The Colony, Palm Beach.Photo:Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
Rick Rose, author ofPalm Beach: The Essential Guide to America’s Legendary Resort Townand alocal historianwho gives guided tours of the island’s most noteworthy destinations, says that so much of what makes Palm Beach in the 1960s not only so recognizable, but also so desirable, still exists today. The top clubs (of which the Palm Royale is an amalgamation) are still the Everglades, Bath & Tennis and the Beach Club; there is still a tremendous amount of money on the island (59 billionaires and 10,000 millionaires, he says, at last estimation); and due to the area’s “strong preservation community, it’s like Paris, in that many aspects don’t change at all.”
Want aPalm Royaleexperience of your own? (Hopefully one that doesn’t involvea catfight with Allison Janney?) Here are the top sights to see, places to stay and locations to stake out if you want to catch a glimpse of a celebrity.
The Breakers
The Breakers, Palm Beach Florida.Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
Perhaps one of the most instantly recognizable landmarks in all of Palm Beach isthe Breakers, which can be seen in aerial shots inPalm Royale,per thePalm Beach Daily News.
The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida.Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
From VIP poolside bungalows “designed to be a beachfront extension of one’s guest room,” according to Sara Flight, director of communications, to memorable custom experiences (did you see Grant Troutt’s proposal to Madison Prewett?), any amenity you dream up can be available for guests — particularly if you stay in one of the Imperial Suites, where, Flight says, “the staff dedicated to these accommodations elevate hospitality to a level that one can only find at our resort.”
And visitors hoping to get a taste of the property’s rarefied ambiance without staying on-site can access it through one of their restaurants, the spa or the shopping corridors. “There are visitors who fly to Palm Beach solely to enjoy the crabcakes at the Seafood Bar,” Flight shares.
The Colony Hotel
The Colony, Palm Beach.Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
The Colony Hotel perfectly embodies that bold 1960s aesthetic so vividly captured inPalm Royale —while at the same time being oh-so-current thanks to itsInstagram-friendly backdropseverywhere you look.
“It is hot, hot, hot there,” Rose tells PEOPLE. “The folks who own that hotel are classical Palm Beach folks going back generations, but they have done a phenomenal job bringing back the whole vibe.”
Among those who agree? Celebrities including Jenna Bush Hager and Savannah Guthrie (recently seen vacationing there), the Hilton family, and Gwyneth Paltrow, who recently helped launcha Goop-designed villa on the property.
You don’t have to be a long-standing member of Palm Beach society to feel like one — just walking through the doors transports you to that ultra-glam ’60s jet-set feeling.
“The Colony Hotel offers guests door to door service anywhere on Palm Beach Island in either the house Volvo, Seagrape Beach Buggy, or the new pink Beach Runner Defender,” says owner and CEO Sarah Wetenhall. “The hotel can also snag bookings at Palm Beach’s chicest restaurants, make tennis or golf reservations, arrange surf lessons, and even source local camps for the littles. My favorite luxe amenity is a beach picnic, where our staff packs a pink Yeti cooler with snacks and beverages.”
Worth Avenue
Worth Avenue, Palm Beach.Getty
Getty
When you think about Palm Beach, Rose says, what instantly comes to mind is “Mediterranean revival architecture, fabulous fashion — because obviously Palm Beach has played a very important role in resort fashion — and certainly private clubs.”
“Worth Avenue is an undisputed highlight of Palm Beach,” says Erika Constantine, VP of Marketing for Discover the Palm Beaches. “But few take time to fully explore the ‘vias’ that wind around and behind the avenue’s high-fashion storefronts. You’ll even find a tiny Starbucks and a gelato shop if you look hard enough, or the tiny tombstone for iconic monkey Johnnie Brown (a pet of Addison Mizner, considered one of the founders of Palm Beach) amidst the courtyard of Pizza Al Fresco.”
Once you’ve got your goods, he suggests, rent a bike and tour the area to see “the Breakers Hotel, the Lake Trail and so many of those Gilded Age sites.”
A bike at the Colony hotel.Courtesy of Alex Apatoff
Courtesy of Alex Apatoff
The Flagler Museum
The Flagler Museum.Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
Perhaps the most famous Gilded Age site is the Flagler Museum, once the residence of the oil baron Henry Morrison Flagler, who built the first hotel in the state, in St. Augustine, and then heavily invested in railroad infrastructure and hotels to encourage other wealthy Gilded Age figures to winter in Florida.
Today, visitors can explore the mansion and the Breakers viaa “House and Hotel tour”(with the option to take tea in the Railcar 91 tea room, an elegant atrium that contains Flagler’s personal railcar in which he traveled from New York to Florida). It gives a sense of the incredible wealth that created Palm Beach, as well as how important the titans of industry and society were to founding the area’s institutions and charitable efforts.
Tea at the Flagler Museum with a view of the yachts outside.Courtesy of The Palm Beaches PR
And that sense of “high society” never left — though, as Rose said, it changed significantly in the early twentieth century.
“Prior to World War I, the French and the Italian Rivieras were where all of the very wealthy and aristocratic people were going in the winter month. Palm Beach was a destination, but it was relatively unimportant,” he says. “It didn’t get that jet-set feel until World War I, when all of a sudden, all those aristocrats and the royals who were going to the South of France couldn’t go because there was World War I … So there was a real active intention to recreate that Riviera.”
And, as he points out, many of the founding members of that society in the 1920s would still have “ruled the roost” in the 1960s setting ofPalm Royale, at a time when “the season” was much shorter before the advent of air conditioning, and “wintering” somewhere was exclusively reserved for the rich and famous — hence, the cutthroat competition to join the clubs reflected in the show.
“Back then, you still had ‘pedigree,’ and things like that played an important role, which allows [the show] to make more fun of that aspect of Palm Beach. Having that old American pedigree, like the Astors, and the Vanderbilts, and the Posts, when that was still so important,” Rose says. “Palm Beach is still very, very exclusive, but it doesn’t have the same [surname-based snobbishness] to poke fun at a little bit.”
The A-List Experience
More than half a century after the society heyday ofPalm Royale,Palm Beach is still the premier destination for the wealthy (bothTinsley Mortimerandthe Peltz Beckhamsrecently got married there, and stars with residences include Jon Bon Jovi, Sylvester Stallone, Rod Stewart and Rory McIlroy), titans of industry looking to relax and stylish socialites. If you’d like to indulge in that lifestyle for a weekend, what should be on your itinerary?
Then “a ride on Lake Trail will give you a sneak peek into how the rich and famous live,” suggests Ryvis Sierra, the senior public relations manager for Discover the Palm Beaches. You can also charter a boat through your hotel (“the Brazilian Court is now including a yacht excursion as part of the hotel stays for guests,” she notes), or booka cute pastel Palm Yachtto see the sights from the water.
Ready to book a trip? “With temperatures averaging around 78 degrees year-round, anytime is perfect to plan a getaway,” Constantine notes, but “for the most celeb spotting, visit ‘in season’ from January through April.”
One stay, and you might find yourself like Kristen Wiig’s character inPalm Royale, trying to scale the wall to get to be part of the club forever.
source: people.com
