Hotels, mansions, and museums from an opulent era
A tropical landscape of inland waterways, lagoons,.and abundant natural foliage along south Florida’s eastern coastline would become the wider canvas for the emergence of the opulent architecture and lifestyle of the early twentieth century. Within this southernmost American state, figures of industry and finance and their families from the Gilded Age created residences to reflect the grandeur of distant pasts and faraway, ancient cultures. This region would consequently become home to an intriguing array of buildings – nowadays both private and public – and drawing on the grand architectural and design styles of older worlds, enduring to the present day as a distinctive cultural legacy of those early times.
The driving force that brought the ultra-wealthy into these southern Florida areas were those business magnates of the period with interests in elite tourism and who would expand the means of reliable travel into the region. Along with that came others from this elite economic sector seeking a winter season refuge in very fine style in this warmer climate. Thanks largely to the foresight in building railroads even as far south as the Florida Keys, rail travel would emerge here pioneered by figures such as Henry Flagler, providing the efficient means for the wintertime travelers into warmer destinations – and access to a luxuriant array of abodes and fine accommodation. Notable points of Gilded Age interest for today’s traveler to look into among hotels, museums and former homes of the period include these located from Palm Beach into greater Miami.
The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum
A grand winter retreat within a wider setting of golf clubs, refined shopping and fine dining would become the defining features of the city of Palm Beach. Today, that mix of refined style and luxuriance is still present in the urban landscape of this southeastern city – with one of its centerpieces remains the winter season retreat of its city father, Henry Flagler, along with the iconic grand hotel he brought to life here. The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, usually referred to as just The Flagler Museum, stands as both its own monument to the Gilded Age, a preserved personal legacy of its namesake and most prominent business pioneer of the time here, and nowadays also as showcase of the events and lives of that era here. What the visitor encounters here is not just a collection of rooms with various exhibits but an authentically preserved home environment of a Gilded Age pioneer who brought along an awareness and appreciation of the highpoints of European and American history while also defining Florida’s development and future with his grand municipal and railway projects.
What is the present-day Flagler Museum has gone through more than one existence of its own in just over a hundred years. From the palatial residence of Henry Flagler himself, a winter home and a place he could use to oversee his Florida ventures both within Palm Beach and further afield, it next became part of what became the Whitehall hotel – and finally, thanks to a grandaughter it became a museum that preserves not only the lives of Flagler and his wife Lillie here, but also with visiting exhibits which display the art and artifacts of that Gilded Era and of Palm Beach then. With the different periods and transformations that define in its existence, the Flagler Museum today offers up a fascinating range of the past – from the personal to the social, the economic and cultural chapters from its original time to the present.
The Breakers
The story behind The Breakers is one of pioneering in the grand hotel category in southern Florida but also one of resilience and determined reinvention since this property first appeared just over a century ago. Wealth and business acumen alone were not the only assets that The Breakers creator, Henry Flagler, drew on in conceiving and then sustaining this structure. In the times of his life that followed and even since, there have been remarkable chapters in the existence of The Breakers itself that have seen this grand hotel reemerge in the face of disaster and rebuild on its origins to a present-day identity reflecting all of its heritage over time.
The earliest years of The Breakers begins as early as 1896, when Flagler oversaw the construction of a large wooden establishment by the sea, in the town now known as Palm Beach. Known at first just as “The Palm Beach Inn, the elegant new hideaway was an immediate winter season draw for the nothern elite establishment, and thanks to its location then renamed as “The Breakers” in 1901, when Flagler also doubled the available accommodation here. Misfortune would strike for the first time however in 1903, when fire destroyed the wood building while it was undergoing further expansion. Flagler reacted by quickly moving to rebuild for the upcoming winter season, and so in early 1904 The Breakers re-emerged as an imposing four-story, colonial-style building constructed entirely of wood, containing 425 rooms and suites. At this point, the resort was already an established winter retreat for notable names in business and media – including Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Astors, Andrew Carnegie and publisher William Randolph Hearst, along with assorted European nobility and U.S. presidents.
Sadly, that distinguished guest list would not protect The Breakers from further disaster when fire struck the premises again in 1925 – this time, engulfing the entire huge structure. While Flagler himself was already deceased, his heirs refused to concede to this latest catastrophe. Led by William R. Kenan, Jr., president of both the Florida East Coast Hotel Company and the Florida East Coast Railway Company and the brother of Flagler’s wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, they resolved to build the world’s finest resort hotel on the site of The Breakers in time for the 1926-27 winter season. The immense new building was architecturally inspired by Italian renaissance style, reflected in the facade that survives into the present, and a seven-story building which would include renaissance-style paintings on the ceilings of the 200-foot-long main lobby and first-floor public rooms.
Thanks to diligent maintenance and further enhancements in the century since, today The Breakers continues to stand out as the pre-eminent masterpiece of old world inspired grandeur along the southeastern coast of this state. While its present-day leisure facilities – ranging from spa to golf and fine dining options – are all vital contemporary features in a high-end luxury resort , it is the continued ambiance of old world style and grandeur that still distinguish The Breakers today. Time spent in the refined indulgence of its guest and public spaces are certainly an escape from the everyday, but also a chance to connect well into an era and its vision of historic and faraway elegance – all of which remains a defining ingredient of The Breakers experience.
Bonnet House Museum & Gardens
Seclusion, imagination and elegance together with connection to the natural world – these are the prime qualities you might become aware of very quickly when you spend some time nowadays at the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. While this smaller-scale but no less engaging estate may be less prominent among the region’s Gilded Age properties, it is certainly worthwhile to explore and savor first-hand for its own contribution to the living legacies of the Gilded Age in this region of the Florida coast.
A winter home during a period when the natural elements played a significant role in the seasonal travel of the wealthy classes, the access to this seasonal retreat located within a largely undeveloped landscape provided an ideal annual winter interlude. The original 35-acre estate was built in 1920 by settler Hugh Taylor Birch, who subseuently gifted it to his daughter Helen upon her marriage to Frederic Bartlett. It became the couple’s winter residence, and years after Helen died, Hugh would marry once more and together with his second wife Evelyn continued to enhance the property with even finer architecture and works of art. Nowadays, this intimate but expansive former home serves as both a well-preserved residence of an early twentieth- century era, and the atmospheric backdrop to a variety of events both intimate and special interest that connect well with the preserved and natural detail of Bonnet House today.
Allowing for seclusion while also creating space and connection to the tropical environment is something which Bonnet House was designed to provide – and still reflects in its architecture and range of function. “Gardens” is prominent in its public name today at Bonnet House, and with good reason. Within and around the premises, the visitor comes across an imaginative and effective use of plant and natural life that connects house and the natural world. Throughout the year, there are scheduled events and sessions that make good use of the internal and open spaces of the House, including a main house and guided nature trail tram tour; an “upstairs/downstairs” tour that gives a closer-up look at the private living quarters of the original Bartlett family; and educational opportunities ranging from yoga and sound bath sessions to a variety of art workshops. Of course, the inner open air courtyard and lakeside terrace areas also provide the perfect surroundings for occasional event use – be it private wedding reception or special interest occasional events such as the recent first-time Spirits Festival. As organizer Rob Burr observes about the property’s standout features: “A secluded property that spans Fort Lauderdale Beach and the intercoastal waterway, the Bonnet House is a tropical wonderland of exotic flora, an art museum, a delightful garden destination hidden in plain sight — an authentic reflection of gilded age pioneer life in the emerging decades of South Florida.” While urban growth in greater Ft. Lauderdale over the past century has crept ever closer to the boundaries of the estate, Bonnet House Museum & Gardens certainly retains that earlier sense of seclusion and calm along a busier coastline of today.
Biltmore Hotel
While every grand structure of the Gilded Era often has a notable magnate of the time behind its creation, that key figure in the case of the original Biltmore in the city of Coral Gables and the subsequent saga that the property experienced over the next five decades is probably more unusual than many others. In fact, the Biltmore hotel of today remains a pre-eminent example of founder George E. Merrick’s wider vision of the surrounding Coral Gables that would reflect the distinctive architecture and styles of an old world grandeur, the result being an American Venice complete with canals and fine villas stylistically influenced by Italian, Moorish and Spanish architecture.
The hotel made its appearancce in the mid-Twenties when Merrick partnered with Biltmore hotel magnate John McEntee Bowman at the height of the Florida land boom to build an elite guest centerpoint and also a center of sport and fashion. The property’s iconic Giralda Tower was subsequently lit for the first time with the hotel’s grand opening in January, 1926 – and remains to the present day as a prominent architectural identifier of both this property and the neighborhood at large. The hotel’s equally expansive public interior spaces would become the ideal setting for a variety of high-end events in the years that followed – including fashion shows, gala balls, and big band performances of the time. Along with that, and perhaps even more significant in the resilience of the Biltmore, was its extensive aquatic facilities that featured a huge swimming pool, one of the largest nationally at that time, and which became the host site for swim competitions. Top events included those in which film star Johnny Weissmuller ( later of “Tarzan” fame) would set a swimming record in the pool here in the Thirties. In fact, its huge pool helped draw huge crowds here on a weekend during the darker economic years of the Thirties to watch the synchronized swimmers, bathing beauties, alligator wrestling and the young Jackie Ott, the boy wonder who would dive from an eighty-five foot platform.
Changes came in the later decades when the hotel was converted to a military hospital in the WW2 years, and remained a VA hospital until 1968. It was not until 1973 that the City of Coral Gables would acquire ownership of the property, and then over another decade would go by before the Biltmore re-emerged in its grand hotel identity in 1987 after enormous restoration. The present-day operators, Seaway Hotels Corporation, took over long-term management in 1992 and have since done their own refurbishments and repairs. Today, what the hotel guest or onsite tour participant can still observe is much of the original stylistic detail and architectural infrastructure in the public areas ranging from broad interior spaces to the equally large outdoor settings. The ambiance in these various public spaces – lobbies, terraces, lounges – remains a powerful reflection of the Gilded Age when its founder opened the doors of the Biltmore to a discerning elite world. Here are courtyards framed by arched terraces and anchored by flowing fountains, and statuary that gazes outward along the terrace edges or punctuate the long stretches of the interior lobby spaces, while the spaciousness of the lounge areas is lit with glittering crystal chandeliers high above the elegant carpeting and sofas. The vision of George Merrick’s founding days remains intact and well today at the Biltmore, now also designated a National Historic Landmark. There is much to savor visually here by way of a free scheduled tour which happens here on a Sunday afternoon, courtesy of the Dade Heritage Trust (www.dadeheritagetrust.org/event/historic-biltmore-hotel-tours).