LOCAL + TRAVEL | FLAGLER MUSEUM

The Gilded Age

Travel back in time to an era of opulence, grandeur and splendor. Whitehall, the winter home of Henry Flagler will take you back to a bygone era and show the innovations Mr. Flagler brought to South Florida.

Heading onto the grounds of the Flagler Museum felt like you were traveling back to a time that only would exist today in movies or tv. The spirit of shows like Downton Abbey or Bridgerton seems to resonate through the walls. And for a good reason. Henry Flagler was a railroad baron, purchasing the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railroads, which were the precursor to the Florida East Coast Railroad, which eventually linked the Florida mainland to Key West. As part of the railroads, Flagler also was a major owner of hotels. He started with the Hotel Ponce de Leon and two others in St. Augustine, and then moved south to Palm Beach, where he was the builder of the Royal Poinciana Hotel as well as The Breakers Hotel.
Whitehall, the Flagler’s winter home, was constructed on Brelsford Point, situated on the eastern bank of Lake Worth with Flagler’s Hotel Royal Poinciana located to the north and The Breakers Hotel to the east.

In March 30, 1902, a story in the New York Herald described Whitehall as, “More wonderful than any palace in Europe, grander and more magnificent than any other private dwelling in the world…” Mr. Flagler built the 75-room, 100,000-square-foot mansion, as a gift for his wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. The couple used the home as a winter retreat from 1902 until Henry Flagler’s death in 1913, establish- ing the Palm Beach season for the wealthy of the period. Mr. Flagler commissioned the same architects responsible for his Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, John Carrere and Thomas Hastings, to design White- hall. Carrère and Hastings, each trained at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and were practitioners of the Beaux Arts style of” “architecture made popular at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.These architects also collaborated on the design for other landmarks of the time such as the New York Public Library and the Fifth Avenue man- sion of Henry Clay Frick.

Carrère and Hastings designed the exterior of Whitehall, the interior layout and completely con- trolled the design of the marble entrance hall and its grand double staircase. The façade of White- hall is marked by massive marble columns and topped with a red barrel tiled roof. Built around a central courtyard, the house consists of two floors, an attic, and a basement. Besides the grand public rooms on the first floor, there are twelve guestrooms, house servants rooms on the west side” “of the second floor, and guests servants rooms in the attic along the east side. Also included were a pantry and kitchen as well as private offices for Mr. Flagler and his secretary.

Each winter season, the Flaglers enjoyed entertaining at White- hall. When Henry Flagler died in 1913, the house remained closed until the season of 1916. Mary Lily visited the home only once more in 1917 as the recent bride of Robert Worth Bingham. When Mary Lily died later that year, Whitehall was left to her niece, Louise Clisby Wise Lewis.
Ms. Lewis sold Whitehall to a group of investors who added an eleven-story 250+ bedroom tower on the west side and converted the entire structure into a hotel.

The area off Whitehall’s backporch, originally dedicated to a formal garden, became the din- ing room of the new Whitehall Hotel. The hotel operated from 1925-1959 during which period the original portion of the house was used for lobbies, card rooms, lounges, a bar and guest suites.

In 1959, the entire building was in danger of being razed. Henry Flagler’s granddaughter, Jean Flagler Matthews learned of this and formed a nonprofit corporation, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, to purchase the property in 1959. The following year, Whitehall was opened to the public with a grand “Restoration Ball” on February 6, 1960.

When Whitehall was opened to the public in 1960, the Hotel tower was removed and the atrium garden was restored. Though the grounds today are somewhat informal and therefore more or less in keeping with the architects’ original vision, the driveway that was added during the Hotel Era remains, and the Cocoanut Grove was restored in summer 2015.

Henry Flagler’s private Railcar No. 91 is on display in the Museum’s Flagler Kenan Pavilion. Built in 1886 for Flagler’s person- al use, the railcar was acquired by the Museum in 1959 as an artifact of Florida history and an important part of Flagler’s story. In 1967, much research was done to restore Railcar No. 91 to its appearance during Flagler’s day. The interior and exterior of Rail- car No. 91 car have been restored to the original 1912 appearance, when Flagler traveled by this rail- car along the Over-Sea Railroad to celebrate this phenomenal engineering feat and the completion of the FEC Railway from St. Augustine to Key West.
The Flagler family was very philanthropic, with the giving of the Hotel Ponce de Leon to what is now Flagler College in St. Augustine. The family is also a major benefactor to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the School of Business is named after the Flagler family.

Today, nearly 100,000 people from around the world visit the Flagler Museum each year. For more information about visiting Whitehall and tours, check out www.flaglermuseum.us/history/ whitehall