Henry morrison flagler museum palm beach florida

The Town of Palm Beach is a place where the extraordinary is commonplace. It is a timeless corner of the tropics where some of America’s most influential families came to play 120 years ago. They left behind a trail of beautiful homes and impressive history that few other communities can claim. At the forefront of this history is the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, a breathtaking and palatial landmark that served as Flagler’s family home for decades. Called “Whitehall”, the story of the iconic building has a story that is both fascinating and intricate.

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 press of the day called the home “more wonderful than any palace in Europe,” boasting 75 rooms and 100,000 square feet of space. 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. A building of such scale and grandeur is bound to have many secrets and little-known stories. Here is a list of five oddities that make Flagler’s magnificent gift to his wife a fascinating place to visit and explore.

Whitehall was built with central heating, but not to warm occupants.

The Flagler mansion was built at a time long before the development of household air conditioning. Because of this, the massive structure and its beautiful contents were subject to the effects of tropical moisture. To fight the humidity, the home was built with a central heating system designed to dry the interior air and reduce the chance of mold. Even in the summer, the heating system would be engaged to draw out moisture and preserve the precious contents of Whitehall. The home is now fully air

Historic house in Florida, United States

United States historic place

Whitehall is a 75-room, 100,000 square foot (9700 square meter) Gilded Agepalace type mansion open to the public in Palm Beach, Florida in the United States. Completed in 1902, it is a major example of neoclassical Beaux Arts architecture designed by Carrère and Hastings for Henry Flagler, a leading captain of industry in the late 19th century, and a leading developer of Florida as a tourist destination. The building is listed a National Historic Landmark. It now houses the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, named after its builder.

History

Henry Flagler, one of the founders of Standard Oil, built Whitehall for his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan.

The site of the home was purchased for $50,000 in 1893 (as of 2010 that would be $1,197,562.39) by Flagler. The site was later surveyed for construction in July 1900 and the home was completed in time for Flagler and his wife to move in on February 6, 1902. The architects were John Carrère and Thomas Hastings, who had earlier designed the Ponce de Leon Hotel and several other buildings in St. Augustine for Flagler. Whitehall was to be a winter residence, and Henry gave it to Mary Lily as a wedding present. They would travel to Palm Beach each year in one of their own private railcars, one of which was No. 91.

Flagler died of injuries sustained in falling down a flight of marble stairs at Whitehall in 1913, at the age of 83. Mary Lily died four years later, and the home was devised to her niece Louise Clisby Wise Lewis, who sold the property to investors. They constructed a 300-room, ten-story addition to the west side of the building, obliterating Mr. Flagler's offices and the housekeeper's apartment, and altering the original kitchen and pantry area. Carrere and Hastings were the architects of the 1925 reconstruc