Palm Beach
Henry Flagler extended his railway here in 1894 and built two hotels to fill it, and Addison Mizner gave the island its Mediterranean Revival look in the 1920s — stucco, tile, courtyards, invented for Florida wholesale. Worth Avenue is the shopping street he designed with vias and hidden courtyards; the ocean is a hundred metres away and quieter than anything on it.
Why go
Mizner's invented Mediterranean — a 1920s architectural style created for Florida and copied ever since. Worth Avenue — a shopping street designed with vias and hidden courtyards rather than a strip. Flagler's house — a 1902 marble palace built by the man who invented Florida tourism. Ocean and lake in four blocks — the island is narrow enough to walk across before breakfast.
The character
Henry Flagler brought his railway to a barrier island of coconut palms in 1894, built the Royal Poinciana — then the largest wooden building in the world — and created the winter season for northern money. Addison Mizner arrived in 1918 as a sick, self-taught architect and gave the island the look it still has: stucco walls, barrel tile, courtyards, loggias and staircases to nowhere, a Mediterranean that never existed anywhere in the Mediterranean.
The island has been almost unchanged since, because it decided to be. Building codes are severe, hedges are mandatory in effect, and the town has fought development with a determination that has kept both the architecture and the exclusivity intact. Across the Intracoastal, West Palm Beach does the working half of the arrangement. What visitors find is a place of extraordinary quiet: a wide ocean beach with almost nobody on it, a shopping street with no chain fascias, and a Gilded Age house museum that explains the whole thing in an hour.
Places of character
Flagler Museum (Whitehall) — the 1902 mansion, with his private railcar parked in a pavilion behind it. Worth Avenue vias — duck into Via Mizner and Via Parigi; the courtyards are the design, not the shops. The Breakers — walk into the lobby of the 1926 hotel even if not staying; the ceilings were painted by Italians shipped over for the job. Lake Trail — a paved path along the Intracoastal, backing onto the estates; the way locals see the island. Bethesda-by-the-Sea — Mizner's Gothic church with a cloister garden, quiet at any hour. Norton Museum, West Palm Beach — a serious collection across the bridge, with a Foster-designed extension.
The way to do it
Cycle the Lake Trail early — the island reveals itself from the back, not the front. Walk Worth Avenue for the architecture and not the retail. Cross to West Palm for dinner, where the prices are half and the room is livelier. And come in the season, December to April; in August the island is humid, empty and largely closed.
One perfect day
Sunrise swim off the municipal beach, then coffee and the Lake Trail by bicycle with the estates on one side and boats on the other. Whitehall when it opens — the Flagler house takes ninety minutes and explains the entire coast. Lunch in a Worth Avenue courtyard. Afternoon at the Norton across the bridge, then back for the light on the ocean side. Drink on the Breakers terrace at six, dinner in West Palm's Antique Row district, and a last walk on the beach where there is no boardwalk, no lighting and nobody at all.
Grand hotels
The Breakers — 1926 in its third incarnation after two fires, still owned by Flagler's heirs and the island's defining building. The Colony — 1947, pink, small and the address for people who find the Breakers too large.
When to go
Best expression: January to March, dry, warm and the full season in operation. Consider: November and early December, before the rates triple for Christmas. Avoid if possible: August and September, humid and in hurricane season, with much of the island shut.
The frame
Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival by air to West Palm Beach, ten minutes away · Airport PBI, 10 km · Walkability excellent and flat · Best without a car yes, with a bicycle