If Flagler built the resort, Addison Mizner gave it a face. The architect arrived around 1918 and, with his patron Paris Singer, designed the Everglades Club — and with it invented the look that still defines the island: Mediterranean Revival, all red barrel-tile roofs, stucco walls, arched loggias, and shaded courtyards, as if a corner of the Italian and Spanish coast had washed up in Florida. The style spread from the club down the shopping street and across the estate row, and ‘the Palm Beach look’ became a national shorthand for warm-weather glamour. It is the reason the island still feels like a stage set for the 1920s.
Grand hotels are fragile things, and Palm Beach's were no exception. The Breakers burned and was rebuilt more than once; the present Italian-Renaissance hotel, with its twin belvedere towers, opened in 1926 and still anchors the oceanfront. The original Royal Poinciana — by then aging and outsized — came down in the 1930s, its lumber carried off to build homes. Through it all the island held its character: a narrow strip of sand between the lagoon and the Atlantic that had decided, early and permanently, to be beautiful.
Why People Visit Palm Beach
Palm Beach offers refined culture beside an easy ocean shoreline. Visitors pair the Flagler and Mizner heritage with museum galleries, gardens, and a quiet bike path along the water. It is polished, historic, and relaxed in pace, with year-round appeal in its parks, paths, and public spaces. The vintage Gilded Age glamour is evergreen, drawing architecture lovers and vintage-resort enthusiasts from well beyond the small island, and history and everyday island life sit side by side here in a welcoming way.
