Travelers Are Calling This Florida City The Hamptons of the South

Palm Beach is no stranger to plenty of Florida cliches, like being called “God’s waiting room” but the fact is, with a massive migration of New Yorkers to the southern state, the landscape is changing pretty dramatically, leading a lot of people to refer to it as the Hamptons of the South. Take a look around and you’ll start to understand why.

People covered head to toe in designer clothes, playing tennis and golf, shopping, and sipping on Arnold Palmers. Palm Beach has plenty to offer from Spanish colonial architecture, lush gardens, and tropical interiors. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, a large amount of New Yorkers decided to make the move to South Florida, and colliding with a flurry of new developments, Palm Beach has become much more lively.

Joanna Gong of Sotheby’s Luxury & Lifestyle Division said: “Since 2020, there has been a dramatic increase in luxury brands moving into the Palm Beach market. “With newer developments like The Royal Poinciana Plaza, a curated pocket of real estate has been made available on the traditionally tight island and has subsequently attracted some of the world’s largest names in art and luxury.”

Upper East Side staples like Sant Ambroeus, Almond, Le Bilboquet, and La Goulue have found second locations here, as well as the White Elephant Hotel and its restaurant Lola 41, so it seems like local developers know what the Manhattanite transplants are looking for.

Phillipe Delgrange of Le Bilboquet Group is predicting that there will be more waves of transplants from New York and also from overseas. He said: “I think that in the next two years, we will see even more people moving down to Palm Beach and West Palm, including a lot of Europeans. We are just at the beginning — I know so many people that are preparing to move in the next year or two. I think in the next two years there will be a major European component.”

He continued: “Palm Beach represents the civility of the old world with the kinetic energy of the new.” In addition to civility, there’s the appeal of low taxes, which has also translated to many tech giants opening up shop in South Florida, as well as proximity to the beach that his prediction is likely to come true.

Palm Beach has never been more exciting, and it seems like it will only continue to grow.