During the Gilded Age, industrialist Henry Flagler (1830-1913) transformed St. Augustine from a quiet, underdeveloped outpost into the "American Riviera" for wealthy Northern winter travelers. This was the day for us to experience that transformation.
As we strolled through the area of St. Augustine immediately west of downtown, we experienced the extraordinary influence of New Yorker Henry Morrison Flagler. He was a co-founder of Standard Oil with John D. Rockefeller. Flagler stepped back from daily responsibilities of this successful venture and launched a second career in Florida.Over the next thirty years, he built resort hotels from Jacksonville to Miami and the Florida Keys linked by his Florida East Coast Railway. Steamships took visitors to his resorts at Nassau in the Bahamas and to Havana, Cuba. His Overseas Railway through the Florida Keys was recognized as the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World. Ultimately, Flagler was regarded as the “Father of Modern Florida” for his investments in the sunshine state. St. Augustine exhibits some of his most lasting contributions and was his chosen location for his final resting place.
I found this very interesting. The Hotel Alcazar closed permanently after the winter season of 1931. The shuttered building was ultimately purchased by Midwestern magazine publisher and collector, Otto C. Lightner (1887-1950). Lightner was a major advocate for hobbies in the United States through his publication, Hobbies—The Magazine for Collectors. With the advent of the eight-hour workday and five-day work week, advocates for public morality grew increasingly concerned about how people were spending their leisure time. The hobby movement grew out of a widely shared belief that hobbies, particularly handicraft and collecting, were the most wholesome way for a person to occupy themselves outside of the workplace.
“There is demand for a museum of this type.
Here the collection that afforded its owner so much pleasure,
that made them an authority on the subject,
that inspired many others with the same hobby,
that was the fruit of long hours of labor,
can find its last resting place.”
-Otto Lightner, Hobbies
In 1934, Lightner opened a unique museum in Chicago dedicated to hobbies and collecting. The museum primarily featured artwork and furnishings purchased by Lightner from Chicago’s grandest Gilded Age mansions during the 1930s and 1940s, but he also encouraged hobbyists to donate their collections for display. Following a stay in Florida at the Hotel Ponce de Leon in 1946, Lightner purchased the former Hotel Alcazar to serve as the permanent home for his eclectic collection. The new Lightner Museum of Hobbies opened to the public in 1948.A dynamic era that shaped modern America, the Gilded Age witnessed the sudden rise of a new millionaire class whose wealth derived from emerging industries including railroads, oil, and steel manufacturing. These titans of American industry expressed their high status by building stately mansions filled with beautiful objects and substantial art collections.The period was vividly depicted in the novels of Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Mark Twain who coined the term ‘The Gilded Age’ to satirize the gross materialism and rampant political corruption of his day. Despite Twain’s criticism, the aesthetic and philanthropic advancements of the era reshaped American cultural life at the dawn of the twentieth century. During these years, the United States achieved new levels of sophistication in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts, establishing itself as a cultural force on the world stage for the first time.Displayed in the grand ballroom, The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Lightner Museum presents a lavish display of fine and decorative art created during a defining period in American history. What art and what a setting!
Guests utilized specialized bath suites featuring Turkish and Russian bath setups, where attendants in the scrub room provided traditional rubs, washdowns, and thermal treatments. When the hotel was shuttered in 1931, the doors to this area were closed and it wasn't until a renovation in the 1970s that this amazing opulence was revealed.Wow, right?!Also very interesting is the fact that Henry Flagler hired Edison's company to install a massive direct-current lighting plant to power his St. Augustine properties. The system featured Edison DC dynamos driven by steam engines and boilers that generated electricity for thousands of lights across both the Ponce de Leon and this, the Hotel Alcazar. Company records indicated around 4,100 lights total were installed between the two hotels. When the Ponce de Leon opened on January 10, 1888, it featured one of only 121 Edison power stations operating in the United States at the time. The direct-current system did not stay permanent; in 1893, Flagler's insurance company required an upgrade to Nikola Tesla's alternating current (AC) electrical system. Got to love Tesla!
The pool was drained when the hotel closed. It is now a delightful cafe housed in the deep end.
Next stop was Hotel Ponce de Leon (now Flagler College). Considered architects Carrére and Hastings’ most imaginative creation, the Spanish Renaissance Revival structure was named for explorer Juan Ponce de León. The hotel is a complex of more than 270,000 square feet, located on a six-acre city block. The design features architectural elements reminiscent of Spanish cathedrals and palaces that today are World Heritage Sites. In 1968, the hotel became the cornerstone of the new Flagler College.Because this is an active college, we were limited in what we could see. We embarked on the Flagler’s Legacy Tour which included visits to the extravagant hotel’s Rotunda, Grand Parlor, and Dining Room, the last of which features most of the 79 stained glass windows created by Louis Comfort Tiffany. This is the largest collection of his in the world in their original location.Built between 1885 and 1887, and designed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival / Spanish Colonial Revival style by Carrère and Hastings, it was one of the earliest major buildings in the United States constructed from poured concrete (using a mix of cement, sand, and local coquina shell).It was created as a winter playground for America's Gilded Age elite and featured 540 rooms, grand dining halls, artist studios, and elaborate courtyards. It hosted prominent figures and U.S. presidents, including Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, and Babe Ruth.
We were in constant awe of the work of George W. Maynard who painted the famous rotunda and dining hall murals, including the allegorical figures of the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, and Fire) and the four stages of European exploration (Adventure, Discovery, Conquest, and Civilization). He later replicated similar themes in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Gorgeous.
We began our tour in the Ladies' Parlor. When the luxury resort operated female guests were directed to this grand space as a private reception and relaxation room rather than lingering in the main check-in areas. The room features dazzling Austrian crystal and unique period chandeliers (including designs attributed to Tiffany). It displays original Gilded Age period furniture, historic china, artwork, men's fashions, and portraits of Henry Flagler and his family.Louis Tiffany also designed the ornate blue ceiling aesthetics, while supposedly trying to perfect his famous "Tiffany Blue".The room also houses a clock designed by Thomas Edison, whose company wired the original hotel for electricity three years before the White House. Wow.Our last stop on the tour was in the historic Ponce De Leon Hall dining room. Spanning 14,212 square feet, it is famous for being the home of the previously mentioned world's largest private collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass window.
"Here was St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States.
How to build a hotel to meet the requirements
of nineteenth century America
and have it in keeping with the character of the place?
That was my hardest problem."
— Henry Flagler
Our final St. Augustine history lesson occurred at the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church. Henry Flagler, son of a Presbyterian minister, had this Church built in memory of his daughter Jennie Louise Flagler Benedict and her newborn daughter Margery, both of whom died in 1889. Flagler commissioned the architects and builders of his other St. Augustine buildings to create the Venetian Renaissance Revival style structure.
Flagler responded to interviewer Lefevre, when asked about talking about himself, was “I prefer to let what I have done speak for me." After spending the day in the awesomeness of this man's accomplishments, we can honestly say, "We hear you, Mr. Flagler!" Wow.
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