Drive north out of Delray Beach on A1A and the road suddenly darkens and cools: you have entered Gulf Stream, population well under a thousand, where a canopy of Australian pines closes over the highway on a stretch so distinctive the state designated it a scenic road. The town behind the trees is one of Florida's oldest quiet-money enclaves - estates behind hedges, the Gulf Stream School educating coastal families since 1938, and a golf and polo heritage that gave the town its early reputation as a winter colony.
Gulf Stream has no hotels, no shops and no interest in acquiring any, so everyone we drive here is going to a private address: residents returning from Miami flights, houseguests arriving for the season, family in for a wedding on somebody's lawn. The run from MIA is about 58 miles and 60 to 75 minutes, fixed from $129, and discretion is the operative word - a clean sedan at the service gate on time, a driver who does not need the house pointed out twice, and no rideshare stranger circling the hedge looking for a house number that is deliberately hard to find.
The practical wrinkle with Gulf Stream is that everything is somewhere else: dinner is in Delray, a mile or two south; the airports are an hour in either direction; the polo fields and grocery runs are west across the Intracoastal. Households here tend to use us as a standing arrangement rather than a one-off - a familiar driver for the season, booked by text, on fixed local fares from $75. It is the closest thing to having a car and driver of your own, without keeping either.
What to expect
- Discreet residential service - name signs at MIA, none at the hedge
- 58 miles, 60-75 minutes, fixed long-distance fare from $129
- Drivers who know the A1A pine canopy stretch and the service gates
- Standing seasonal arrangements for households and their guests
- Local dinner runs into Delray Beach from $75