Most coverage of Palm Beach ends at Easter. Residents from Club Colette to Palm Beach Country Club pack for Nantucket or the Hamptons, the gala circuit closes, and the assumption sets in that the island empties out. The assumption is wrong this year in a specific way. Summer 2026 is the first off-season in which the venues that will define next winter are already open, already staffed, and already taking walk-ins from the people who stayed.
That is the difference worth understanding if you live here year-round or hold a house through the wet months. The pace has changed. The reservation friction that defines January through March has lifted, but the rooms behind those reservations are new.
The Playhouse Corner Is No Longer Dormant
For sixty years the corner of Royal Poinciana Way anchored by the 1958 John Volk playhouse produced almost nothing between May and October. That ended this year.
