How the 1% lives in the town now dominated by Trump’s lair Mar-a-Lago, where glitzy parties and rounds of golf can lead to business deals and ambassadorships

As Donald Trump was hosting a controversial open-air situation room with the Japanese prime minister last Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago, his self-styled “Winter White House”, another colourful spectacle was enthralling the cream of Palm Beach society barely a mile and a half away.

The occasion was a lavish 70th birthday party for the billionaire private-equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman, whose longstanding friendship with the new president has evolved into the role of trusted business policy adviser. Hundreds of guests at Schwarzman’s waterfront mega-mansion, Four Winds, enjoyed a cornucopia of entertainment, including live camels on the sands, acrobats and trapeze artists from an Asian circus performing overhead, and Gwen Stefani singing Happy Birthday as $50,000 worth of fireworks lit up the night sky.

Mar-a-Lago: where Trump’s monstourage mingles with paying guests Read more

The gaudy bash, which by some estimates cost the Blackstone Group chief executive up to $9m, was pure Palm Beach opulence, with a glitterati guest list to match. The new president was elsewhere, wrestling with the unfolding North Korean missile crisis in full view of paying dinner guests just up the road at Mar-a-Lago, but he was represented by his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser. Also there, and mingling with many of Palm Beach’s wealthiest and most influential residents, were Trump cabinet picks Elaine Chao, Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross.

The gathering highlighted the fact that Trump’s frequent visits back to his beloved Mar-a-Lago – this will be the president’s third weekend trip here in as many weeks – are more than just self-promoting social calls. The importance to Trump of being able to mix with world leaders or ultra-wealthy and like-minded business associates and friends in the familiar and casual environment of Florida’s billionaires’ playground cannot be overstated, observers say, whether it is over a round of golf at the Trump National course or dinner alfresco on the Mar-a-Lago patio.

Palm Beach businesses stung by cost of hosting Trump's weekend retreat Read more

“Business gets done here, but this is also a place where they want to put jeans and T-shirts on and just hang around,” said Palm Beach society writer Jose Lambiet, who has chronicled Trump’s life at Mar-a-Lago since he bought the property from the estate of the late Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1985.

The associations of Trump’s exclusive Florida circle appear to be a two-way street. Prominent Palm Beachers who have either socialised at Mar-a-Lago or conducted business with Trump have been elevated to positions of influence in his administration, or in some cases “rewarded” with nods to plum ambassador posts overseas.

Schwarzman was named in December as the head of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, an advisory panel of powerful business leaders. Another member of the council, retired Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney, owns a $5.5m mansion at the Palm Beach Polo, Golf & Country Club in nearby Wellington.

Mar-a-Lago rap sheet: noise, traffic stops and a $28,000 ring theft that never was Read more

Schwarzman, whose personal worth is estimated at $11.6bn by Forbes, is a longtime Republican party donor who did not publicly support Trump during his campaign. But their friendship dates beyond an appearance by Trump and his wife Melania, now the first lady, at Schwarzman’s notoriously garish 60th birthday party in New York in 2007, and the equity tycoon hitched a ride home aboard Air Force One last weekend on the way to his most recent celebration.

Meanwhile, other familiar faces from Trump’s dizzying Palm Beach social circle also appear to be going up in the world. Philanthropist Patrick Park, 63, has been friends with the president for almost 20 years and has helped arrange more than 200 charity galas at Mar-a-Lago, which have raised over $100m for various worthy causes, according to the Washington Post, while at same time providing plenty of revenue for the host property’s owner.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stephen Schwarzman: lavish party. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Park, a concert pianist and fervent supporter of the performing arts, who claims to have seen The Sound of Music 75 times, has told reporters that Trump discussed with him the possibility of appointing him the US ambassador to Austria.

Robin Bernstein, one of the 25 founding members of the Mar-a-Lago club, has reportedly been offered the ambassadorship to the Dominican Republic. Bernstein, president of a prominent West Palm Beach insurance company she owns with her husband, recently described the new president’s winter home as “almost a return to Camelot”, after John F Kennedy’s frequent trips to the family’s Palm Beach compound in the early 1960s.

A third Mar-a-Lago member, 80-year-old Irish-American art collector, lawyer and philanthropist Brian Burns, who became friends with Trump about a decade ago, is undergoing background checks to become ambassador to Ireland, it was reported this week.

The White House did not respond to a Guardian request for confirmation, but Massachusetts-born Burns told the Boston Globe last month that Trump had collared him and his wife Eileen on the way in to a Thanksgiving week dinner at Mar-a-Lago and said, “Brian, are you ready to go to Ireland?”

“All these people, either through charitable causes or through their actual business, have been involved with money transactions either going from Trump or to Trump, and now they’re being considered for ambassadorships,” Lambiet said.

“I’m not impugning their characters, all three are fine, upstanding, good and smart people, but [have] zero combined diplomatic experience. They join the club, when they see Trump they are recognised, ‘How are you Richard and Robin?’, but from there to being ambassadors, it’s a giant leap.”

Lambiet says he has also noticed a recent change in ambience at the club. “Since he’s been president there’s a lot of gadflies that are converging on Mar-a-Lago,” he said. “It used to be billionaires, old money, or at least money that was earned, like the Koch brothers or Jim Clark, the Netscape guy.

“Now there are sycophants who go in every Friday just to see if Trump is there. The level has gone down substantially over the last year or so, I would say since he started campaigning. The clientele has levelled quite a bit through the bottom.”

Laurence Leamer, author of the book Madness Under the Royal Palms, a historical account of Palm Beach’s growth and culture of privilege, said there was no shortage of the wealthy eager to pay Mar-a-Lago’s $200,000 initiation fee to gain access to Trump.

“Is he cashing in? Of course it’s cashing in and he’s making profit off it, but welcome to America. It’s capitalism pure and simple,” he said. “You think he’s going to have trouble finding people to pay that? Think what it is to these people. It’s what you and I would take somebody out for dinner for. Let’s face it, it’s exciting. It’s overwhelmingly good for business and overwhelmingly people are positive about him coming here.”

The Palm Beach set

Some of Donald Trump’s wealthy and influential neighbours

Stephen Schwarzman, 70

Founder and chief executive of Blackstone Group



Personal net worth: $11.6bn



Link to Trump: Longtime friend, now president of Strategic and Policy Forum, Trump’s influential advisory panel of business leaders.



Thomas Peterffy, 72



Founder and chief executive of Interactive Brokers, electronic stock trading pioneer



Net worth: $16bn



Link to Trump: Hungarian immigrant and Florida’s richest year-round resident was one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and financial donors during election campaign.



Patrick Park, 63

Philanthropist; director of Park Corporation, Ohio-based industrial manufacturing/lending giant



Net worth: Unknown



Link to Trump: Brought 200+ charity balls to Mar-a-Lago, reportedly talked to Trump about becoming US ambassador to Austria.



Ernie Els, 47

Professional golfer



Net worth: $75m



Link to Trump: Occasional golfing partner, played with Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe last weekend. Trump has supported charity Els for Autism.



Robin Bernstein, 63

Co-founder and president, Richard S Bernstein & Associates Inc, high-end insurance advisers



Net worth: Unknown



Link to Trump: Founder member Mar-a-Lago club, longtime friend and adviser. Expected to be nominated US ambassador to Dominican Republic.



David Koch, 76, and William Koch, 76

Twins sons of Koch Industries founder Fred Koch, respectively executive VP of Koch Industries and founder/CEO of Oxbow Carbon LLC



Net worth: $45.4bn, $1.22bn.



Link to Trump: Tea Party bankrollers and Mar-a-Lago members have clashed with Trump and backed campaign rivals; now reportedly talking with new administration over areas of mutual interest.



Brian Burns, 80

Chairman/CEO BF Enterprises (real estate/development), Irish-American art collector and philanthropist



Net worth: unknown.



Link to Trump: Longstanding friend and Mar-a-Lago member. Reportedly asked by Trump to be US ambassador to Ireland.



Wealth estimates from Forbes