WORKING FROM HOME

OPALM BEACH, Fla. n a postcard-perfect day here, tourist Kinsey Hoffman saw many things she had never seen before: mansions with 12-foot-high gold-painted eagle statues decorating the driveway; million-dollar mega-yachts lined up 10 abreast, bobbing in the Intracoastal Waterway; chic boutiques on Worth Avenue, where a dog collar costs $475.

But as impressive as all that was, Hoffman was dazzled by what she saw crossing the bridge to get to the island.

“Seeing boats with Secret Service people and machine guns, that’s kind of not what you expect when you’re going to the beach. That’s really something,” said Hoffman, 22, of Louisville. “We don’t see things like that back home.”

Hoffman was vacationing with her family in Palm Beach for the Thanksgiving weekend, the same time President-elect Donald Trump came to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, for the holiday.

The difference between a visit by candidate Trump and Presidentelect Trump was evident from a mile away.

When he was just a candidate, the police presence around the estate was minimal. A local police officer was stationed at the front Moorish-style gate and another one at the back entrance.

This weekend, the security was far more intense. Secret Service agents on two small boats patrolled the Intracoastal behind Mar-a-Lago. They also set up a small temporary communications tower, about the size of a lifeguard station, on a dirt lot to the east of the estate. A half-dozen police cars were spaced along Ocean Boulevard, the narrow two-lane road that winds past the front entrance and follows the property as it curves around the southern tip of Palm Beach. Officers flagged down any trucks that approached, sending them in a direction away from the compound.

Trump’s first visit to his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate since winning the presidential election signaled a change in the way life in Palm Beach will be when the sprawling compound becomes the winter White House in two months. The biggest change appears to be traffic.

“Traffic was a lot worse. It took us longer to get to the beach,” said 21-year-old Cooper Podosnik, a nurse who lives in West Palm Beach. He was lying in the sun on Midtown Beach, about a mile away from Mar-a-Lago. “So I don’t like that part of it. But it’s still kind of cool to think that the next president of the United States is right down the road from us now.”

Traffic woes will have to be handled the same way Palm Beachers have handled Trump in the past: They’ll just have to deal with it.

“I suppose we’ll all adapt,” resident and business owner Catherine Louis said. “There’s not much else we can do at this point. But this time it feels a little different. When George W. Bush was elected, people in town were celebrating. When President Barack Obama was first elected, a gloomy pall settled over Palm Beach. This time, nobody wants to outright celebrate, but I’m sure half the island is thrilled.”

Trump has expected the town to deal with him, on his terms, since he bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985. His brash style, coupled with his ostentatious taste, rubbed the oldmoney social set in Palm Beach the wrong way from the start. His flurry of lawsuits, on issues from the local airport to the size of his flagpole, have alienated even those who gave the billionaire developer the benefit of the doubt at first.

Trump succeeded in turning the aging 1927 compound, built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, into a private club and resort, overcoming town ordinances and social pressure. He spruced up the property inside and out, transforming Mar-a-Lago from a hulking historic artifact into a fashionable resort that caters to the ultra-wealthy (memberships at Mar-a-Lago cost $100,000, plus fees of $13,000 a year).

Mar-a-Lago is the go-to spot for a slate of prestigious charity balls every year, rivaling the old-guard Breakers Resort and Flagler Museum as a high-end hot spot to hold a ball. Celebrities including Elton John, James Taylor and Tony Bennett have appeared there. Rock star Rod Stewart, Trump’s neighbor, has also been a guest.

President John F. Kennedy and his extended family spent winters at the Kennedy estate on the northern end of the island.