In 1902, American Industrialist Henry Flagler gifted his third wife with her own American palace: Whitehall. Whitehall was designed by the firm that designed the New York Public Library. It contains 55 rooms and each is furnished and gilded with the most extravagant show of wealth. They offer docent guided tours, electronic guided tours, or a pamphlet that you can use to guide yourself. They have a tea time lunch hosted in the Flagler Pavilion that offers some of the best views of West Palm Beach. .
Henry Flagler was a failed business man, when in 1867, John D. Rockefeller asked him to invest in Standard Oil. Using the rebate system, Henry Flagler was able to make Standard Oil undercut the other oil refineries and a leader in the oil industry. As we know, Standard Oil was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1887, but Flagler had already transitioned to a passive role and a step back from the company.
Due to the ailing health of his first wife, Flagler moved to Florida. He found Jacksonville to be too cold for his liking for a winter home; so, after his first wife died, he traveled to St. Augustine with his second wife. What Flagler saw in Florida was a charming location, with untapped potential, and a failing infrastructure. So while Henry Flagler built luxury hotels up and down the East Coast he also needed to build the transportation system to support them.
He built the Ponce de Leon Hotel (now Flagler College), the Royal Poinciana Hotel, The Breakers, and the Royal Palm Hotel, just to name a few. He built the Florida East Coast Railway and the Florida Overseas Railroad, allowing travel to Key West that didn't require a boat for the very first time.
If marveling at an extraordinary amount of wealth is your thing, add this to your itinerary on your next trip to West Palm Beach
XX BDGT
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