Tuesday, September 3, 2024. Another beautiful mainly sunny day yesterday with temps in the 70s, lots of sunshine — and people out in my neighborhood by the river, and those fantastic cloud-coverings moving through.
I fell into a conversation with 
a longtime reader of the NYSD, talking about the oncoming season. Nelson is also a longtime resident of Palm Beach and owner of Devonshire of Palm Beach, an Antique English Garden Shop located in West Palm Beach.
We spoke about how the world around us has changed specifically in terms of our lifestyle choices and behavior right down to the way we dress (compared to our habits over the decades and the changes). And of course, the older we get, the wider your view of the World We Live In. More than anything it was a comparing of notes now that Summer is over and we’re all going back to work (or something imaginable).
Soon after our conversation, I received this message from Nelson who is about to begin his season when Palm Beach is Busy and his business is about to stir up noticeably …
Nelson Devonshire: Yesterday I saw the first car carrier lumbering off the I95 Okeechobee Boulevard exit with its load of high priced buggies jostling to and fro. At the appointed hour housemen and property managers will be queuing up along South County Road, to retrieve the first of many European Imports that will spill over Palm Beach’s pristine roadways in coming months.
First tho — the $65 wash and wax at the Eco Car Care center — all remnants of Mecox Bay mud washed from the undercarriage and white walled tires of Range Rovers, Mini rag tops and Mercedes SUVs.
We’re on the countdown to ‘Season’ — that time of year when house lights switch on, the aforementioned vehicles swan out from driveways along North Lakeside Drive; the ‘Sea’ streets and yes Dorothy, along Billionaire’s Row, that land of dreams; the Ocean fronted palazzos of America’s highest and mightiest.
Even if they are now mostly cut off from their favorite watering holes, clubs and shops in midtown Palm Beach due to the iron ring of security surrounding the Mar-a-Lago Club, insisted upon by the Secret Service to protect Mr. Trump and family. This necessitates the closure of South County Road that bisects the Club compound. And to think that once upon a time the most exciting activities at Mrs. Post’s vainglorious villa were her Saturday Night Square Dances. What would she think of gunships patrolling Ocean and Lake waters East and West with marine officers scanning the waterways with night vision binoculars?
I can only imagine her exclamation of “mercy me,” a scented handkerchief pressed to her bosom.
We hear that former President Trump is trundled in and out of the Club’s Service Entrance between far away campaign appearances. The inside skinny is that wife Melania has maybe moved back to Manhattan, lock, stock and Barron. Not that we’d ever know — the mysterious Melania never was spotted out and about in town even in those long ago days when her husband was just a mere mogul.
What to make of Palm Beach, it’s 2024-25 Season getting all shiny and new. My last name is not storied like some names here — not a drop of Phipps, Guest, or Flagler blood courses thru my veins. But I’ve been hanging around this Sliver of Sand since the 1980s or thereabouts. I’ve seen marriages come and go; fortunes ebb and flow; children in uniforms at the Day School now flying free from Duke and Penn, Yale and SMU. I’ve seen lovely old ladies encased in triple strands of pearls and white gloves, whose four letter vocabulary might be limited to ‘ fork’ and ‘rose.’
Nowadays, there is also a tougher crowd in trucker hats and leggings who can swear like a stevedore as they keep an open mic on their cell phone while waiting in the checkout line at the Island Publix, their trolleys laden with mineral waters, organic jam and wildly expensive crab meat … perhaps several bottles of Wolffer Estate Rosé just to ease the upset of transition from Wainscott to Worth Avenue.
Palm Beach today is a little bit Brooklyn, a lotta Miami … the old timers have been corralled into corners, primly complaining that the crowded streets are cheek to jowl with jaywalkers, scooters and horn honkers.
What happened to those days when the blue and white police car pulled up behind you and stayed in place for five minutes while you ran into the dry cleaners or returned a blouse at Saks. And adding insult to injury, there are no more gratis, free, available 2-hour parking spaces any more.
“How do you expect me to learn the ropes of pay parking when I’ve never even pumped my own gas? “ said one dowager to another at the Surfside breakfast nook where an omelette and coffee will now set you back the foreign debt of Swaziland.
Ah yes, the old timers … a cagey group of wily bastards if you ask me … those with accounts at Bessemer Trust … the bedrock of the Island … getting unsolicited offers for their cottages and their castles shoved under the door in the middle of the night … those who once turned their collective nose up at West Palm Beach, just across the three bridges, South, Middle and North where once they only crossed over to make peace with their dermatologist next to Good Sam Hospital, or to sign on the pre-death package at Quattlebaums Funeral and Cremation Emporium, but mostly to make a beeline to the West Palm Beach International Airport for their regular flights to Philly or LaGuardia, sometimes Atlanta or Charlotte.
I’ve never known where the “International” comes into play, although I think there might be a once a week Bahamas Run for those who don’t fly their own prop plane to Eleuthera.
Now the ‘Old Guard’ are pulling up sticks, and perching themselves in sky high condos along the West Palm Beach Flagler Drive — with views from their living room over their former Island homes to the Ocean. And also from each of their three bedroom’s expansive views to the West they can peer out to view the Fanjul Family-owned sugar fields beyond the dreck of suburbia.
Pepe and Alfie Fanjul, brothers with different political allegiances so they cover all the bases, are still hale and hardy at last report, but their kids and grands are now mostly running the Empire which stretches from Casa de Campo in the DR to the marshy shores of Lake Okeechobee.
To put this migration over the Lake Worth Lagoon into finer perspective, the entire group of partners and support staff of Bessemer Trust, the long time guardians of old money assets, are themselves decamping to sparkling new offices in a Steve Ross-helmed office building in the new West Palm downtown.
It is a prime example of the oft-repeated phrase ‘money follows money’… it’s just been reported that the long established Bessemer Trust building on Royal Palm Way has sold for millions of dollars and may become a Concierge Medical Care outpost of a famed New York Hospital.
Steve Ross … note the folksy version … to you and to me he is Stephen M. Ross, Developer, Sports Team Owner, and Philanthropist, a Manhattan to Palm Beach transplant. Mr. Ross is almost singlehandedly remaking West Palm Beach as ‘ Wall Street South’ cheerleading the migration of financial services firms to his mini megalopolis of Class A office buildings, replete with celebrity chef restaurants, gyms and adjacent luxe apartments.
Where once it was interloper Railroad Barons from up north and Florida native Citrus Growers jostling for primacy; and then the established ‘Old Guard’ and equally monied Jews from the Tri-State region, now it is the ‘Finance Bros’ vs. everybody else.
These are the self-assured and self-promoting Hedge Fund Guys, Capital Investors and Strategic Financial Opportunity shops, along with a smattering of Private Wealth Managers and Family Investment offices. 30-year-old Wharton Graduates clicking away on their electronics in modern offices with sweeping views, or tapping away at their phones while sitting thru a client lunch at Sant Ambroeus. Or texting during dinner at The Flagler Steakhouse, and speaking with great animation on their handless voice activated phone in their Maserati, or Porsche, or Tesla, all models approved by the Frat Boy high command.
Mr. Ross to me, and probably to you, has put his Rolodex on Speed Dial attracting an Armada of Richie Rich’s in Finance, be they Ken Griffin, John Paulson, Louis Bacon, Mark Bezos among them, as well as a raft of Californians who appreciate the finer points of Palm Beach living — a Homesteaded Pile in Palm Beach can save a Billionaire millions of dollars in this State Income Tax-free zone.
If you’re Charles Schwab or Steve Wynn or Charles Johnson why wouldn’t you trade Brentwood or Atherton for palm trees swaying in the breeze, even if there is a nest of Iguanas enjoying their own moonlight madness up in those fronds of green?
Golf clubs by the Dozen and the nation’s top ranked professional Golfers are just a phone call away. Who wouldn’t want a foursome with Tiger at the tee? And tennis pros, just a short drive away in Delray, although they can be tempted to play on your private court in a friendly match with your twelve-year-old … followed by Champers and Caviar in your own Courtside Cabana.
Which brings me to close with food. After all, we are what we eat. Years ago it was chicken hash and a green salad at the Club (which shall remain nameless); or Maine lobster avec bib at Testa’s; or a BLT on whole wheat at the Green’s Pharmacy counter after Church services at St. Edward’s across the roadway. Now we hear of Nobu and Pastis on the launch pad, a newly re-born Testa’s helmed by Thomas Keller of Laundry fame out California way. Le Biblioquet has no shame in offering $100 entrees, Sant Ambroeus is most always overbooked. The Palm Beach Grill, Renatos and, for a breath of alfresco air, poolside dining at Swifty’s at The Colony Hotel are all places to see and be seen if you’ve not been favored with a Club Membership or Guest of a Guest privileges.
So it’s five weeks now until Season. Shop girls are polishing up the glass display counters. Jewelers are polishing up their diamonds and emeralds. Hairdressers are polishing up their mirrored cubicles and immigrant valet car parkers are polishing up their English.
What will be new for 2024-25 ? Will Stubbs & Wootton have a new needlepoint shoe design? Will the Vineta Hotel open before Easter. Will Jeff Bezos and his lady love finally plunk down a half billion for a Palm Beach pad … Will Trump win, will we see Michael Feinstein headline with Michael Buble at the newly rebuilt Royal Poinciana Playhouse? Or will we see a cutting edge drama about a polyamorous Brooklyn couple in matching bucket hats strike out for a new life in rural Arkansas, dragging their bi-racial kid, rescued mixed breed pound puppy and Palestinian ‘refugee’ girlfriend along with them?
All shall be revealed in time.
