Gossip galore in Palm Beach as the turbulent year of 2025 stumbled to its close. Top of the heap is the tale of the popular maître d’ of Bice, a swanky restaurant (the original opened years ago opposite Teatro alla Scalla in Milan), who has been arrested by ICE, allegedly for driving a car with darkened windows (regarded as a suspicious practice). He was also – again, allegedly – forced to eat off the floor at “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention facility in Ochopee, Florida. This was, apparently, judged as a condign punishment for a maître d’, ICE showing a bleak sense of humor. The maître d’, of Mexican origin, has been in the US for 20 years and has a work permit. As one local said: “He is part of our lives, not just our nights out.” Vigils have been held. A letter campaign signed by “thousands of the great and the good,” alleging “un-American behavior” by ICE, had, at the time of writing, finally achieved his release, but it has left a nasty scar across what is, after all, Donald Trump’s hometown.
The aging middle-aged are agog. Plastic surgeons are not
Not far behind is the story of the couple who threw a grand and gaudy wedding bash at another swanky hotspot, only to return to the same establishment a month later, soon after their honeymoon, and get into an argument of such contentious and violent proportions that the police were called and the (erstwhile) lovers arrested. This being PB, it did the swanky joint’s reputation no harm.
And not far below that, in a place that prides itself on stylish living, is the case of an individual (presumably not a local) who ate a dead dog in public near the beach (no, I am not making this up). Not the least puzzling aspect of this episode is the extent to which laws, if any, were broken by such an egregious stunt.
Also making the rounds is a new activity attracting the more adventurous: “iguana diving.” Iguanas are an increasing nuisance in low country with lots of water, and although water is their natural habitat, it turns out that they are by no means as adept (or dangerous) in that medium as, say, alligators, and it has become the fashion to dive in (even fully clothed if the opportunity presents itself) and grab the beasts, ridding this fabled land of pests one by one and earning the divers social acclaim.
But by far the most subversive news to the Palm Beach way of life is the much-publicized story of a 52-year-old woman who had the temerity to release photographs of herself after she had decided not to have a facelift.
Facelifts are to Palm Beach as politics is to Washington, DC. PB is blessed (or maybe cursed) in having not one, but two periodicals devoted to its social life: Palmer and Palm Beach Illustrated. The latter even runs a column (though it’s really an ad) by a local plastic surgeon who takes readers through various fearsome-sounding procedures: brow lifts, blepharoplasty (eyelid lifts), lip lifts, earlobe reductions, fat grafting and liposuction. His main news is that people as young as 43 now seek treatments that are known to be effective for only ten to 15 years, meaning there are people around here who have surely had two or even three lifts.
But the 52-year-old woman, before embarking on her own facelift at a cost, she reports, of $21,000, had second thoughts and instead bought a jar of Olavita, advertised as an “anti-aging serum.” It has to be said, the results are spectacular. The woman published four photographs of herself in a local rag before and after a few weeks’ of (self-administered) treatment with the serum (retail price $14.99), and the pictures do not lie. Her wrinkles have disappeared, the lines above her upper lip are gone, her eyelids are smaller and smoother. She looks a good 15 years younger and has regained her former svelte beauty. The aging middle-aged are agog. Plastic surgeons are not.
And among the stories that you can’t quite believe, but that are nonetheless true, is this juicy example of a sense of entitlement showing itself (entitlement always being an issue on PB, which is home to tens of billionaires). This one concerns a “gentleman” who tested the local services to the limit. His challenge was the domestic item he left on the sidewalk outside his home for the garbage services to take away: a grand piano.
Better news on the music front is the reopening – after a very long absence – of the Sunset Lounge. This, during the 1940s and 1950s, was home to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie, at a time when segregation – which still existed in practice down here – limited the access of African Americans to many nightspots. The first acts in the reopened hotspot – 20,000 square feet of it – will be Valerie Tyson and her soul band and pianist Copeland Davis with Avery Sommers, who is welcomed back after a serious fall which kept her off stage for seven months.
In another turn back in time, Palm Beach’s only gas station has succeeded in gaining approval from the town council to expand and reinvent itself. Part of the reinvention is a change from “Mediterranean style” to mid-20th-century modernism, but it also includes a new name for the gas station: Palm Petrol. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “petrol” gave way to “gasoline” in America around 1891.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s January 19, 2026 World edition.
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