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I had a feeling Thursday night's grand opening celebration of the residences at the Omni in Fort Worth was going to be swanky just from the invitation: In the age of e-vites, this was an elegant paper invitation, complete with a seal that had to be torn open and that thin tissue paper that is slipped inside expensive invitations for reasons I’ve never been able to discern.
The Omni Hotel opened downtown earlier this year, but construction crews were still putting the finishing touches on the condominiums. With construction complete and the first set of residents scheduled to move in on Nov. 1, the owners threw open the doors and offered folks a tour of the digs. Nolan Ryan and his wife Ruth -- future residents of the building -- were among those on hand.
Did I mention this was swanky? The party took place on the sixteenth floor, in two separate areas: A duplex condo with its own private “Zen garden”; and the common area for residents, which features a kitchen, sitting area, exercise room, and arguably the nicest private pool I’ve seen in this city. (There are lounge chairs resting in inch-deep water; boxed-off, cabana-like spaces where you can take in the view of downtown Fort Worth; and the main pool, which looked especially gorgeous lit up at night.)
Niftiest part of all this: There were food stations set up throughout, where chefs from the Omni’s restaurants, Bob’s Steak and Chop House and the Wine Thief, were preparing food for the guests. Among the more tasty offerings: a Maryland crab cake with some sort of honey drizzle on top; a beef short rib resting atop a corn and polenta cake; and a near-perfect bananas foster. Residents will have 24-hour access to all the services in the building, including the guy who makes that bananas foster dessert.
After a tour of both the one- and two-bedroom units on the eighteenth floor, both of which offer dazzling panoramic views of the city, we were ready to move in. (Or at least squat like homeless people.) The only catch is that this brand of luxury doesn’t come cheap: The one-bedroom start will set you back approximately a half-million; the two-bedrooms start at $800,000 and change. They won’t even let you see the price list for the penthouses.
A man can dare to dream, though. Or at least dare to rob a bank.