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It was theIr heyday In FlorIda. CaptaIns oF Industry and CommerCe • henry Flagler, henry B. plant and John rInglIng • leFt dazzlIng

legaCIes In the Form oF palatIal homes and hotels. traCe theIr Footsteps wIth a vIsIt to the museums that Bear theIr names.

or years I’ve had a love affair with Henry Flagler. Perhaps it was his amazing power as a visionary — he was someone who saw opportunity on the Florida frontier back

in 1881 and grabbed it — that attracted me to him. Or perhaps it was his exquisite taste. Just look at the luxe hotels (Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, the Breakers in Palm Beach) that he built at the turn of the 20th century to entice Northerners to come south for the winter; the properties were shining examples of Western culture. Not to mention that they set the state’s tourism industry in motion. Sometimes I think it was his steadfast belief that anything was possible, given American ingenuity and hard work, that impressed me most. The more I researched the man, the more he seduced me.

After all, it was an opulent time in American his-tory, one that literary icon Mark Twain dubbed the Gilded Age — a time of conspicuous consumption. It seemed that anything Flagler, Henry B. Plant and John Ringling touched turned to

gold. And, by the way, there was plenty of that used to decorate their Florida homes and hotels — from the doors to the columns to the ceilings.

From the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the stock market crash in 1929, these titans amassed unbelievable fortunes, and all three of them made their way to Florida, where they accumulated more wealth, building and running railroad, steamship and real-estate companies. They also took great care in constructing and decorating their lavish Florida homes and hotels, drawing inspiration from the Moorish, Gothic and Venetian styles that were fash-ionable at the time. They spared not a dime traveling to Europe and New York’s auction houses to handpick art and antiques. Their homes and hotels, where they entertained in full splendor, served as a representation

of their claim to a high place in society. Meticulously preserved as museums, these examples of the privileged life in Florida during America’s Gilded Age are sure to surprise you.

story PAtRiciA letAkis photography lARRy niGHswAndeR

From left: Henry Flagler,

John Ringling, Henry

Plant. Opposite: cà d’Zan.

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GodfathersThe

gilded

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Palm Beach, a slender 18-mile-long barrier island with not much more on it than sprouting coconut palms, caught Henry Flagler’s eye when he was sailing his yacht down Florida’s peninsula. However, at the time, he wasn’t thinking mansion,

he was thinking railroad. It turns out that the man who started Standard Oil with John D. Rockefeller in 1867 and built winter resorts in St. Augustine in 1885 had decided to go into business in Florida big time, and he needed railroads to service his projects. It was Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway that connected cities along the Atlantic coast, linking Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Daytona with Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and eventu-ally, in 1912, Key West — the end of the line.

In 1901, Flagler was ready to build his ultimate Florida home: a marble palace in Palm Beach for his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. It was part of her wedding gift, and the new bride named it whitehall, house of marble. The beaux-arts style dominated American architecture during the Gilded Age, and Flagler’s favored archi-tects, John Carrère and Thomas Hastings, students of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, were tasked with designing his palatial home. The exterior had

massive Doric columns and oversize marble urns that welcomed guests to the stately residence. Entering through bronze doors adorned with lion-head sculptures, guests proceeded into the Grand Hall, where several shades of delicately veined marble — from soft yellow and dove gray to sea green and pale pink, as well as rich brown and pure white — defined the floor, walls, grand staircase, pillars, furniture and sculptures. It truly was a house of marble.

The Flaglers entertained regally, and a tour of the house, preserved as the Flagler Museum (flaglermuseum.com) since 1960, shows off the splendor of a bygone era. In the Grand Hall, one has only to look up at the ceiling, intricately carved with edges accented in gold, to admire the painting of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Mythological figures appear to be floating among the clouds. Surprisingly, the scene was not painted on the ceiling but rather on a canvas that was affixed to the ceiling. After all, this was the age when American steel, indoor plumb-

ing, electric lights and plaster ceilings represented progress, and Flagler incorporated it all into the construction of Whitehall.

Live music was the entertainment of the day. So the Music Room, replete with brocade walls, chandeliers and gilded crown moldings, was home to a 1,249-pipe J. J. & C. S. Odel Co. organ. Mary’s

Drawing Room, where her guests gathered for music and conver-sation, had a 1902 Steinway art case Model B grand piano with a delicate painting of Erato, the muse of love poetry, on its lid. (To hear the organ and piano being played attend the museum’s annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony on Dec. 4.) Adorned in silk, with cameos of Marie Antoinette above the doors and mirror, the room has a feminine appeal and is one of the few rooms where silver aluminum leaf outshines the gold on the plas-ter ornamentation. During much of the Gilded Age, aluminum was as expensive, and as precious, as gold.

Parties at Whitehall took place in the Grand Ballroom, a mag-nificent ivory-and-gold room designed in the style characteristic of the Louis XV period (think lots of curves) and bedazzled with Baccarat crystal chandeliers. A black-and-white photo depicts the Bal Poudré, a costume ball to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. Women dressed in colonial-period costumes — waist-fitting, long gowns and white powdered wigs — danced the minuet and mingled with gentlemen in tuxedos. It was described in the New York Herald as “one of the most sumptuous social affairs ever attempted south of Washington.” D o n ’ t m i s s The museum store has an amazing collection of books on Flagler and other Gilded Age movers and shakers.s l e e p Stay at the Breakers (thebreakers.com) and sleep where Flagler’s contemporaries slept.

e at Enjoy Sunday brunch at the Breakers’ circle dining room, where ornate, 30-foot frescoed ceilings of Renaissance garden scenes reflect Flagler’s passion for European art.

•It only took one glimpse of the sparkling minarets on the rooftop of the Henry B. Plant Museum (plantmuseum.com) in Tampa to pique my curiosity about the man behind the magnificent structure. In pursuit of his story, I found myself repeat-edly visiting his hotel-turned-museum and devouring news clips on the Yankee capitalist who set his sights on Florida’s Gulf coast. Once again, I was swept away, not only by the romance of the era, but also by Henry B. Plant himself.

While Flagler was eagerly developing the state’s east coast, his rival, Plant, was building railway and steamship lines on Florida’s Gulf side. In 1884, the Connecticut-born businessman connected his railroad to his steamship line at Port Tampa, revolutionizing trade within the state and the nation. Then he set his mind to constructing his extravagant tampa Bay Hotel.

Plant — not one to shy from hard work — was raised with Puritan values and has been described as a self-made entrepreneur

the Grand Hall, Flagler

Museum in Palm Beach.

Opposite: cà d’Zan’s

Game Room with a Ve-

netian carnival ceiling.

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Flagler’s Whitehall

pa l m B e ac h Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotelta m pa

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with incredible vision and strong moral character. An audio clip at the museum captures him saying, “Work is a necessity to everyone. The person who thinks he can get along without working is either an idiot or fool. Even millionaires have a certain amount of work to do …”

This millionaire had his work cut out for him when he decided to take on Flagler, whose Ponce de Leon Hotel was all the rage. Plant broke ground on his Tampa hotel, and when its astonishing silver domes and minarets topped with crescent moons rose up among tropical foliage on the Hillsborough River in 1891, it had an exotic aura, one of fantasy. Moorish archi-tecture complemented long verandas with graceful cornices and fancy scrollwork, and a keyhole motif shaped the windows, doorways and porches. (Glance across the river at the brand-new tampa Museum of Art (tampamuseum.org); the contem-porary structure contrasts sharply with the architecture of the Gilded Age.) Designed to lure Northerners south for more than the warm weather, the resort had a boat-house, a casino, an indoor swimming pool, an 18-hole golf course and a racetrack. The hotel even had an exhibition hall for per-formances by celebrities of the day: actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1906 and prima balle-rina Anna Pavlova in 1915.

When it came to decorating, Plant was a collector at heart. He and his wife Margaret shopped Europe, and they sent back 41 trainloads of bronze sculp-tures, French furniture, cabinets from Spain and China, mirrors from Venice and even red carpets with lions from Britain, said to be rejected by royalty who couldn’t fathom stepping on a lion — the royal coat of arms’ symbol.

From left to right, top to bottom:

1-2 Flagler Museum, 3-5 cà d’Zan,

6-7 Flagler Museum, 8-9 Henry B.

Plant Museum, 10 cà d’Zan, 11 Henry B.

Plant Museum, 12 cà d’Zan, 13 Flagler

Museum, 14-15 cà d’Zan, 16 Henry B.

Plant Museum, 17-19 cà d’Zan,

20 Henry B. Plant Museum.

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The showstopper displayed in the museum is the bronze-painted, cast-iron statue of a Middle Eastern dancing girl in a sensuous, cling-ing costume revealing her navel. At a time when it was a breach of etiquette to offer a partner an ungloved hand, the scantily clad figu-rine, holding five electric light bulbs, was quite shocking. Yet Plant chose to prominently place not one but two statues in the lobby, per-haps because they showed off the latest technology — electricity.

When the hotel opened its doors to 2,000 guests in the win-ter of 1891, it was a fairy tale come true. The Tampa Daily Journal reported: “The brilliance and beauty of the scene surpass the poet’s dream and defy description.”D o n ’ t m i s s Learn what made this millionaire tick at the Henry Plant: king of Florida exhibition, through Dec. 31.s l e e p Explore Florida’s 1920s architecture at the don cesar Beach Resort (loewshotels.com) on nearby st. Pete Beach.e at Dine on barbecue-rubbed scallops with brown butter pecan spinach and white-cheddar grits across the street from the museum at Mise en Place (miseonline.com).

•No house in Florida depicts a homeowner’s love for art as much as the winter residence of John Ringling. I was daz-zled the very first time I set eyes on his mansion — and soon intrigued as to how this boy from Baraboo, Wisconsin,

became one of the biggest art collectors in Florida history.Mention the name Ringling, and the Greatest Show on Earth

comes to mind. This businessman did indeed begin his rise to fame and fortune with the Ringling Bros. Circus; however, by the time he arrived in Florida, his investments included railroads, ranch land and oil wells. Florida real estate and the development of Sarasota were added to this very wealthy man’s list.

He and his wife Mable settled on Sarasota Bay in a clapboard house in 1909 but, by 1924, their tastes had changed and they embarked on building what they called cà d’Zan, or House of John, one of the last Gilded Age homes in America. Today, it’s part of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (ring ling.org) complex, which includes the art museum, filled with Ringling's vast collection of European art, and a circus museum.

Although Florida architects promoted Mediterranean styles for fashionable homes, the Ringlings wanted something whim-sical and grand. The couple had traveled extensively through Europe and had acquired a passion for all things Venetian. They were especially fond of the palaces that lined the canals of Venice and wanted to replicate the Italian workmanship. A Venetian palazzo with all the conveniences of mid-1920s America, includ-ing appliances, heating and lighting, was their dream mansion.

By the time it was finished in 1924, the home had faux trav-ertine marble walls, pointed arches and onyx-faced columns. Its tower featured ogee windows, glazed tiles and floral details on its columns. According to the keeper of Cà d’Zan, Ron McCarty, who’s been with the museum for 30 years and was involved with the restoration from1996 to 2002, there is a wealth of symbolism in the house for those who care to scrutinize it. Masonic symbols — a triangle and eye — are hidden in the exterior walls, and the black-and-white marble floor in the living room can be inter-preted as a representation of good and evil. (To learn the house’s secrets, take Cà d’Zan’s Private Places tour.)

As the Gilded Age came to an end, the way that the rich enter-tained changed too. It was Prohibition, and Ringling loved to host gentlemen friends in his Tap Room. He kept his own reserve stock of bourbon, of which McCarty was able to save one bottle. The curator is now on a mission to find the others that were auctioned off before the house was designated a historic landmark.

Dancing was a favorite pastime, and the ballroom’s eccentric ceiling featured paintings of dancing couples. Some 22 canvases were installed in gilded octagonal framing to create the coffer ceiling. The high-spirited energy of the artwork’s subjects ran the gamut from traditional Japanese and Egyptian dancers to couples doing the tango. In the third-floor Game Room, the Ringlings appear in festive Venetian carnival costumes in the ceiling’s mural — a tribute by painter Willy Pogany to both the couple and their love of Venice. D o n ’ t m i s s Mable’s rose garden has 1,200 plants, with names like Diana Princess of Wales, Red Intuition and Moonstone.s l e e p For a quick overnight, check into indigo Hotel (ichotels group.com), a boutique property with a cool South Beach vibe.e at The alfresco cafe l’europe (cafeleurope.net) on St. Armands Circle was once Ringling’s real-estate office.

sarasota’s cà d’Zan boasts a ballroom ceiling that used $5,000 worth

of gold leaf when built in the 1920s. Opposite: Visitors take in the

front porch of the tampa Bay Hotel, now the Henry B. Plant Museum.

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Ringling’s Cà d’Zan

s a r a s o ta