We took advantage of our red train tickets today merely for their free parking, as we set off on foot to see Flagler College and the parts of St. Augustine closest to our starting point. It was nice to be walking about in the old city.
There was a little time to kill before the tour of Flagler College would begin, so we took a look at the building across the street from it, which started out as the Alcazar Hotel at the time that Flagler College was known as the Ponce de Leon Hotel, both built by Henry Flagler. Now Alcazar is known as the Lightner Museum, but also houses the city administration and other shops and offices. Its courtyard includes stately palm trees and flowers, as well as a pond filled with large koi fish. Next to it on the same side of the street is the Villa Zorayda Museum, an exotic structure inspired by the Al Hambra palace in Spain!
Back at the college, a student tour guide told us about the palatial building that started out as a resort destination for Americans escaping winter in the north. Flagler changed the notion that St. Augustine was mainly a place for consumptives seeking a cure. His Ponce de Leon Hotel was made of poured coquina concrete and trimmed in ornate terra cotta archways, turrets and tiled roofs.
Flagler spared no expense on the inside, paneling the walls in carved wood, paving the floors in marble and mosaic designs, decorating the ceilings with cupids and curlicues, and gracing the windows with stained glass commissioned from Tiffany. He offered free accommodation to noted artists in exchange for magnificent paintings for the walls, and hung priceless Austrian crystal chandeliers in the ladies’ parlour.
To entice more visitors, Flagler built other locations where they could golf, bicycle, swim or practise archery so they wouldn’t get bored. He also established the railway system in Florida that would bring them there from the north. All this was unfolding when his career was at its height, but no one could have guessed he would reach this level of success when, at 14 years of age, he left his poor homestead and started working in a small general store. He would sleep under the counter at night with the store’s brown wrapping paper for a blanket, and during the day he applied himself to becoming a top-notch sales person.
It was fascinating to learn about the man who was largely responsible for putting Florida on the map. It’s one of America’s rags-to-riches stories, and while Flagler was shrewd and ruthless in some ways, he had a very positive impact on the fortunes of many people in the sunshine state before his death in 1913.
No comments:
Post a Comment