Does every billionaire have a private jet? Are they standard toys for these very special people? Intrigued by this uniquely modern possibility, I inquired of Palm Beach International Airport (PBIA) how many private jets are registered here. The answer: 172. Some of them are no doubt owned by corporations, but that number compares well with the 67 billionaires thought to have homes in the area – perhaps some have two; that wouldn’t be unthinkable.
But, of course, owning your own Gulfstream involves more than just turning up at a private airfield with no worries as to how much your bags weigh. Maybe some very rich folk don’t want the hassle of employing year-round pilots (at least two) or the bother of constant maintenance needed to keep these toys in the air. That might explain a recent survey in one of the local rags here: a rating of major airlines’ first-class sections.
Golf club admission can cost $500,000 so lawyers, doctors and dentists are being priced out
All of them – Delta, Cathay Pacific, Air France, Singapore – have recently upgraded their services, with onboard showers now popular, even de rigueur. But the prize must go to Qatar Airways’s “QSuite” and Etihad Airways’s “The Residence.” Both boast in their A380s (double-decker Airbuses) what are described as “industry firsts” – double beds which, the publicity avers, offer privacy “and socialization,” a discreet word for mile-high copulation. If anything, though, the very top prize in luxury must go to “The Residence,” for it is actually a three-room suite, involving, besides a double bed, a bathroom and shower. If that is not enough, a “dedicated butler” is included.
For those closer to Earth, and who must make do with mere automobiles, one pleasure has recently been circumscribed, as the authorities have been clamping down on the range of personalized number plates that are allowed in Palm Beach. The list of refused plates is perhaps a guide to the warped psychology of some of the residents. Among those turned down were: “KILL 666,” “V1BR8OR,” “ER3CT,” “MRDR WGN” and – oh dear! – “SLUT.” Maybe you need a sense of humor to get past the censors.
Mixed news on the nightclub front. While the Palm Beaches are set to have six more clubs by the fall, all offering, as you would expect, “discreet elegance,” “discerning sophistication” and either private yacht spaces or rooftop views of the Atlantic, one of them, “Dutchman’s Pipe,” also offers a Jack Nicklaus-designed signature course, “7,287 yards of pristine landscape.”
The mixed part of the news is that other golf clubs in the area are doing so well that admission fees range from $125,000 to $500,000 and, as one of the local sheets put it, lawyers and doctors and dentists are now being priced out of the most swanky venues by hedge-fund types, and are having to travel further afield for a regular game.
There is mixed news, too, on the property front. The good news is that West Palm Beach continues its rise as the alternative to New York’s Wall Street. Wall Street South, as WPB likes to style itself, began to expand during Covid, but the surge south has not let up. In fact – this is the mixed part of the news – some smaller financial firms are being driven either north or further inland in the search for affordable premises.
The property boom continues, but clearly building takes a while and it is much easier for companies in New York to up sticks and pay a premium rent in downtown WPB. This disparity in timing is the reason for pressure on central properties. And yet more pressure will be put on space by the news that Vanderbilt University has successfully raised $300 million for a seven-acre lot to house a new grad school, teaching “hard” sciences, mathematics and AI, which will also reinforce the idea of Palm Beach becoming Wall Street South.
Also promised this year, and related to the prosperity that goes with Wall Street South, is a network of air taxis linking a series of Florida cities. WPB will see a new piece of infrastructure, a “Vertiport.” Heliports are old news, but the new air taxis are nothing like traditional helicopters, more like large drones that have become familiar. The travel time from Palm Beach to Miami will be cut, we are promised, from two hours to 20 minutes.
Mixed news, too, on the “grass” front, if you’ll pardon the expression. There are moves throughout Florida to ease up on the sale of marijuana to adults over 21, provided it is sold in small amounts. At the same time – and this has surprised me most – one resident in the north of the island has been fined a whopping $75,000 for “using” (you can’t say “growing”) fake “grass” (Astroturf) in his garden. This sounds a little – shall we say – OTT, given that the said resident claims he is allergic to natural grass, which eventually, over the months, gives him pneumonia.
The matter isn’t settled (he’s appealing), but the town council say they are worried that the case might set a precedent and Palm Beach life would risk being fake in even more ways than it is already.
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