Palm Beach Is on Edge After Mar-a-Lago Called a Coronavirus “Hot Zone”
A little more than two weeks ago, social life in Palm Beach, Florida was rolling along like business as usual. On a balmy Friday night, on one part of town, the island's A-list gathered in their finery to attend the Preservation Foundation’s annual dinner dance, one of the season's most coveted tickets. There were hints that something was off; there were suddenly more air kisses than usual among the 300 or so guests.
Meanwhile, Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's so-called winter White House, was hosting the first of a pair of weekend fundraisers that would gather hundreds of guests, each with a receiving line held in the club’s ornate White & Gold Ballroom. The following evening, Trump hosted Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his entourage for dinner, while nearby, guests began gathering for a birthday blowout in honor of ex-Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend.
It's fair to say the mood in Palm Beach has darkened since then.
After several guests at the resort that weekend confirmed they tested positive for the Coronavirus, including the Congressman Matt Gaetz and members of the Brazilian delegation, the island has become one of the epicenters of the pandemic in Florida, whose Southern region claims half of the state's 131 confirmed cases.
In the eyes of some, Mar-a-Lago itself is something of a "coronavirus hot zone," to quote the New York Times.
As a result, or perhaps general anxiety around COVID-19, some residents hightailed it to their private jets waiting on the tarmac of Palm Beach International Airport in favor of other homes in less densely populated areas such as Aspen or the Hamptons, not that there was much comfort to be found there.
Other New Yorkers choose to ride out the pandemic at their Palm Beach second homes, causing some south-bound flights to arrive full while those northbound left nearly empty.
Around the island, the terms “social distancing” and “flattening the curve” have come to dominate the conversation, and event cancellation or postponement emails flood inboxes, much like they have elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Palm Beach’s storied private clubs, which operate in a tight-lipped manner even during the best of times, circled their wagons even closer together. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention banned large-scale gatherings around the country, BBQ nights and seafood buffets here were cancelled, and lunch and dinner service was either reduced or curtailed, with some clubs offering curbside takeout only.
With a great many members well into their 70s and 80s, many opted to stay home. On the other hand, Mar-a-Lago has announced that while the main building will be closed, the oceanfront beach club “will continue to operate as normal” with half-capacity dining and takeout. (Florida has ordered all nightclubs and bars to close for 30 days, but restaurants are still permitted to operate at half capacity.)
Golf courses remain open at all private clubs, as do tennis facilities. All of the Town’s recreational facilities, however, have been shuttered, with the exception of the Town Marina, which is “practicing social distancing.” On Wednesday the town formally instituted a curfew from 9 p.m. t0 6 a.m., which is slated to last until at least May 12. A drive down Worth Avenue, the area's premier shopping mecca, showed almost all stores dark, with notices taped to their doors.
The most telling sign that the Coronavirus turned Palm Beach into a proper gilded cage was an announcement from the Breakers, Palm Beach’s unofficial ship of state, that the entire resort would close for three weeks.
“It felt like the Titanic,” said one member who successfully squeezed in one last lunch. It couldn't help matters that a drive-thru coronavirus testing facility that opened on Monday has only admitted a fraction of the 6,000 residents who have called for appointments.
For now, small gatherings are the order of the day, if only on those terraces large enough to allow for six feet of distance between friends. Couples can still be seen walking for exercise on almost every street, but especially along the Lake Trail that fronts the Intracoastal Waterway, or at the island’s southernmost end, which offers an uninterrupted two mile stretch of sidewalk.
If that all sounds like the definition of fiddling while Rome burns, it's a familiar tune around these parts. In enclaves like Palm Beach, that’s the swan song that’s being sung, at least for now.
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