Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine

17. On to Miami, 1896–1897

325 17 ∑ On to Miami, 1896–1897 It strikes me that we have outgrown the Ponce de Leon. —Henry Flagler to Joseph Parrott, September 9, 1895 With his family life in shambles, Flagler fled from New York to Florida. He and his private secretary J.C.Salter came down in Flagler’s personal car, which was no longer referred to as Alicia but simply as no. 90. They arrived in St. Augustine on October 30. Flag­ ler would spend five days in town so that he could attend to business and inspect the changes made in his properties.1 At the conclusion of the 1895 season Flag­ler had decided to abandon the practice of the past two years during which the Cordova had served as his number twohotel,whiletheAlcazaronlyprovidedroomsfortheoverflowfromtheother hotels. In the 1896 season the Alcazar would revert to its former position as the primary adjunct to the Ponce de Leon, and the Cordova would be used to accommodate any surplus of guests, while its dining room would be utilized for public entertainments when necessary. Shortly after the hotels shut down in the spring, McGuire sent a team of twenty workmen into the Alcazar to make some majoralterationsinpreparationforthehotel’selevatedstatusforthenextseason. To make the suites upstairs more attractive, forty-eight new private bathrooms were added. Some bedrooms at the ends of hallways were sacrificed in order to extend the hallways to the exterior walls so that sunlight would shine into the halls’ interiors. The second story walkways from the hotel to the Casino were roofed over so that guests could make the walk without being exposed to the elements. However, the most striking alteration was made on the ground floor, where McGuire’s workers tore out the wall between the northern portion of the dining room and the lobby. This created an impressively large rectangular entrance hall, giving the Alcazar a grand room nearly on the scale of the Ponce 326 · Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine de Leon’s public areas. Today visitors to Lightner Museum can experience the impressive ambiance of this room, which has been renovated once again in modern times. In order to draw attention to the new Alcazar, workmen installed fourfoot -tall letters spelling “ALCAZAR” across the front of the hotel between the towers. Multicolored electric lights shone from these letters.2 When McGuire took Flag­ ler on an inspection tour of the improvements in the Alcazar, Flag­ler noted that guests wishing to go from the new entrance hall to the ladies’ parlor on the west side of the courtyard were required to exit onto the open arched portico and walk the few paces between the rooms. In case of cold, windy weather, ladies in their gowns would be exposed to the elements. Why not, Flag­ ler suggested, enclose the arches of the portico across the front of the new hall and incorporate the portico into the entrance hall, then also enclose the firstthreearchesonthewestsidetocreateaninteriorhallwayconnectingthetwo public rooms? Within half an hour McGuire had his workers busy making this change. Large glass windows with lifting sashes in the middle were placed into the arches, with white lace curtains to decorate the new windows. This prosaic treatment was not what Carrère and Hastings had originally had in mind, but then they had underestimated the nasty weather that St. Augustine sometimes experiencesduringthewinter.(Thewindowsintheloggiaarcheshavelong since been removed, but the outlines of their frames are still visible on the concrete of the arches. The wall of the foyer has also been restored, and the loggia is open once again, as Carrère and Hastings intended.)3 Following his brief stay in St. Augustine, Flag­ ler was off for Palm Beach in private car no. 90, with his railroad and hotel executives attached in car no. 91, a new private car he had acquired in 1893 for use by his railroad officers. A new bridge had been built across Lake Worth to connect the Royal Poinciana to the mainland so that guests could ride their Pullmans right up to the gate of the hotel. As the Jacksonville Daily Florida Citizen explained, “It has been from the start H.M.Flag­ler’s wish to be the first to cross this bridge.” Just south of the hotel Flag­ler set up housekeeping in the old McCormick cottage, now called Sea Gull Cottage. His cousin Eliza Ashley and her husband Eugene came down from Lockport,NewYork,tosharetheplacewithFlag­ler.Elizawould serveashostess. Friends and visitors, such as the Andersons and Plants, would drop by from time...