Give Yourself Credit: You Belong in Palm Beach : Florida’s mecca of moolah may be too rich for some visitors. Others find they develop a taste.

Give Palm Beach a few days. Odds are you’ll love it.

Or loathe it.

Get past the south Florida blue sky and sunshine, the sea-breezy heat, the mellow bathtub-warm surf. Next to the weather, what Palm Beach stuffs in your face is money. Wealth. Bucks. Moolah. Gelt.

A few years back, someone deliberately drove a 1965 Rolls Royce into Lake Worth to give scuba divers something to explore.

Palm Beach money is understated, like the sunken Rolls. We’re not talking ostentation or glitz a la Rodeo Drive. Plenty of precious metal on the streets (Jags, Rollses, high-end Infinitis) and on the women (Bulgari, Tiffany, Van Cleef & Arpels). But no towering glass high-rises, no sassy hotels with gilt fountains, no fancy Ferrari showrooms, no lavish club scene. Au Bar happens late at night, surviving off its celebrity status; if Willie Smith and his uncle Ted Kennedy hadn’t had a late-night drink there in the spring of 1991, the place would’ve closed up months ago for lack of business.

Along with accumulating wealth, sex has long been a favorite diversion of the rich, but the subject really arrived in Palm Beach with the Smith trial.

“It’s a Peyton Place here,” an eligible woman confided to me over a carafe of Pinot Noir. “Everybody knows everybody. They attend the same soirees, the same charity balls, the same parties. They drop names: Estee Lauder, Roxanne Pulitzer. Kennedy.”

The extent of bed-hopping may be exaggerated in Palm Beach, and Jack Owen, a former bookshop owner/reporter/publicity man/gadfly believes that hiring away a servant from an acquaintance is far more reprehensible than any infidelity.

Palm Beach is a place where tour buses are banned, where thrift-shop prices are on a par with Bergdorf’s retail, where the magnificent houses back on the lake or front on the beach and manicured hedges hide the views from visiting voyeurs. Street signs are at curb level so they won’t sully the air.

You won’t find welcome signs or dogs on the beach. Clotheslines are forbidden, and so are launderettes, homeless people and moviemakers. Single, good-looking men are eagerly sought, I was told, because widows greatly outnumber widowers in this enclave, and single men are useful as ballast at unevenly matched dinner parties.

To natives, Palm Beach is simply “the island”: a thin strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, in some places only a few hundred yards wide from bay to breakers.

To the rest of us, Palm Beach is a placid retreat from reality: sedate hotels with lobbies that reek of polish and class, trendy restaurants and some of the best window-shopping in the Western Hemisphere. For this, one either gets in the proper mood here, or one doesn’t.

In Maus & Hoffman, a men’s clothier on fabulously fashionable Worth Avenue, I almost bought a tie for $150 (my first car cost less than $150)--it’s the thought that counts. When you think of $150 in terms of a tie and not in terms of the electric bill, you’re ready for Palm Beach.

Long-term exposure to such inordinate wealth can be hazardous to the mental health of regular folk: Your envy levels rise like blood pressure after a bungee jump. Even in the short term, the presumptuousness of Palm Beach can cause a kind of culture shock. People easily intimidated may find Palm Beach disagreeable.

Make it a challenge. Bring an extra stack of traveler’s checks, let the delicious atmosphere wash around you, and for a week or so you can live like The Other Half. Or pretend to.

Palm Beach really is a world unto itself. (West Palm, just across the drawbridges, has a nifty art gallery and a glamorous new performing arts center, but it’s a poor relation to Palm Beach. Almost any place would be.)

Bookended by the walled Kennedy compound on one end and the private Everglades Club at the other, this island home of CEOs, tycoons, polo players and rock stars (John Lennon had a house here) has been socially compromised in recent decades. Blocks of condos replaced razed estates; open gardens, new money and youthful year-round residents moved in, and the blue blood isn’t quite as royal blue these days.

Henry Morrison Flagler created a beach for the nation’s nobs a century ago. Flagler, a partner of John D. Rockefeller and co-founder of Standard Oil, had been wintering in St. Augustine when he came south in the spring of 1893 to investigate. The waving palms, subtropical weather and warming Gulf Stream entranced him: Flagler paid $125,000 for a vacant lot and built the magnificent Royal Poinciana Hotel. He extended his railroad to Palm Beach from St. Augustine. He gave his laborers and servants free homesteads on the mainland, which kept the laborers and servants off Palm Beach.

The second prime mover in Palm Beach history was Addison Mizner, the architect of a style one guidebook calls “Bastard-Spanish-Moorish-Romanesque-Gothic-Renaissance-Bull Market-Damn the Expense.”

Through his business partner, Paris Singer (of the sewing machine family), Mizner gained entree to Palm Beach society and won them over with his design of the Everglades Club, the first public building in the Mediterranean-revival style. And not the last. Through the ‘20s, Mizner shaped the style of Palm Beach (and Boca Raton) with his brilliant, eccentric vision.

Some have dismissed Mizner’s work as trivial, but renowned New York architect Robert A.M. Stern recently wrote that Mizner transformed “what was little more than a 19th-Century frontier village into the quintessential 20th-Century resort.”

Time in Palm Beach is measured with two seasons: The Season, and the other months.

Tourists will find cheaper rooms and fewer crowds from April to November. Obviously, energy levels drop dramatically in the off-season, and some visitors may find it depressing to drive among all the boarded-up mansions and haciendas (others will find the haciendas depressing, boarded-up or not).

You can tell when it’s The Season at The Breakers, the grandest of the grand old resorts on Palm Beach, by inquiring at the registration desk. Off-season room rates start at $125 per night; in the winter it’s $280.

No longer do donkey-drawn surreys shuttle guests from the train station to The Breakers. I think the place looks rather sterile and institutional. But this sturdy palace on a half mile of beachfront, whose design was inspired by the Villa Medici in Florence, still caters to customers from Park Avenue and Nob Hill, although in recent years it has become more receptive to package groups and conventioneers. Another concession to the god of income: The Breakers is now open year-round, and even non-guests can dine in the restaurants under gold-leaf ceilings.

Some restaurants. The beamed ceiling in the Florentine dining room is a copy of the one in the Florentine Palace Davanzate. The Circle dining room is dominated by a dangling Venetian chandelier of bronze, mirrors and crystal.

After checking in and checking out this opulence, a visitor needs a reality check. A table at Chuck & Harold’s Cafe on Royal Poinciana Way does nicely.

Tourists and locals mingle here on the sidewalk cafe or in the back veranda, a bit like “Out of Africa,” where a circus tent towers over the tables and a piano trio plays pop standards. The menu is neat: blackened swordfish, Tuscan black-bean soup with a mean kick, crispy “angel-hair” onion rings, voluminous wine list.

Cheap eats aren’t the thing in Palm Beach (expect to spend an easy $50 per couple at Chuck & Harold’s) except up at Herbert’s Lafayette gourmet shop at the corner of Sunrise and North County Roads, where the selection of spring waters is vast and the takeout food is splendid.

Take the big splurge in the bistro-esque Cafe l’Europe on the second floor of a mini-mall at 150 Worth Ave.: Peanut-coated sea scallops, shredded potato crust yellowfin snapper, decadent chocolate fudge pie. At least $100 for two.

The restaurant at the friendly Brazilian Court hotel offers a terrific hamburger with salad and fries for $7. The hotel itself, decorated in very Floridian shades of white, yellow and lime, is chic and funky, with delightful courtyards and a small pool. Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant were put up here, if that matters.

After lunch at the Brazilian Court, Worth Avenue is a five-minute walk. Any hotel will supply a map, but that’s not necessary. Just slip on white ducks, khaki slacks, a gold-buttoned blazer and a Hermes scarf. And a credit card.

In the old days, Worth Avenue indeed had an exclusive air; “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” could have been invented here. These were shops--Cartier, Jaeger, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Chanel--one didn’t find outside Palm Beach, Bal Harbour and Beverly Hills. Now they’re in Minneapolis. So how exclusive is Worth Avenue? Not exclusive enough to keep out a Banana Republic, where jeans were selling for $29.99.

Still, the ambience is heady and rich. Tourneau has a corner on Worth and South Country Road stocked with Rolexes. At Marcelle, a giraffe in the window is encrusted with jewels. At Salvatore Ferragamo the shoe displays are fine art.

The inner workings of Palm Beach society, concocted in sanctums along Cocoanut Row and Royal Palm Way, aren’t nearly as obvious as Ferragamo’s shoes or Ungaro’s latest fashions. Exploring that takes connections. “A lot of people come to Palm Beach, and the first and last things they know about it are Worth Avenue and The Breakers,” said Jack Owen. Not implying he’d arrange my entree to the next ball, Owen suggested another way to get to know Palm Beach: a bike tour.

Aboard a red Schwinn rented from my hotel, I hit the 5-mile Lake Trail, a paved path by the Waterway. Using Owen’s “Irreverent Guide,” I explored Mar-a-Lago, the stunning two-story home of the late Mrs. Merriweather Post that Donald Trump bought. I dipped into Whitehall, Flagler’s Doric-columned mansion, pedaled past the former Vanderbilt estate where Lennon lived, circled the docks by the exclusive Sailfish Club, came around by the Palm Beach Country Club and ended up on the beach north of The Breakers. I sat under a palm and watched the Atlantic churn. The surf was a dirty green--the color of money.

GUIDEBOOK

Living It Up in Palm Beach

Getting there: There is no nonstop service from LAX to Palm Beach, Fla., but connecting service is available on Continental, United, Delta, American. Advance-purchase fare is $500 round trip.

Where to stay: The Brazilian Court, 301 Australian Ave., Palm Beach, (407) 655-7740; $85-$130 for a double, off-season. The Breakers, One S. County Road, Palm Beach, (407) 655-6611; $200-$350 for a double, shoulder-season. The Boca Raton Resort and Club, 501 E. Camino Real Drive, Boca Raton, (407) 395-3000; $190-$300 for a double, shoulder-season. The Shore Edge, 425 N. Ocean Blvd., Boca Raton, (407) 395-4491; $40-$50 for a double, off-season.

Where to eat: Chuck & Harold’s, 207 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach, (407) 659-1440; Herbert’s Lafayette Market, 155 N. County Road, Palm Beach (corner of Sunrise and North County roads), (407) 655-6545; Cafe l’Europe, 150 Worth Ave., Palm Beach (second floor of mini-mall), (407) 655-4020; The Bistro, Brazilian Court hotel, 301 Australian Ave., Palm Beach, (407) 655-7740.

Bicycle rentals: Blarney Ltd. in Palm Beach offers bicycle rentals through most hotels for $5 per hour, $15 per day or $40 per week; (407) 586-9555.

For more information: Contact the Palm Beach County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 1555 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd., Suite 204, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33401, (800) 242-1774. Or the Florida Division of Tourism, 126 W. Van Buren, Tallahassee, Fla. 32399-2000, (904) 487-1462.