Where does a Four Arts season go when its main auditorium sits inside a construction site? For the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on December 9, it goes to the Royal Poinciana Chapel, a few blocks down Cocoanut Row from the closed Gubelmann Auditorium on Royal Palm Way.
This season, the Society of the Four Arts works less like one campus and more like a set of addresses. Films are in one building, talks and many concerts in another, and a new cabaret series in a third. The largest exhibition of the year will hang outdoors among the sculptures. The program on your ticket now decides where you go, and on some nights the parking plan matters too.
What's Behind the Green Screen
The renovation started in May 2026. WLRN, reporting with Stet News Palm Beach, described it as an 18-month rebuild of two buildings on the south side of the campus along Royal Palm Way: the Esther B. O'Keeffe Gallery Building and the Rovensky Administration Building. More than half of each building is being demolished.
Both buildings go back to the island's social history. Addison Mizner designed the Rovensky as the Embassy Apartment Building, and its ground floor once held a car dealership. The O'Keeffe began as the Embassy Club, a private supper club that Col. Edward Bradley commissioned. The Four Arts bought it after Bradley died in 1946 and hired John Volk to turn it into galleries.
The finished buildings will change the experience in measurable ways. The O'Keeffe grows from about 20,000 square feet to nearly 31,000. Its original pecky cypress ceiling from the Mizner design will be uncovered and restored. The Gubelmann Auditorium drops from 700 seats to 650 to make room for a bigger stage and more backstage space. The plan also doubles the number of toilets and adds a women's lounge and a family restroom. On the Rovensky side, a three-story addition will house the first Children's Library built for that purpose. Gold Coast Wave reports it will be almost 50 percent larger than the old second-floor rooms and will have its own entrance.
On Royal Palm Way, the work sits behind a 6-foot fence and a 20-foot green screen stenciled with palm trees on the west and south sides. On the east and south sides of the Rovensky, the screening carries a printed image of the building itself. Construction is planned to finish by late fall 2027, in time for the 2027-28 season. That makes this season the one that runs entirely off the usual stage.
The Season, by Address
According to the Four Arts' own renovation FAQ, everything normally held in the two closed buildings has moved. The east side of the campus stays open: the King Library, the Dixon Education Building, the Demonstration Garden and the Hulitar Garden.
| Program | Where it is this season | Address | First listed date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday Films, Met Opera, National Theatre Live | Palm Beach Day Academy | 241 Seaview Avenue | Friday, November 6, 2026 |
| O'Keeffe Speaker Series, now on Mondays | Royal Poinciana Chapel | 60 Cocoanut Row | Schedule to be announced this fall |
| Lambert concerts, chamber programs | Royal Poinciana Chapel | 60 Cocoanut Row | Wednesday, December 9, 2026 |
| Lambert concerts, new cabaret nights | Johnson Hall, Dixon Education Building | 240 Cocoanut Row | Wednesday, December 2, 2026 |
| Season exhibition | Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden | Four Arts campus | Saturday, December 5, 2026 |
The screening season begins at the school on Friday, November 6, with the documentary The Cycle of Love. Tickets are $10, and members attend free. The next afternoon at 1 p.m., the Met's Coney Island production of Così fan tutte opens the opera series. Tickets are $30, $25 for members and $15 for students.
The Four Arts' pages don't agree on where the concerts will be. The FAQ puts the whole Sanda and Jeremiah Lambert Concert Series at the Royal Poinciana Chapel. The current Lambert concerts page says the season will be split between the Chapel and Johnson Hall, and individual event pages already list some concerts in Johnson Hall. Lambert tickets don't have one default room this year. Check the venue on each event page before you leave.
Johnson Hall Gets Something New
Splitting the concerts has also brought something new. Johnson Hall is the smaller room inside the Dixon Education Building, and Gold Coast Wave reports that the Four Arts is using it to try cabaret for the first time. The series opens on Wednesday, December 2, at 7 p.m. with Seth Rudetsky and Friends. Gold Coast Wave describes the SiriusXM Broadway host as bringing a Broadway guest, with tickets at $40. Faith Prince with Lawrence Yurman follows in the same room on Wednesday, January 6, 2027.
The Dixon building has hosted performances before. A $13 million renovation in 2013 turned the former Palm Beach Public School building, built around 1930, into an education and performance space with a 200-seat auditorium. The work kept its original exterior and stage. A cabaret series in a room that size is a different evening from a night in the Gubelmann's 700 seats.
The Year's Exhibition Moves Outdoors
With no indoor galleries until the O'Keeffe reopens, the Four Arts is staging its main exhibition in the Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden. The High Life: Contemporary Photography and the Birds runs from Saturday, December 5, 2026, to Sunday, May 2, 2027.
The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography organized the show, and William Ewing and Danaé Panchaud curated it. It brings together more than 50 contemporary photographers, among them Robert Clark, Tim Flach, Nadav Kander, Karen Knorr, Vik Muniz, Anastasia Samoylova and Kiki Xue.
The garden sets the schedule. The High Life is open daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., weather permitting. It closes on holidays, in bad weather and during Four Arts special events, and the Four Arts asks visitors to check fourarts.org before coming. The Pannill Pavilion restrooms in the sculpture garden are unavailable while the garden is being improved. Plan around that on a long visit.
The garden is also where children's programs happen this year. The Children's Library has moved temporarily to the second floor of the Dixon building and holds its regular programs in the Hulitar Garden. It is open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Mary Alice Fortin Children's Art Gallery is closed for the season.
Getting There This Season
With programs spread over several buildings, how you arrive matters more than usual. These details apply this season:
- Parking is tighter on campus. The Four Arts says campus parking is limited and recommends carpooling, drop-off and pick-up, or rideshare.
- Some evenings are valet only. The event page for the December 9 Baroque Concertos program reads "Complimentary valet parking only."
- The Lake Trail is closed where it crosses the campus. Bike and foot access to that stretch is shut because it runs through the construction site. Signs on site point the way back to the trail.
- The north sidewalk on Royal Palm Way is closed for the duration of construction.
- The King Library keeps its weekday hours, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. The Dixon Education Building is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for Campus on the Lake programs.
The First Weeks of December, Day by Day
Late November and December show how spread out the season is. Over less than two weeks, the Four Arts uses three of its four venues:
- Wednesday, December 2: Seth Rudetsky and Friends, Johnson Hall, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, December 5: The High Life opens in the Hulitar Sculpture Garden.
- Wednesday, December 9: Baroque Concertos with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the Royal Poinciana Chapel. Tickets are $40, and members attend free.
- Sunday, December 13: Carols on the Lawn with the Palm Beach Atlantic University Concert Choir, outdoors in the sculpture garden.
Palm Beach Day Academy, the fourth venue, will already be two films and an opera into its schedule by then.
The Flagler Museum has its own season in the same weeks. Its new exhibition, America Takes the Stage: From the White City to Whitehall, opens November 10 and runs through May 30, 2027. It traces a line from the 1893 Chicago fair to Henry Flagler's plans for Florida and Whitehall. The Flagler Museum Music Series begins the next evening, November 11, with the Israeli Chamber Project. Fleurs de Villes: THE GILDED AGE, a floral installation, is on view December 18 to 27.
The O'Keeffe and Rovensky buildings are scheduled to reopen for the 2027-28 season.
At Brad Ball, we follow the island's cultural calendar as closely as its streets. Questions about the blocks around Royal Palm Way and Cocoanut Row, or what a Palm Beach home is worth while the Four Arts is under construction, are welcome anytime. Get a Free Home Valuation and we will answer them in person.
