destined for the Caribbean and points south.

Cruising Fort Lauderdale’s shopping complexes is a favorite pastime for those who prefer to stay on terra firma. Among the don’t-miss spots are the Galleria, a three-story center featuring Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue; Dania Antique Row, a four-square-block area of nearly 100 dealers and two auction houses; and Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale’s answer to Rodeo Drive.

Wherever you go in Fort Lauderdale, from the Tower Club to Port Everglades, rest assured, you’ll quickly discover that this gleaming, beach metropolis is all grown up with a scant resemblance to its days as a spring break capital.

Edward Schmidt Jr., an Orlando, Florida-based free-lance writer specializing in golf and travel, is a regular visitor to Fort Lauderdale. He maintains the two best views in town are from the chic, sidewalk cafés on Las Olas Boulevard, and, of course, the Tower Club.

TOWER CLUB
Location: Bank of America building, 28th floor, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Club manager:  Kathy Trebbi.
Executive chef:  Stanley Sikora.
Membership director:  Gregory Oram.
Amenities: Dining room views of Atlantic Ocean, Port Everglades, and downtown Fort Lauderdale; lobby/lounge featuring  historical artifacts and photos; special events such as wine tastings, cooking classes, theater packages, theme nights, social and business networking, family and children’s events.
Web site: www.tower-florida.com.