THE PALM BEACH SEASON

January through April · Palm Beach, Florida · A Season · Since 1894 · Festival

Arranged by the Court

The Palm Beach oceanfront from above during The Palm Beach Season, the Atlantic on one side and the island’s towers on the other — I · The Oceanfront

Dates: The 2027 dates are to follow
WherePalm Beach
DressLounge suit
AdmissionOpen to the public
The weatherIn January Palm Beach reaches about 75°F by day and 58°F at night, and rain falls on about one day in four.
The tableThe Court dines afterwards at Café L'Europe, 331 S. County Rd., Palm Beach (cafeleurope.com).
In companyA member who means to go says so to the Secretary, and the Court seats its members together where the engagement allows.RSVP tells the Secretary that a member means to attend. Send passes the engagement’s name, its date and the address of its page to whomever the reader chooses, or, on a computer, copies the address; the Court itself sends and keeps nothing.RSVP

The Palm Beach season runs from after Thanksgiving to Easter, with its weight in January, February and March. It is not an event. It is four months in which a particular set of people are all on a barrier island three-quarters of a mile wide, and the calendar fills with balls, luncheons and benefits because they are all there at once.

The island was built for this and has never been used for anything else.

The Island

Henry Flagler brought the railway down the Florida coast and opened a hotel on Lake Worth in 1894. He built a house nearby, Whitehall, and entertained in it in a way that set the pattern. The season existed because Flagler’s guests came for it.

Paris Singer arrived in 1918, heir to the sewing machine fortune, and began building a convalescent hospital for shell-shocked officers on what was then a gravel road called Worth Avenue. The war ended before it opened. He made it a club instead, opened it in January 1919, and decided the membership himself.

His architect was Addison Mizner, who had no formal training and an eye for Spanish and Moorish building picked up while travelling. What he did at the club, and then at the houses along the ocean for the Stotesburys, the Phippses and the Vanderbilts, became the Palm Beach look. The island has been building versions of it ever since.

The Clubs

The social structure of Palm Beach is its clubs, and the ones that matter are closed.

The Everglades Club sits at the west end of Worth Avenue behind an entrance most visitors walk past without seeing. It keeps no website. Membership is by invitation. The Bath and Tennis, on the ocean at the south end, asks for invitation and a sponsor. The Palm Beach Country Club is at the north end. Club Colette takes a great many of the season’s dinners.

What is open is the hotel. The Breakers holds the largest balls of the season, the International Red Cross Ball among them, and a person with a ticket may attend without belonging to anything.

That distinction is worth understanding before arriving. The galas can be bought into. The clubs cannot, and the clubs are where the season actually happens.

The island of Palm Beach, Florida, from the air during The Palm Beach Season, golf courses and pools running down to the beach — II · From the Air

What to Know

Black tie means black tie. The Red Cross Ball publishes no dress code; the Court wears white tie to it.

January through March is the season proper. November and December are quiet. By April the island is emptying.

Worth Avenue is four blocks long, and the vias running off it are the point: courtyards, staircases that go nowhere, shops Mizner built to look three centuries older than they are.

Whitehall is open as a museum, with Flagler’s private railway carriage parked behind it. Most people who come for the season never go.

The mistake is booking a hotel and expecting to find the season. Palm Beach is private in the sense that matters, and access runs through people rather than tickets.

Questions

When is the Palm Beach social season?

From after Thanksgiving to Easter, with its weight in January, February and March. The American Red Cross presents its International Red Cross Ball as the opening of the season; the 66th is on Friday 8 January 2027 at The Breakers.

How do you get tickets to the Red Cross Ball in Palm Beach?

Places are taken through sponsorship, arranged with the American Red Cross South Florida Region’s events office. The ball brings together ambassadors, guests and members of the armed forces, and its proceeds support the Red Cross’s work for families in crisis and for the military.

What is the dress code at Palm Beach galas?

No single code governs the season; each ball states its own on the invitation, and the American Red Cross publishes none for its ball online. The Court wears a lounge suit by day, and black tie or white tie in the evening exactly as the invitation states.

Can you visit Whitehall, the Flagler Museum?

Yes. As of October 2026 it is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon, closed Mondays, at $28 for adults and $14 for children aged 6 to 12. Admission includes docent tours and Flagler’s Railcar No. 91; from the day after Thanksgiving to Easter the café serves a Gilded Age-style tea.

The boutiques of Worth Avenue lit at dusk in Palm Beach, Florida, during The Palm Beach Season — III · Worth Avenue at Dusk

The Court

The Palm Beach season is not the Court’s own. Places at the season’s balls, a table at the right dinners and rooms on the island are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards. Rooms in February are the difficult part.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.