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PALM BEACH
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Hotels in Palm Beach
• Hilton Palm Beach Oceanfront Palm Beach from $159.00 USD
• The Heart Of Palm Beach Hotel Palm Beach from $149.00 USD
• The Breakers Palm Beach from $229.00 USD
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Vacation Rentals in Palm Beach
• Bradley House Palm Beach Palm Beach from $206.95 USD
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A small island town of palatial homes and gardens, and streets so clean you could eat your dinner off them, PALM BEACH has been synonymous for nearly a century with the kind of lifestyle only limitless loot can buy. The nation's nobs began wintering here in the 1890s, after Henry Flagler brought his East Coast railroad south from St Augustine and built two luxury hotels on this then-secluded, palm-filled island. Since then, tycoons, sports aces, aristocrats, rock stars and CIA directors have flocked here, eager to become part of the Palm Beach elite and enjoy its aloofness from mainland, and mainstream, life. Joe Kennedy - father of John, Robert and Edward - bought the so-called Kennedy Compound here in 1933.
Summer in Palm Beach is very quiet, and the least costly time to stay. The winter months, from November to May, see a whirl of elegant balls, fundraising dinners and charity galas, as well as the polo season - watching a chukka or two is the only time Palm Beach denizens show themselves in the less particular environs of West Palm Beach (on the mainland).
Worth Avenue , close to the southern tip of the island, is filled with designer stores, high-class art galleries and ultraformal restaurants, and cruised by Rolls Royces, Mercedes and Jaguars. Its most appealing aspect is its architecture : stucco walls, Romanesque facades, and passageways leading to small courtyards where miniature bridges cross nonexistent canals and spiral staircases climb to the upper levels.
Where Cocoanut Row and Whitehall Way meet, the white Doric columns fronting Whitehall are those of the Flagler Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; $8), the most overtly ostentatious home on the island - a $4 million wedding present from Henry Flagler to his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan. As in many of Florida's first luxury homes, the interior design was lifted from the great buildings of Europe: among the 55 rooms are an Italian library, a French salon, a Swiss billiard room, a hallway modeled on St Peter's, and a Louis XV ballroom. All are stuffed with ornamentation, but they lack aesthetic cohesion. Informative 45-minute guided tours depart frequently from the 110ft hallway and provide a background for Flagler's fascinating rise to success and a glimpse of the Gilded Age in which he flourished.
Built in 1926 in the style of an Italianate palace, The Breakers hotel, on South County Road off the main strip (tel 561/655-6611 or 1-888/273-2537; $250+), operates as the last of Palm Beach's swanky resorts. Its design includes elaborate painted ceilings and huge tapestries. Take the free guided tour on Wednesday at 3pm (call 561/655-6611 ext 7560 for information).
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A former miner and prizefighter, Addison Mizner was an unemployed architect when he arrived in Palm Beach in 1918. Inspired by the medieval buildings he'd seen around the Mediterranean, Mizner built the Everglades Club , at 356 Worth Ave - the first public building in Florida in the Mediterranean Revival style. The success of the club, and the house he subsequently built for society bigwig Eva Stotesbury, won Mizner commissions all over Palm Beach as the wintering wealthy decided to swap suites at one of Henry Flagler's hotels for a "million-dollar cottage" of their own.
Brilliant and unorthodox, Mizner designed loggias and U-shaped interiors that made the most of Florida's pleasant winter temperatures, while his twisting staircases to nowhere became legendary. Mizner used untrained workmen to lay crooked roof tiles, sprayed condensed milk onto walls to create an impression of centuries-old grime and fired shotgun pellets into wood to imitate wormholes. By the mid-1920s, Mizner had created the Palm Beach Style, and he later fashioned much of Boca Raton
Palm Beach's Chamber of Commerce is at 45 Cocoanut Row (summer Mon-Fri 10am-4.30pm, rest of year 9am-5pm; tel 561/655-3282). You'll need plenty of money to sleep here: prices of $200 a night are not uncommon. The elaborate, antique-furnished Palm Beach Historic Inn , 365 S County Rd (tel 561/832-4009; $50-100), offers some of the best rates in town, but you'll need to book early. Otherwise come between May and December, when similarly grand options such as The Chesterfield , 363 Cocoanut Row (tel 561/659-5800 or 1-800/243-7871; $75-250+), and The Plaza Inn , 215 Brazilian Ave (tel 561/832-8666 or 1-800/232-2632; $75-200), are at their least expensive.
As for eating , TooJay's , 313 Royal Poinciana Way (tel 561/659-7232), is a bakery and deli open for breakfast onward, with omelettes under $6, while the lunch counter at Green's Pharmacy , 151 N County Rd (tel 561/832-0304), keeps up a steady supply of diner food. If money is no object - and you're dressed to kill - make for Caf? L'Europe , 331 S County Rd (tel 561/655-4020). Spend less than $50 a head in this super-elegant French restaurant and you'll still be hungry.
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