Riverside Hotel

Riverside Hotel has anchored the north side of Las Olas Boulevard since 1936, and it remains the only hotel built directly along Fort Lauderdale’s best known shopping and dining street. The property began as the Champ Carr Hotel, developed by the Wells family’s Las Olas Company in the mid 1930s, and the same family run company that built it still owns and operates the hotel today, a rare thread of continuity in a city where beachfront and riverfront real estate changes hands often. The original tower survived the devastating 1947 hurricane, sheltering local residents, and a 2002 renovation added a twelve story wing that roughly doubled the room count without erasing the character of the older building.

Guests booking the Standard Guest Rooms stay in the 1936 tower itself, with roughly 325 square feet of space and the kind of layout, deep windowsills and tiled bathrooms, that only shows up in a hotel actually built before air conditioning was standard equipment. Junior Suites and the corner One Bedroom Suites occupy the newer tower’s upper floors, where jacuzzi tubs, wet bars, and wraparound windows look out over the New River and the downtown skyline. The mix of eras is part of the appeal, half boutique inn and half full service hotel, with an outdoor pool, a fitness room, and direct dockage along the New River for boats up to 150 feet, a detail that matters in a city that calls itself the yachting capital of the world.

Dining is a bigger part of the Riverside’s identity than at most hotels its size. The property runs its own restaurant row along the ground floor and riverfront, including the Boathouse at the Riverside for waterside seafood, Wild Sea for coastal Italian leaning plates, Preston’s Wine and Martini Lounge for a quieter evening, the Golden Lyon for a proper pub pour, and the New River Cafe and Bakery for coffee and pastries before a walk down Las Olas. Live piano and occasional evening entertainment in the lobby lounge add to the sense that this is a hotel built around a social ground floor rather than just a place to sleep.

Location is the other reason locals keep recommending it to visiting family and friends. Las Olas Boulevard’s boutiques, galleries, and restaurants start right outside the door, the historic Stranahan House sits next door on the New River, and the beach is a short rideshare or a longer walk away. For anyone who wants to be based downtown rather than on the sand, and who cares about staying somewhere with real history behind it rather than a corporate flag over the entrance, the Riverside remains one of the clearest choices in Fort Lauderdale. Notable past guests reportedly include Ronald Reagan, a detail hotel staff still mention with some pride, and the hotel’s status as the city’s oldest continuously operating property gives it a claim that no beachfront newcomer can match, no matter how large the pool deck.