Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine

8. Construction of the Ponce de Leon, 1885–1887

88 8 ∑ Construction of the Ponce de Leon, 1885–1887 A hundred years hence it will be all the same to me, and the building the better because of my extravagance. —Henry Flagler to McGuire and McDonald, December 26, 1885 Henry Flag­ ler was a man in a hurry to accomplish great things. Once he had decided to go ahead with his hotel scheme, he rushed to acquire the real estate needed for the hotel site and surrounding properties. Although he had been remarkably successful in acquiring what he wanted, the delays in getting his hands on the Anderson site and Powder House Lot frustrated him. McGuire and McDonald had told him it would take eighteen months to construct a building such as the one that Carrère and Hastings envisioned. Flag­ler could count the months ahead and realized that this schedule would put the completion date of the hotel well into 1887—too late for that year’s winter season. That meant another year’s delayuntilthe1888seasoncamearound.Flag­lerresignedhimselftothissituation and pushed ahead.1 In spite of the delays, progress continued toward bringing the hotel to reality. On November 7, in New York City, Hastings showed Flag­ler the complete plans for the Hotel Ponce de Leon. And in St. Augustine on November 10 McGuire and McDonald started preliminary work on the five-acre hotel site.2 As soon as a copy of the intricate Carrère and Hastings plans arrived, McGuire and McDonald staked out the footprint of the building in the sandy soil—and found to their consternation that the plans were all out of kilter. This raised a dismaying and potentially disastrous complication, for it brought Carrère and Hastings’s competence into question before the first spade of dirt had been turned. Construction of the Ponce de Leon, 1885–1887 · 89 The builders and architects exchanged telegrams, and then Carrère and HastingsappealedtoFlag ­lerforachanceto“vindicate”theirdesign.Quickly Carrère set off for St. Augustine carrying Flag­ler’s letter of introduction to Dr. Anderson. From his brief experience with McKim, Mead and White, Carrère was already experienced in troubleshooting difficulties with clients. Hastings later explained the situation: “When Mr. Carrère arrived he found that in laying out the plans on the grounds, they had started at one corner of the work and followed all the way round the silhouette of the plan, each time arriving within a few inches away from the corner where they had started, so that there was naturally a discrepancy owing to the inaccuracy of the instrument and the work on the grounds. After this Mr. Carrère immediately surveyed the center lines, and figures right and left, completing the layout on the ground, showing that our work was correct, and this was the beginning of our final employment to supervise the work until its completion.”3 Thus Flag­ ler could finally rejoice in getting down to work on the mammoth project. “On the first day of December, 1885, we commenced the digging of the excavation for the foundations of the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine.”4 During the summer there had been considerable discussion of just what sort of foundation was required. Engineer Frederick Bruce reported to Flag­ ler that he had been in consultation with McGuire and McDonald, and Bruce felt that wooden pilings would be useless in the sandy soil unless driven to a great depth. Bruce recommended what he called a “floating foundation,” and this was the path followed. A building with a floating foundation “floats” upon the earth in the same way that a ship floats on water. The building displaces a weight of earth equal to the weight of the building, just as a ship displaces a volume of water equal in weight to the heaviness of the ship. Also, just as a ship must have a sound hull, the building must have a robust foundation. In the case of the Hotel Ponce de Leon the walls become thicker at their base, forming a foundation of solid concrete sunk deep into the earth.5 In order to produce the concrete that would go into the hotel’s foundations and walls, two local materials were required: sand and coquina shell to serve as aggregate. Getting these required extensive, careful negotiations, land dealings, and purchases. Flag­ ler had three options as sources for coquina. His preference was simply to take coquina from the federal government’s old King’s Quarries south of the lighthouse...