The Millionaire Who Transformed a City
Henry Flagler visited St. Augustine in the 1880s and decided to make it a winter resort for America's wealthy. His Hotel Ponce de León opened in 1888 and is now Flagler College. Documented history
In 1885, one of the richest men in America looked at a sleepy old town and saw a palace.
Henry Flagler had made a fortune as a partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil. On visits to St. Augustine in the 1880s, he decided the town could become a winter playground for wealthy Northerners, if it had the right hotel and the right railroad.
He built both. The Hotel Ponce de León opened in January 1888, designed by the young architects John Carrère and Thomas Hastings in a Spanish Renaissance Revival style. It was built of poured concrete mixed with local coquina shell, and it had electric lighting, a technology few buildings anywhere had at the time. Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio supplied stained glass.
A season, not a year
The hotel was open only for the winter season, roughly January to Easter. Across King Street, Flagler also built the Hotel Alcazar (today the Lightner Museum). His railroad later pushed south all the way to Key West.
The people behind the palace
Every grand hotel ran on workers: builders, cooks, waiters, laundry staff and maids whose names rarely made the guest books. In 1968 the Ponce de León became Flagler College, and its students now live where millionaires once wintered.
Your mission
From the King Street sidewalk, look at the towers and gates. Find a sun, a sea creature or a Spanish symbol in the design. Why would a hotel want to look older than it was?
Plan it
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Historical basis: Flagler College, Historical Virtual Tours; Lightner Museum, History. See all sources.