Palm Beach has been a backdrop for presidential politics in the past; John F. Kennedy turned it into his “winter White House.” But Trump, who has maintained a presence in the area for decades, has essentially turned the town into a sunny hub for political horse-trading.

Mar-a-Lago is likely to be a hive of activity at least until Jan. 20, when Trump will be sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in Washington, and is likely to remain a Trump stronghold after he is sworn in.

The president-elect’s advisers and allies expect him to spend plenty of time in Florida, and political operatives are expanding their presence there, seeking office space within range of the club.

“I expect it to be the center of the universe outside D.C., probably a lot more than the first term,” said Nick Iarossi, a lobbyist who has opened an office in Palm Beach for his firm Capital City Consulting.

Trump helped Palm Beach’s rise in other ways, too. His caps on state and local tax deductions in his first term helped spur a massive migration of wealth south, taking advantage of places without a state income tax, including Florida.

The cap, along with most of Trump’s 2017 tax law, expires at the end of 2025.

Some of Trump’s neighbors in Palm Beach held high-level positions during his first term. Schwarzman served as an ambassador to China. Financier Wilbur Ross was Trump’s commerce secretary. Former Marvel Entertainment president Isaac Perlmutter was an unofficial advisor who overhauled the Veterans Administration.

So far, the reported early elections for Trump’s second administration have also had a Florida flavor: Senator Marco Rubio will be Secretary of State, Congressman Mike Waltz will be national security adviser. A spokesman for the Trump transition team said appointments will be announced as they are made.

In addition to wealthy Trump partisans, the Palm Beach area is also home to Democratic megadonors and Republicans like Ken Griffin, who stopped supporting Trump and put his financial muscle behind GOP congressional candidates.

Local real estate agents are preparing for a new wave of transfers. Douglas Elliman broker Gary Pohrer said he has been planning showings of above-average expensive homes in Palm Beach since the election.

“There will be some people who will try to buy access to Trump through properties in Palm Beach,” Pohrer said. “If you’re willing to pay for a membership to Mar-a-Lago, you’ve got a good chance.”

It is difficult to obtain such memberships. Trump’s club manager said in June that the cost of new memberships had been increased to $1 million and that there were only a few left.

“That power. “There’s a new class of people joining,” said Laurence Leamer, a part-time Palm Beach resident and author of the 2019 book Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power in Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace. “If you can get a $2 billion deal from the White House, what’s a million dollars for membership?”

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Lively has been hanging out at Mar-a-Lago for the past few days after flying in from her home in Scottsdale, Arizona, public relations executive Melissa Rein said.

“I want someone to treat the DC-Palm Beach circuit like TMZ,” Lively said. “Politics has replaced Hollywood.”

The frenzy has irked some Palm Beach mainstays who fear things will now get even busier. A development boom had already begun to clog roads and parks and overturn the town’s strict limits on construction.

In addition, Palm Beach County was spending $93,000 a day to protect Trump after two assassination attempts, and barricades blocked traffic 24 hours a day while Trump was in town.

“There will be more security here than at Fort Knox,” Palm Beach County Mayor Maria Sachs said. “The cost of maintaining it is astronomical; traffic and road closures create hardship for residents.”

Sachs, a Democrat who was re-elected to the County Commission last week, said Trump “brings his entire network with him, and that’s good for our tax base.” But some locals say Trump has brought something else: a sense that coastal communities have changed forever.

“The whole nature of Palm Beach has changed,” Leamer said. It’s now “a club of billionaires, and Trump is at the center of it all.” With help from Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg