The Flagler Museum – Palm Beach
Ahhhh! The town of Palm Beach, Florida. The playground for the rich and famous. The island is home to beautiful oceanfront resorts and magnificent mansions on streets lined with stately palm trees. Worth Avenue with its luxury boutiques, galleries, and al fresco dining is one of the best shopping streets in the world. Historical landmarks are scattered across the island but the most noteworthy is the Henry Flagler residence, now the Flagler Museum. This grand estate is called “Whitehall”.
Henry Flagler
Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway system that linked the entire east coast of Florida, from Jacksonville to Key West. Flagler with John D. Rockefeller was founding partners of Standard Oil, the most profitable corporation in history. They claim he was the earliest and most important developer of Florida. Along with the Florida East Coast Railway, Flagler built a series of luxury hotels and developed some two million acres of land including The Breakers Hotel which is just a block over.
The Home
The building, a gift to Flagler’s third wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, served as the couple’s winter retreat from 1902 until Henry Flagler’s death in 1913. The New York Herald called the home “more wonderful than any palace in Europe, and more magnificent than any other private dwelling in the world. Here, Flagler entertained the greatest industrialists and thinkers of the Gilded Age, setting the stage to make Palm Beach the destination of world leaders and celebrities for decades to come.
The Grand Hall
The first floor of Whitehall is designed to entertain guests. At 5,000 Sq. Feet, it is the largest room and grandest room in a Guided Age private home. The ceiling depicts the Oracle of Delphi and is painted with 24K gold ceiling moldings.
Atop this deep green marble table designed for this room is a bust of Caesar Agustus which signals American interest in ancient Rome as a prototype for the great society America seemed to be becoming.
The Library
Back in the day, the library greeted business associates and male guests.
The Music Room
Music was a popular form of entertainment at the time of Whitehall. Parties, afternoon tea, meetings, and lectures were hosted in the Music Room. It also served as an art gallery with paintings covering almost all of the wall space in the room. In the room is an impressive built-in 1,249-pipe organ, and a resident organist was hired each season to play for guests.
The Courtyard
A central courtyard is in the middle of Whitehall. The courtyard provides dinner party guests a comfortable place to gather for cocktails before dining. You can enter the courtyard by most of the downstairs rooms. The courtyard took advantage of the ocean breezes, which helped keep the house cool in the Florida climate.
The Grand Ballroom
Henry Flagler had his Grand Ballroom designed to mimic the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. It looks like a scaled-down replica, replete with elaborately painted ornamentation along the edges and surrounding recessed alcoves. George Washington celebrated a birthday here with a lavish party called Bal Poudre’.
You can imagine the grand balls that were once held here, guests in jackets and lace gowns.
The Billiard Room
The Billiard Room was where the men gathered for entertainment after dinner. This very masculine Gothic Revival styled room is the only one in the house that Mrs. Flagler permitted spittoons, and it has two of them. In this room, there are three-sport tables: pocket billiards, skittles, and billiards. The women gathered in the drawing-room.
The Hotel Addition
After Henry Flagler died in 1913, the family sold the estate to investors who opened The Whitehall Hotel in 1925. By the late fifties, the hotel in financial distress, was in danger of being torn down. The Flagler family learned of this and purchased the property back and turned it into The Flagler Museum. The only remaining room of this ten-story, 300 room hotel is the dining room.
The Breakfast Room & Dining Room
The Flagler’s had breakfast in the Breakfast Room daily. The larger Dining Room, designed like a Royal Hunting Lodge was the place for large parties, elegant, and business dinners.
The Drawing Room
The Drawing Room is where the women would retire after dinner as the men stayed behind to smoke and talk industry. Mary Lily and her female guests used the Drawing Room to listen to music and talk. A Steinway Grand Piano is the main centerpiece for this room.
Second Floor
The private living space and guest bedrooms are on the second floor.
The Green Room & The Colonial Chamber
Guest bedrooms in the residence got their name based on their primary colors or their decorating scheme. The Colonial Chamber is the largest of all the guest rooms.
Five Guest Bedrooms
Just off the hallway are a series of five guest bedrooms each with a private bath and large closet. Each of these rooms connects to the next with a double privacy door.
The Master Suite
Mr. & Mrs. Flagler shared the Master Suite which was a practice uncommon at the turn of the century. The furnishings represent the Louis XIV style. The suite has two separate dressing chambers, a bedroom, and a large bath area complete with some of the most advanced conveniences of the day, including indoor plumbing, a telephone, tub, and shower.
The Silver Maple Room & The Yellow Roses Room
The Silver Maple Room features Arts and Crafts-style bed, chest, and fireplace mantel that is original to this bedroom. The Yellow Roses Room has matching wallpaper and bed linen that was a turn of the century innovation.
The Morning Room
The Morning Room gave Mary Lilly Flagler privacy and gave her a view of Lake Worth. This room was away from the other rooms on purpose for privacy. This room was used to entertain bridge parties, practice music and to maintain Mary Lilly’s private correspondence.
Kenan Railway Pavillion
The Railway Pavilion is located out back next to the waterway and beyond the forest of palm trees. The glass enclosure is beautiful to walk through and a popular place for events such as weddings.
The Pavillion also has Henry Flagler’s original private railcar, No. 91 that you can walk through and explore. The Railcar, built-in 1886, was a “Palace on Wheels”. The railcar is what Henry Flagler used to travel to Palm Beach. This railcar traveled along the Florida East Coast Railway as part of the first train to Key West in celebration of the Over-Sea Railroad in 1912.
Cocoanut Grove
Outside of the Pavilion, you’ll find the only remaining cocoanut grove in Palm Beach. The Flagler Museum’s Café des Beaux-Arts offers refreshment options to visitors. From its seasonal Tea Service in the Flagler Kenan Pavilion to a new a la carte option called PICNIC that you can enjoy year-round along with the views and breezes from under the palms.
The Flagler Museum is located at One Whitehall Way, Palm Beach, FL 33480. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday, 12 to 5 pm.
While “Whitehall” is one of the first historical landmarks in Palm Beach County, it is not the oldest. The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse is located north of Palm Beach in the city of Jupiter. Completed in 1860, The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse is the oldest surviving structure in the county. Built on a natural sandhill, the lighthouse stands 108 feet tall.
