A Great Train Journey

Part One

NRHS 2023 Annual Convention in Deerfield Beach, Florida

by

Robin Bowers

September 05, 2023

Tuesday

Chapter Seven

Text and Photos by Author

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent

Comments are appreciated at...yr.mmxx@gmail.com

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Flager Museum Tour

    Today's morning began similar to the previous ones here in Deerfield Beach, FL, first, a look out window to see what Mother Nature has for the weather today, next the morning ablutions followed by dressing for the day's activities. Then I went downstairs for breakfast of French Toast and orange juice at the Stag Bar with Howard working the bar. After breakfast I headed to the hotel entrance where our buses where queued for our boarding and traveling. Today's offering for conventioneers was to have two tour options. (1) Transit Tour of Miami with travel on Tri-Rail train from Deerfield Beach to Miami and return. (2) Bus ride to Palm Beach and tour of the Flagler Museum. Last Saturday Chris and I did option 1 on our own and therefore were able to take the Flager tour today. Both tours returned in time for everyone to get ready for the NRHS Banquet this evening.

After boarding the second of two buses, we headed east to the water's edge of the Atlantic Ocean. At this point we turned left and headed north on route A1A which follows and adjacent to the shore line. 

First look of ocean with morning sun rise.

Traveling along A1A is comparable to driving in Malibu on Pacific Coast Highway except here there are many more trees in this area. The residences are a mixture of the good, bad and ugly as at home. Having a lot of money doesn't give you any class is true here and world wide.

    

Beach scenes along A1A.

First look of Whitehall.

    In 1902, Flagler built Whitehall. With more than 75 rooms, Whitehall was a winter retreat and wedding present for his wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. Architects John Carrere and Thomas Hastings designed Whitehall in the Beaux Arts style of architecture made popular at the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. Whitehall was built during America's Gilded Age, which lasted from the end of the Civil War to the 1929 Stock Marker Crash. Automobiles, telephones, electric lights, indoor plumbing and virtually everything we take for granted today came into being during this time. The individuals who profited from these technological advancements and changes saw heirs of a great western cultural tradition. They built grand estates, like Whitehall, and undertook important public projects to symbolize America's new status as the most highly evolved civilization in history.

Walking to entrance. Notice the five windows on second floor which are for the five guest bedrooms; on far left is the Master Suite and far right is the Colonial Chamber.

A look back to front gate.

The first floor of Whitehall was designed to entertain guests, who entered the home through large bronze doors attended by uniformed doorman. Carrere and Hastings designed Whitehall's 5,000 square-foot reception to be the largest and grandest of any room in a Gilded Age private home.

At the rear is a portrait of Henry Flagler, painted in 1899 by society painter Raimundo de Madrazo y Garrete. In center is a large cassone, or marriage chest, incorporating a panel painting. This cassone panel is a 19th-cenury reproduction of a painting in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, Italy. In the late nineteenth century, the painting was hailed as a masterpiece of Renaissance art by American art historian Bernard Berenson.

    As you face the Grand Staircase, on the left is a deep green marble table designed especially for this room by the New York design firm of Pottier & Stymus. Atop this table is a bust of Caesar Augustus, a nineteenth-century copy of a original Roman marble sculpture discovered earlier in the century. The selection of this bust to adorn the Grand Hall was intentional, for it signaled American interest in ancient Rome as a prototype for the great society America seemed to be becoming. Flagler and his contemporaries saw America as the culmination of thousands of years of western cultural evolution.

The Grand Hall's ceiling depicts the Oracle of Delphi imparting Apollo's message of divine inspiration through arts and literature and the two paintings flanking the central dome depict dawn and dusk.

We were divided by bus to group one and group two. The first group would tour the upstairs and we, group two, would take the downstairs and after lunch switch locations.

 

First stop was the library. The Library, also used by Flagler as a reception area for guests and business associates, was decorated by Pottier & Stymus in the Italian Renaissance style.
 

Music Room

Music was a popular form of entertainment during the Gilded Age. A resident organist was hired each season to play the 1,249-pipe JH & CS Odell Co. organ installed in the Music Room. Here, Mrs Flager also hosted bridge parties, took afternoon tea, and held meetings of the Fortnightly Club, a group of women who gathered for programs of lectures and musicales.

The Music Room also served as an art gallery. The art includes a portrait of Mary Lily painted in 1902, the "Lady in the Veil" marble bust by E. Flaschi, and a domed ceiling painting, which is a copy of Guido Reni's "Aurora," a renowned masterpiece of the Italian Baroque.

Recessed lighting, an example of Gilded Age technology, illuminates "Aurora."

Like all the chandeliers and sconces original to Whitehall and seen in many other Gilded Age homes, the Music Room's chandeliers were made by Edward F. Caldwell & Co. and incorporate Baccarat crystals.

Once in the Dining Room, the Breakfast Room will be visible to the left. Breakfast was served in this room each morning. The Flaglers also used the room for more intimate meals. Servants had direct access to the Breakfast Room through doors connecting the butler's pantry and kitchen area.

   The Dining Room was designed in the French Renaissance style, reminiscent of a royal hunting lodge. The Flaglers entertained large parties in this room for lengthy, elegant dinners. Flagler sometimes dined here with male associates from financial, literary, and legal circles. The rug was specially woven for the room and is recessed into the parquet floor. The wall coverings are green silk, reproduced from the original fabric. The room's most prominent features include an ornate cast ceiling and the fireplace mantle, which incorporates carved culinary references such as shells, crabs, and fruit.

Drawing Room

The Drawing Room was used as a gathering place for music and conversation by Mary Lily and her female guests. The room is adorned with silk fabric and wood paneling decorated in the Louis XVI style. Above each door and mirror is a cameo of Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated wife of Louis XVI, who was seen as an archetype of style and femininity by Gilded Age society women.

Aluminum leaf highlights the plaster ornaments in the Drawing Room. For much of the Gilded Age, the process of extracting aluminum economically had not yet been perfected and as a result, aluminum was more expensive and precious than gold.

Courtyard

Carrere and Hastings followed Classical tradition when they designed Whitehall around a central courtyard. The courtyard plan took advantage of the ocean breezes, which helped to keep the house cool in the Florida climate. The Flaglers occasionally used this space for dinner parties.

At the Courtyard's center is a copy of Giovanni da Bologna's "Venus," modeled after an ancient statue and commissioned by the Medici family for the Boboli Gardens in Florence.

View across the Intracoastal Waterway to West Palm Beach

Early transportation for visitors in Palm Beach as autos were banned.

Flagler's private rail car, Railcar No. 91, is exhibited in the Flagler Kenan Pavilion. Railcar No. 91 was built in 1886 by Jackson and Sharp Company of Wilmington, Delaware. A newspaper article written at the time of its delivery heralded the railcar as "A Palace on Wheels." The railcar was one of two private railcars Flagler used to survey his railroad empire. This railcar traveled along the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) as part of the first train to Key West in celebration of the Over-Sea Railroad in 1912, a phenomenal engineering feat.

The Cafe des Beaux-Arts serves a seasonal Gilded Age-style Tea Service inside the Flagler Pavilion, featuring an array of delicacies and refreshments reminiscent of the elegance of entertaining during the Gilded Age. 

Inside Railcar No. 91.

The bridge at Royal Palm Way going up to let a yacht pass through.



The view from the Cocoanut Grove where we ate our boxed lunch.



Palm Beach's name came from the extensive cocoanut groves that once covered the east side of Lake Worth, and it was this natural feature that initially attracted Henry Flagler to this area. Today the Cocoanut Grove on the south side of Whitehall is the only remaining cocoanut grove in Palm Beach.



Entrance to Museum Store.
 

Second Floor

The second floor of Whitehall was designed as private living space for the Flaglers, their guests, and domestic staff. In addition to the Master Suite, there were originally fourteen guest chambers, twelve servants' rooms, seventeen bathrooms, and Mrs. Flagler's Morning Room.

Green Room



Colonial Chamber

The Colonial Chamber is the largest of all the guest bedrooms. The furniture came from Flagler's home, Satanstoe, in Mamaroneck, New York.

Five Guest Bedrooms

Off the Hallway are a series of five Guest Bedroom, each equipped with a private bath and large closet. Each bedroom is connected to the next by a double privacy door. These rooms are the Heliotrope Room, the Gold Room, the Louis XV Room, the Pink Room and the Blue Room.




Heliotrope Room



Pink Room



Blue Room

Master Suite

Mr. and Mrs. Flagler shared the Master Suite, a practice uncommon at the turn-of-the-century. The bedroom is decorated in the Louis XIV style and furnished with the original furniture. The suite is comprised of two separate dressing chambers, a large bath area, and a bedroom.

Connected to the dressing chamber is a modern bathroom equipped with some of the most advanced conveniences of the day, including indoor plumbing, telephone, tub and shower.






On exhibit in Mrs. Flagler's dressing chamber are clothes typical of the period.



Colonial Room



Yellow Roses Room

Matching wallpaper and fabric was a turn-of-century innovation. The Marechal Niel rose patterned wallpaper, depicting a popular variety of rose in the Gilded Age, and the fabric decorating the room were reproduced from a square of the original paper found behind the mirror in the washbasin alcove.



One of twelve servants' rooms.



Whitehall's fence, the most elaborate and extensive fence of the period anywhere in America, is an essential architectural feature of the estate. The 1,000-foot iron structure with bronze details was designed by Whitehall's architects, Carrere and Hastings.

After both groups had finished their tours, we boarded the buses for the quick return to out hotel via the Interstate 95.



Looking North on the Intracoastal Waterway from Royal Palm Way bridge.



West Palm Beach from Royal Palm Way bridge.

The conventioneers arrived back at the hotel with time to freshen up for tonight's NRHS Banquet. The room was sold out as everyone was interested in the guest speaker, Patrick Goddard, President of Brightline answering prepared questions about future plans for the railroad in Florida and the Las Vegas-to-Los Angeles rail line.

After dinner it was time to hit the sack. Tomorrow's schedule is to ride Tri-Rail to the Miami station and  then bus to the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.