WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – Before Donald Trump, Henry Flagler ruled Palm Beach, the tony Florida city 70 miles north of Miami.
Flagler, considered the father of modern Florida, built a mansion here in 1902, now open to tour, and an oceanside hotel, which still attracts some of Florida’s most moneyed guests.
Eight decades later, Trump set up camp nearby, at the Mar-a-Lago estate, originally built by Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal empire.
President Trump bought the property in 1985, turned it into a private club in 1994 and uses it as a primary residence and frequent retreat from the White House.
Honestly, I had never been all that interested in visiting Palm Beach, but I wanted to try the state’s new Brightline passenger rail service and I had less than a day to spare, so I hopped off at the first stop past Orlando: West Palm Beach.
A quick word about West Palm Beach, which is on Florida’s east coast, about 45 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. It’s called West Palm because it’s west of Palm Beach, which is the name of both a 16-mile-long barrier island and a town, population 9,250 (including 68 billionaires according to a recent count by the Palm Beach Daily News.)
West Palm Beach, meanwhile, is across the Lake Worth Lagoon and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Palm Beach, and has a much larger population of 124,000.
During my brief trip, I had planned to tour Flagler’s 75-room, Gilded Age mansion, dubbed Whitehall (also known as the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum). Alas, my early morning flight from Cleveland to Orlando was late (thanks, Frontier), which meant I missed my 1 p.m. train and didn’t arrive in Palm Beach until almost 5. So I skipped the mansion tour and headed to the hotel bar instead.
Related: Riding Brightline from Orlando: Train travel should be this easy everywhere
Flagler, students of Cleveland history may recall, accumulated much of his vast wealth in Cleveland as a co-founder of Standard Oil with longtime business partner John D. Rockefeller. After spending a decade in Cleveland, Flagler turned his attention to Florida in the 1880s, establishing the Florida East Coast Railroad, which opened much of the state up to development (which, to bring the story full circle, is the foundation for much of Brightline’s service).
Flagler’s first hotel in Palm Beach opened in 1894 and was called the Hotel Royal Poinciana, which eventually became the world’s largest, with 1,100 rooms along Lake Worth. Two years later, Flagler opened a second hotel, this one overlooking the ocean, first called the Palm Beach Inn, but later renamed the Breakers.
In 1903, as it was being enlarged, it burned. Rebuilt in 1904, it burned again in 1925, 12 years after Flagler’s death. His heirs then rebuilt it one final time, into the Breakers hotel that stands today (not to be confused with Hotel Breakers, also historic, at Cedar Point in Sandusky).
The place is architectural eye candy, inspired by the elaborate Italian palaces of the 16th century. The exquisite lobby was modeled after the Great Hall of the Palazzo Carrega in Genoa.
The hotel features 534 rooms, five pools, tennis and pickleball courts, plus an 18-hole golf course, 10 shops and nine restaurants and bars, many of which are opened to the public.
I didn’t dine here, but I did enjoy a tasty $22 mezcal margarita (“The Marilyn”) at the gorgeous HMF bar (formerly the Florentine Room).
After wandering around the hotel for a bit, and popping into a couple of shops, my husband and I hit the beach, headed south. We turned back toward town at Worth Avenue, which is known for its seriously high-end shopping (Chanel, Gucci, Ferragamo, et al).
We enjoyed a quick, tasty (and reasonably priced) meal at BrickTop’s, then strolled some more, across Lake Worth via the Royal Park Bridge, back into West Palm Beach and onto our train back to Orlando.
If you go: Palm Beach, Florida
Reminder: West Palm Beach and Palm Beach are separate, neighboring communities in Palm Beach County, north of Fort Lauderdale.
Getting there: From Orlando, I took the Brightline train, which offers service to West Palm Beach and other cities on the southeast Florida coast multiple times daily. Breeze Airways is resuming nonstop service from the Akron-Canton Airport to Palm Beach International Airport in September.
More information: thepalmbeaches.com
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