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Discover a Mansion Beyond the Wildest Dream of AvariceJuly 27, 2010
Francine Boissonneault
Whitehall is a monument to the extraordinary life of Henry Morrison Flagler, a man whose rise to riches mirrors the explosive emergence of the United States as the world’s greatest power.
Born in 1830, he started work aged 14, in the grain store of L.G. Harkness and Company at a salary of $5 per month. He became a partner in 1852, then founded the Flagler and York Salt Company, going bust at the end of the civil war, having lost his $100,000 investment.
Henry then met John D Rockerfeller, who was at that time a commission agent for the Harkness Grain Company. When Rockerfeller decided to leave grain, and go into oil, Flagler raised $100,000 from a relative and became a partner in the fledgling Standard Oil. Just two years later it was the leading US oil refinery, producing 10,000 barrels a day.
In 1878 Flagler’s wife was advised to move south for health reasons. They wintered in Jacksonville, Florida, but Mary Flagler died soon after. Henry remarried, and returned to Florida with wife number two. Finding the area undeveloped, with inadequate hotel provision and poor transportation links, he was quick to spot the potential. To cut a long story short he built a number of huge hotels and a railroad that stretched right to the tip of the Florida Keys, laying the foundations on which the state’s subsequent prosperity has been built.
Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway, reached Biscayne Bay by 1896. He dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town’s first newspaper. When the town incorporated in 1896, its citizens wanted to honour the man responsible for its growth by naming it “Flagler.” He declined, persuading them to use an old Indian name, “Miami.”
In the meantime Henry’s second wife had gone mad, and he remarried in 1901. Whitehall was built as a wedding present to his new bride, Mary Lily Kenan. The 60,000sq ft mansion had 55 rooms and is now widely regarded as one of the most extravagant homes built in what Mark Twain described as America’s “Gilded Age”.
Grand Hall © Flagler Museum
Completed in 1902, the New York Herald proclaimed that Whitehall, was “more wonderful than any palace in Europe, grander and more magnificent than any other private dwelling in the world.” Whilst a private dwelling, it was inspired by a far grander sense of purpose – the desire to position American society as the ultimate expression of a western cultural tradition that stretched back 3000 years. There was a feeling at the time, expressed in Andrew Carnegie’s essay “The Gospel of wealth”, that the titans of industry were not just business giants but leader of the human race who had a duty to create homes which celebrated the “highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization…”
The architecture and setting is truly stupendous. You’ll be amazed by the colonnaded facade and the Grand Hall, with its domed ceiling depicting the Oracle of Delphi. Also in the Grand Hall is a magnificent bust of Augustus Caesar and one of the most extraordinarily ornate clocks the world has ever seen. Many of the rooms recreate European interiors that celebrate the style of Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, the Italian Renaissance, and Francis I.
Whitehall was also intended as a monumental example high technology. When construction began Palm Beach was one of the least developed and most remote locations in the United States – it was arguably America’s last frontier. However, with 22 bathrooms, electric lighting, central heating, and a telephone system, Whitehall was not only an impressive statement of high culture, but perhaps the most technologically advanced home in America.
No visit to Palm Beach is complete without a trip to the home of the larger than life character who put it on the map!
To make the most of this extraordinary experience The Chesterfield Palm Beach, is offering a special Nights and the Museums package that includes accommodation and breakfast, two one-day admissions to the Flagler Museum and the Norton Museum, plus a Romantic Interlude Dinner in the Leopard Room featuring live entertainment.
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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A must see, while in Palm Beach
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