A Nice, Friendly Place to Visit

"Where do you live?"

"Palm Beach."

"Yes, but where do you live?"

"Palm Beach."

"I mean, where do you live in real life?"

--Two Palm Beach women, 1973

The unreal life of the croquet tournament and the formal ball goes on today just as though nothing much had changed, except for the invention of air conditioning, since Henry Flagler first laid a railroad span across Lake Worth in 1894 and opened up an idyllic new playground to his friends. From what is probably the world's richest island, now at the height of the two-month ritual known simply as The Season, TIME'S Peter Range reports:

PALM BEACH is the kind of town where a base population of 10,000 (swelling during the winter to about 40,000, including the contingent of imported British servants) supports no less than eight branch offices of New York Stock Exchange firms; a bank that handles about $500 million in its trust department; some 25 art galleries peddling an estimated $10 million worth of what local Culture Critic Rolf Kaltenborn calls "the worst art per square inch of any place in the world"; a brand new Rolls-Royce dealership that has sold 35 cars since its opening in West Palm Beach last September; and a mayor who campaigns, usually unopposed, in a mere Cadillac.

Orchids. It is also a town where golf carts have a permanent right of way in crossing Highway A1A, the island's main traffic artery, in front of the Breakers Hotel. It is just the place for alliances of the rich and famous to be born. Silver-haired Jim Kimberly, the Kleenex heir, and his 22-year-old wife Jacquie were out fishing for sailfish a week ago with King Hussein of Jordan, who had made it a point to phone the Kimberlys before meeting with President Nixon in Washington.

Louis Yaeger, an investment consultant and Western Union's largest shareholder, prefers informal surroundings. "I can conduct all my business around the pool," he says. So can Frank McMahon, a Canadian oil millionaire. His poolside telephone has four lines for calls to New York and Vancouver. Though many Palm Beach notables deal daily in stock portfolios that could make a conglomerate feel like a shoeshine parlor, it is considered proper to chat not about mergers but perhaps the difficulties of orchid raising.

The women of Palm Beach generally fall into two categories, and their men follow close behind (in Gucci loafers). Some are big on the social scene, like Mary Sanford, who claims to have been one of the first to make money for charity at parties that everyone was going to anyway. "Women like to put on their ball gowns. They can't wear them to a little private party, can they?" Others profess to avoid it as much as they can. Mrs. Algur Meadows (General American Oil) much prefers to play golf, especially on Ladies' Day at the Everglades Club, but she gets "caught up in" the (strictly ladies) luncheon and (mixed) dinner party circuit. "There are almost too many parties," complains Mrs. Meadows. "I was recently out eleven nights in a row. I canceled out on the twelfth, and there's a luncheon every day. Some people have nothing more to do!"

Her scuba-diving friend, Mrs. George Schrafft, wife of the candy and restaurant man, avoids the grander events and still manages to survive as a popular member of the set. "I love this place because we can have our boat out of the inlet in ten minutes," she says. "But opening night at the Playhouse [every Monday is opening night]--that's the biggest deal in town. All these dames get their jewels out of the vault and go. It's ludicrous."

In fact, the ceremonial of redeeming the jewels at the Worth Avenue National Bank rather resembles a Blue Chip stamp closeout. Troops of chauffeurs stop on South County Road to retrieve the little black bags filled with Madame's diamonds and Sir's cuff links, and they return later at night to redeposit the goods under the watchful eyes of a guard equipped with a short-barreled shotgun. The First National Bank has other treasures in its vaults, including someone's favorite mink teddy bear and 500 bottles of rare French wine of vintages back to 1926.

The leading dowager, Marjorie Merriweather Post, 85, believes in marriage (four), and so, in its way, does the rest of Palm Beach. Millionaire William Wakeman, who had a roving eye, was mysteriously wounded one night, which confined him to a wheelchair, but he continued escorting Mrs. Nancy Wakeman to parties, and when asked about his affliction, he would gently say, "My wife shot me."

Besides, since everyone knows everyone else ("If you sneeze in the north end, you've got pneumonia in the south end," says Jacquie Kimberly), there is little chance for any secret hanky-panky to stay secret. A man of station holds his liquor well and does not dance till dawn with pretty young things. An 11 p.m. nightcap at the Colony Hotel bar is considered a late-night revel.

Rita Lachman, a Parisian gracing the shores of Palm Beach for the first time this season, is enthusiastic about the city. Asked what she is doing with her time, she explains in thick continental accents, "I just divorced Charles Lachman [of Revlon], so you know I'm doing nothing. But I've worn a long dress every night for six weeks, and I've had my picture in the paper seven times already. This is probably one of the last civilized places left in America. It's so rich and it's friendly.'''

Well, March 3rd is Betty McMahon's Hospital Ball, for which she says she has been getting up at 7 every morning and at which she plans to raise $1,000,000. Her friends have been donating unwanted diamonds for auctioning. "Women have some need to get together," she observes. "So why not get together for charity? Let's face it, if you were married to a bus driver, you couldn't do this."

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