‘Members Only: Palm Beach’ Star Taja Abitbol Reveals the Ultimate Symbol of Wealth in a Home

“Members Only: Palm Beach” star Taja Abitbol is a well-heeled member of an elite social circle where money always talks. Yet, when it comes to the ultimate sign of a person's privilege, the Netflix star says health, not wealth, shines above all else.

This explains why she's designed both of her South Florida homes to serve not only as private sanctuaries where she hosts her well-to-do friends, but also as beacons of wellness, where self-care is a necessity, not just a luxury.

A native New Yorker who escaped to Florida every winter, Abitbol, 53, called herself a snowbird until the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago, when she made her migration to the Sunshine State permanent.

In the latest Celebrity Sanctuary, Abitbol explains to Realtor.com® how she has since immersed herself in the unique lineup of parties, events, and charity galas that make up what Palm Beach County locals call the “social season.”

“It's so different than anywhere else. This is not how it works in California or New York; it's really only in Palm Beach,” she says. “Right after the holidays, Jan. 1 is [when] the season starts, the Palm Beach season, and it goes until about April or May. 

“There are events nonstop morning, noon, and night,” she adds. “There are events after events after events. Social events, breakfast, lunch, dinner, every single day and night, and it just keeps going and going and going.”

Maintaining the stamina for such a packed social schedule is something Abitbol has mastered over the years. Throughout a demanding career in both real estate and hospitality, she learned that taking care of herself was essential to maintaining her high performance. 

That passion for health led her to found Taja Drip, a wellness-focused spa with a flagship location inside the five-star Faena Hotel Miami Beach and a mobile concierge service that offers various IV infusions, facials, body treatments, and therapies that all operate under the belief that the most valuable luxury is longevity.

“Once the season is over, you're like, ‘Whoa,’ like you just came out of a hurricane. It's just not like that anywhere else. I've never lived anywhere or been anywhere where that's the lifestyle. It's the lifestyle here—they all need Taja Drip!”

The opulent culture of Palm Beach society is on full display on “Members Only: Palm Beach,” which premiered its debut season on Dec. 29. The new Netflix reality TV show drew early comparisons to Bravo’s “The Real Housewives” franchise—a series Abitbol reveals she’s been repeatedly recruited to join—but Abitbol insists her show stands on its own merits.

“I’ve gotten many calls from the ‘Housewives.’ Even now, I just got a call from Miami again,” says Abitbol. “I have a lot of friends who are ‘Housewives,’ so no shade to the ‘Housewives.’ I think Andy Cohen is a genius, and it's a great platform. However, it's not Netflix. It's just not. That's why it says 'original series' on Netflix. We are not a housewife format. 

“I think people just think that because they see a female ensemble cast, but that doesn't mean it's a ‘Housewives’ show,” she asserts. “It's not. It's much different. I feel that it's elevated, and I feel that it's much more fun and funny. There’s not tragic drama that is uncomfortable to watch. Our show is more like fun drama.”

Among the five women featured on “Members Only: Palm Beach,” Abitbol often plays the peacemaker when rivalries get heated and rifts arise in the friend group.

“Even though we're very good friends, we're all very different, and there are a lot of things maybe we don't like about one another, but we definitely have a real sisterhood,” she says.

Beyond her position in Palm Beach’s high society, Abitbol enjoys a full home life with her longtime partner, professional baseball legend David Cone, and their son, Sammy Cone, 14. 

The trio split their time between two luxury South Florida homes located inside distinct, exclusive communities. One is a 5,000-square-foot mansion with a 1,500-square-foot guesthouse in Palm Beach County. Abitbol refers to it as her glamorous “golf club house.”

The other is a four-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom, 4,000-square-foot oceanfront condominium in Miami with beach house vibes and million-dollar views.

Abitbol has designed both abodes to align with her dynamic lifestyle, but she’s carved out special spaces inside each residence where she can focus on rest and rejuvenation.

In this edition of Celebrity Sanctuary, Abitbol opens up her personal kitchen at the beach condo and the sauna at her golf club house to show how being in good health is the only status she’s interested in chasing.

I've always been coming here for the season, but I stayed for good right around the pandemic. When the lockdown started, I was locked down here in Florida, and then I really never went back to live in New York.

I have a home in Palm Beach County and I have a condo on the beach, so I have two locations in South Florida that I travel back and forth to and from. It depends on the season, on what's happening with my business. I love them both equally. 

They're both country clubs, but one is a beach club country club because it’s South Beach, but it still has a country club. We have a club, we have events. In the season, it's packed with events and wellness events, poker night, all the things that they have in all the luxury members-only clubs here. 

Same thing in my Palm Beach house. It's a golf club, so I have a golf club and a beach club. I feel that if you're going to live in South Florida, you really need both because we love tennis, we love all the fun activities that you do outdoors in a country club, but you need a beach, too. I have both.

My condo is a four-bedroom, 4.5-bath. The square footage is about 4,000 square feet, and it's on the ocean. My view is unbelievable. How could you not be happy when you wake up to that type of view? My bedroom is all windows and surrounded by the ocean.

My golf club house is about 5,000 square feet. It has a guesthouse as well. The guesthouse is about 1,500 square feet. I actually don't even remember what year it was built in, but it's a fairly new house. That house, I'm going to change entirely. 

My country club home is, like, black and white. I love [a] black and white aesthetic. It’s black and white and gold and, like, glamour. That's my aesthetic for that home, and for the beach home, it is a little bit more beachy, like, more neutral colors.

My father lives with us, and we have a full-time, live-in [caregiver] that lives with us. Her name is Leonela. Actually, my mother comes a lot, too. My parents are divorced, and my mother comes for the season. 

I started my career in real estate because I come from a real estate family. My mother is still in the business. She owns her own company in New York. I got into the restaurant business from real estate because that's also my background. My father's a chef, and I always loved restaurants.

I used to host these elaborate dinner parties in my listings, and people always used to say to me, “Oh, my goodness, you need to open a restaurant,” and one day I did. It led to having four more restaurants after that, and then being in the restaurant business in New York, which is a very competitive space. I had a nightclub. It was a supper club, so we were open lunch, dinner, and late night.

In order for me to survive that lifestyle, I got into wellness, so I have always been biohacking since before it was a thing. I just now incorporate all my passions into one. Now I am building wellness homes. 

Definitely the kitchen in my beach condo [is my personal sanctuary]. It's the kitchen because I love to cook. That's something that everybody knows about me. I’m always cooking, I'm always posting my recipes, and people love to follow my cooking journey. 

When I'm in the kitchen, I post the things that I'm cooking, so that's part of my daily sharing with my followers and whoever else I'm going to gain now in the future from the show. That's a big part of me sharing.

You would see tons of spices, like spices you have never heard of, and then my own concoctions that are wellness-driven, like my saffron water that I drink every day and my lavender, honey, and things that I concoct myself and feed all my guests that come over.

I might do a cookbook soon. I love my kitchen in my beach condo, and I'm always in there cooking. That's therapeutic for me, so that's my escape. 

In my country club home, my golf club home, it's my sauna. That's where I go to escape.

When I'm in the sauna, I don't bring my phone in. So that's my place where I am disconnected from all the sharing and social media and all of that. That's where I could really zen out. 

My zen-out sanctuary is definitely the sauna or the pool or the hot tub. My golf house, the doors open into a courtyard, so when you enter, it's actually really beautiful.

You walk into the pool area and the wellness area. We don't have, like, a front door. We have the courtyard entrance, so it's very unique, and we love that about the house. 

I always design my own homes. David, my husband, is always, like, "Hire a designer!” I did once, and it didn't go so well. I now always do it myself because, first of all, I love it. I find it therapeutic. I can't say that I'm professionally trained, but I think I'm really good at it, and I create good spaces for myself and my family that we enjoy living in. I'm a creative, so I could design a home, no problem.

I actually just redid my son's room because his birthday's today. One of his birthday presents was me redoing his room, and I designed it. He loves it, and all his friends love what I did.

It’s kind of like a movie theater, like, popcorn, a neon light that has popcorn and movie night here, and VIP lounge here, and everything is black. I got custom bedding that's velvet and satin.

The bed is a custom bed that has [an] oversized headboard, and it's all black velvet. The rug is black and nude, and it just all matches. It really, really, really came out great. That's at the beach condo.

We're probably going to expand [the golf club house] and make it into a wellness home, change everything from beginning to end. I just haven't had the time, but I'm going to start on it soon. 

I’m turning my home into a wellness home. It already is, kind of. I have a lot of biohacking modalities in my home, but I'm going to start from the ground up and turn it into a full wellness home because that's the future. 

People don't really know about it like I do, or it's not as mainstream as it should be yet. Environmental toxins—that's what causes long-term illness—so within the home sector, we are going to change that.

We're going to really change the world of living and take out all the environmental toxins within the home, meaning, the paint, the flooring, the water, the pipes, everything. It hasn't been done yet, so I will be the first to build a real wellness home. I'm not talking about just a home that has a sauna in it. I mean a real wellness home.

The end goal is for me to have my own wellness and hotel brands, which is coming soon. That's the hope.

In between, I can absolutely help people build their own wellness homes and wellness towers, because, with] residences, the future will be only wellness, longevity-based building. We're going to have red lights in the flooring and, you know, I can't reveal everything because I have a master plan, but we're going to be doing spectacular things.