April 15th , 2011 → 8:44 am @ Palm Beach Centennial
Important information about the Centennial Celebration on the 17th. You can download a flyer with all the information by clicking here.
The information includes event times as well as parking and road closures in the Town. Again, click here for more information.
Parking Information and Road Closures
Category : News
March 8th , 2011 → 7:30 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
April is a big month for the Town’s Centennial Celebrations. Under each event is more detailed information about the celebrations. Please mark your calendars for these important events.
To purchase tickets or become a sponsor of one of these events please call 561-659-5354.
Friday, April 15th, 2011
The Palm Beach Centennial Kick Off Reception at The Mar-a-Lago Club
Presented by 
Tickets: $100
Time: 8:30pm-Midnight
Click here for more detailed information.
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
The Palm Beach Centennial Ambassador’s Dinner at The Breakers Palm Beach
Tickets by invitation at $500
Time: 7pm-11pm
Click here for more detailed information.
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
The Town of Palm Beach’s All-Town Celebration at The Flagler Museum
Free to the public
Promenade- 6pm-7pm
Time: 6pm-9pm
Click here for more detailed information.
Category : April Events / Events / News
February 3rd , 2011 → 11:20 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
Here’s your chance to be part of Palm Beach’s Centennial celebrations by voicing your pride in your town!
Palm Beach residents can express congratulatory messages in print on color group-advertising pages in the special Centennial kick-off section to be published by the Palm Beach Daily News. This supplement will contain the official guide to Centennial events along with historical photos, facts and other information related to the town’s 100th-anniversary celebration.
This Centennial Supplement will be published by the Palm Beach Daily News Sunday, April 10, 2011.
For further information, please contact
Diana Sedito at (561) 820-3828
Space Reservation and Payment Deadline:
Ad Size and Rate:
3.25” x 2” • $215
Color is included in the cost.
Click here for the entire flyer.
Courtesy of :
Category : News
December 29th , 2010 → 8:56 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
As part of Palm Beach’s 100th-anniversary celebration, 42 leaders with longtime ties to the town accepted the honor of serving as “Centennial Ambassadors,” Centennial Commission Chairman Bill Bone said at a Nov. 23 reception attended by many of the honorees at The Colony.
“They have made their mark in the worlds of business, service and charity or in intangible forums like the universe of ideas, style and elegance,” Bone said after the reception, adding that each has ties to the town stretching back at least five decades.
“The Centennial Ambassadors are rich in the resources that matter most, like friends, family and the ties that bind them to this town,” Bone said. “There are other people just as successful, and there are even people who have lived here as long or longer. But the Centennial Ambassadors are individuals who have all these attributes and a connection to the town for at least 50 years, making these people special, even by Palm Beach standards.”
The ambassadors will be recognized at all official Centennial events and also will be honored April 16, 2011, at the Centennial Dinner Gala, a black-tie event at The Breakers. The gala will be part of a full weekend of events geared around the anniversary of the town’s incorporation on April 17, 1911.
Here are brief biographical sketches that highlight some of the achievements of the honorees.
James Y. Arnold Jr.
James Y. Arnold Jr. today lives with his wife, Roberta, not far from the site of Rabbit Hill, a significant home in Palm Beach history and the subject of a Florida historical marker on South Lake Trail. Henry M. Flagler had purchased the property from pioneer Dr. John H. Brelsford in 1901, and, in 1944, it was sold to Arnold’s father, who housed a well-known collection of orchids there. Arnold, a builder, has been an active supporter of the Norton Museum of Art, where he served as president of the board of trustees.
Lillian ‘Lian’ Fanjul de Azqueta
Lillian “Lian” Fanjul de Azqueta, wife of Norberto Azqueta Sr. and a member of one of Palm Beach’s most prominent families, founded two charitable organizations to help families living in poverty. New Hope Charities, created in 1988, helps foster sustainable communities in South Florida’s Glades area near the Fanjul family’s sugar-production facilities, while the MIR Foundation does similar work in the Dominican Republic. She serves as a director and president of both. She also serves on the board of Flo-Sun Inc. and is a moderator of the Vatican Council on International Health.
Mary Bolton
Longtime Palm Beach resident Mary Bolton was married to the late Kenyon C. Bolton, a philanthropist, military officer and diplomat. The Boltons’ architect son Kenyon “Tim” Bolton III designed for his mother Figulus III and Figulus IV, an award-wining home named after the 1893 house that his great-grandfather, Charles W. Bingham, built as Palm Beach’s first oceanfront mansion. Members of the Bingham family have owned property here for four generations. A longtime member of the Garden Club of Palm Beach, Mary Bolton has supported Opportunity Inc. and other organizations.
Helen S. Cluett
Helen Cluett has made her mark on Palm Beach in a variety of ways since she moved here in 1959 with Bill, her late husband. Cluett was one of the early supporters of Opportunity Inc., which recently celebrated its 70th birthday as Palm Beach’s oldest charity. The organization provides high-quality child care, preschool education and parenting/life skills training for low-income and at-risk families. Cluett also has been involved with the United Way, the Norton Museum of Art and The Society of the Four Arts. She also is well known for her staunch support of the Republican Party.
Edith Robb Dixon
When Edith Robb married Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr. in 1952, she became part of the Widener family; her husband’s mother was Eleanor Widener Dixon, who survived the sinking of the Titanic. In Palm Beach, businessman F. Eugene Dixon — a horse breeder who once owned the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and co-owned the NFL’s Philadelphia Phillies — served 18 years as board chairman of The Society of the Four Arts. After his death in 2006, his wife assumed that position until this year. She has continued the couple’s legacy of support for charities, and educational and medical institutions.
Alex W. Dreyfoos
The driving force behind the creation of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Dreyfoos is a graduate of both MIT and Harvard Business School. He owns 10 U.S. and countless foreign patents in the fields of electronics and photography. He is the founder of Photo Electronics Corp., a manufacturer of equipment for the photographic industry. The company earned and received an Academy Award for its development of a motion-picture video color negative analyzer. Dreyfoos owned controlling interest in WPEC TV-12, the CBS television affiliate in West Palm Beach, from 1973 to 1996, when he sold it for $164 million. That sale led to the establishment of the Dreyfoos Group, the private capital management firm of which he is founder and chairman. He is married to Renate Dreyfoos
Ambassador Edward E. Elson
From 1993 to 1998, Edward E. Elson served as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark. Among his many other accomplishments, he was the rector of the University of Virginia, the first chairman of National Public Radio and the first chairman of the NPR Foundation. He also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In Palm Beach, he has taken leadership roles with The Society of the Four Arts and the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach. Elson’s mother and father first came to Palm Beach in 1959, and he and his wife, Susie, became permanent residents 40 years later.
Alfonso ‘Alfy’ Fanjul
Alfonso J. “Alfy” Fanjul Jr. has served as chairman and CEO of Fanjul Corp. and Florida Crystals Corp. After the Castro regime took possession of Fanjul property in Cuba, the family launched new ventures in the United States, with an emphasis on sugar production. Today Fanjul Corp. is an agriculture, real estate, resort and energy company. Among his charitable interests, he co-founded Mission International Rescue Charities in the Dominican Republic and is a national trustee of the University of Miami and a member of the Florida Council of 100. He is married to Raysa Fanjul.
Jose ‘Pepe’ Fanjul
Jose “Pepe” Fanjul — whose family came to the United States from Cuba in 1959 following its Communist revolution — has served as vice chairman, CEO and president of Fanjul Corp. and Florida Crystals Corp., two Fanjul family-owned companies principally engaged in the production of sugar. Fanjul also has assumed leadership roles in Central Romana Corp., the largest privately held company in the Dominican Republic. Among the charities he and his wife, Emelia, support, he serves as chairman of New Hope Charities, an organization founded by his sister, Lillian “Lian” Fanjul de Azqueta, to help foster sustainable communities in Florida and the Dominican Republic.
Dame Celia Lipton Farris
The singer, actress, businesswoman and author exemplifies the town’s charitable ethic. An AIDS research supporter, she also is the recipient of the Clara Barton Award, the highest honor of the American Red Cross, as well as the Salvation Army’s highest recognition, the Eliza Shirley Award. The widow of Victor Farris, she is a two-time recipient of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce Charitable Achievement Award, and is the first recipient of the American Cancer Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which is now called the Dame Celia Farris Lifetime Achievement Award. While a teenager in war-torn London, she entertained the troops, returning 50 years later to perform for a half-million people at a D-Day commemorative concert in Hyde Park. For her patriotism and charitable achievement, she was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II.
Marjorie Fisher
With her late husband, businessman Max Fisher, Marjorie Fisher has been an active force in community and charitable service, most recently receiving the Distinguished Community Citizen Award from the Alexis de Tocqueville Society. Her many local charitable interests have included the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and its new facility, named for Max Fisher, in Riviera Beach. She has also supported the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, the Jewish Federation and the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.
Jane R. and Robert M. Grace
Among the causes they have supported in Palm Beach and vicinity, Jane and Robert M. Grace are well known for their support of the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach. Its handsome library was named in honor of Robert M. Grace, a founder of the foundation, by his wife, who serves on its board. A longtime town councilman, he also chaired the town’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. At The Society of the Four Arts, the Rovensky Building is named in honor of Jane Grace’s family. She also is chairwoman emeritus of the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League’s board of directors.
Dr. Robert Green
Born in New York, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert Green has lived in Florida since 1937. A year later, his father, Murray Green, opened Green’s Pharmacy, an island institution that continues to operate as a drug store with a popular dining area serving breakfast and lunch. Green has lived in Palm Beach since 1949 and opened his West Palm Beach practice in 1965. He is former chairman of the medical staff and chief of orthopedics at Good Samaritan Medical Center, where he also was a physician adviser. He is married to Elizabeth Green.
Diana B.B. Holt
With her longtime interest in archaeological projects in China and East Africa, Diana Busch Blabon Holt joined her late husband, Charles, in supporting a variety of charitable and medical organizations, including the South Florida Science Museum, the Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adults and the Mental Health Associaton. A champion-level bridge player, she helped spearhead the formation of the Palm Beach Bridge Club.
The late Frances Hufty
Frances Hufty, who died Nov. 20 at age 98, was an avid supporter of environmental causes and conservation long before such causes were popular. She served as trustees chairwoman of the Archbold Biological Station, founded by her brother, Richard Archbold, in central Florida and the state’s most significant land holding of sand pine scrub; and Palm Beach County’s Pine Jog Environmental Educational Center, with which she was involved from its inception. She was married to the late M.R. Page Hufty, an insurance executive and financier.
Mary Hulitar
Mary Hulitar is well known for her board service at The Society of the Four Arts and for continuing the legacy established by her late husband in the organization’s Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden, named for the public-spirited leader and prominent American couturier who helped create it and fund its maintenance. The garden was completely redesigned several years ago, creating a space even more welcoming to visitors and residents of Palm Beach.
Edward M. Kassatly
With his brother Bob, Edward M, Kassatly runs Kassatly’s linen emporium, the oldest store on Worth Avenue, established by their father, Sam, a European immigrant who had a linen shop in Southampton, N.Y., before opening a Miami store and, in 1923, the Palm Beach store in the original retail hub near Seminole Avenue and Bradley Place. Today married to Cami, Ed Kassatly is a past president of the Worth Avenue Association of merchants and the Worth Avenue Property Owners’ Association.
Thomas S. Kenan III
Born in Durham, N.C., Thomas Kenan III descends from the family that included Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, widow of Henry M. Flagler. Kenan is a vice chairman and director of Flagler System Inc., a family business that has owned The Breakers Palm Beach for four generations. He was formerly chairman of the board of Kenan Transport Company, a petroleum transport business, a position he held until the company’s sale in 2001. Kenan is active with a number of civic and philanthropic organizations that include the Kenan Family Foundation. He also serves as secretary of the Flagler Museum’s board of trustees.
Sidney A. Kohl
With strong business and family ties to the Midwest, longtime Palm Beach resident Sidney Kohl has an extensive background in the real estate industry. Co-founder of Alliant Asset Management Co. and Alliant Inc. of Florida, Kohl has developed two large regional malls as managing partner, along with commercial and residential projects. In Palm Beach, he has served on a variety of civic boards and he and his wife, Dorothy, actively support several Palm Beach civic and charitable organizations, including Town of Palm Beach United Way, the Intracoastal Health Foundation, the Kravis Center and the Norton Museum of Art.
Leonard A. Lauder
Leonard A. Lauder is a member of the second of four generations to call Palm Beach home, as he first came to the island with his parents, Estée and Joseph. Today, his children and grandchildren continue the tradition. As chairman of the Estée Lauder Co., founded by his parents, he works side by side with his wife, Evelyn, who is founder of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Lauder is a trustee and chairman of the Whitney Museum of Art, serves on the president’s council of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is a charter trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002, Lauder was awarded the French Legion of Honor.
Elsie G. Leviton
A longtime proponent of social causes, women’s rights and civic responsibility, Elsie Leviton is a past president of the Florida League of Women Voters and was honored in 2008 for her years of service to Palm Beach County’s Education and Government Programming Advisory Board. She honored her late husband, pediatrician Laurence Leviton, by naming a room in the Palm Healthcare Pavilion devoted to diabetes education and research after him. She also devoted 40 years to building and managing the library collection at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach. She was also named outstanding woman of the year by the county’s United Nations chapter.
H. Irwin Levy
As one of the three original investors in the first Century Village retirement community — and later the chairman of its development company — Irwin Levy has put his fortune to good use. Trained as an attorney, Levy has been a longtime supporter of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. His son, Mark Levy, was installed this year as the federation’s president, a role Mark’s late mother, Jeanne, had also held. Irwin and his present wife, Ellen, are one of three couples who will co-chair the American Friends of Hebrew University’s 2011 Palm Beach Scopus Awards Gala at The Breakers.
Paul L. ‘Jay’ Maddock Jr.
Paul L. “Jay” Maddock Jr. is a fourth-generation Palm Beacher whose great grandfather, Henry Maddock, built his home, Duck’s Nest, in 1891 on property that then stretched from the Intracoastal to the ocean. Henry’s son, Sidney Maddock, among his development projects, built the 1902 Palm Beach Hotel, which burned down after catching fire from the same blaze that destroyed The Breakers in 1925. Paul Maddock Sr. eventually restored Duck’s Nest, which has since been landmarked. The family property also houses the original Bethesda-by-the-Sea church, a deconsecrated structure that became the family home. In 2008 the land was subdivided into six lots. Today, Jay Maddock’s business interests include Palamad Development Company Inc. and The Maddock Companies. With his wife, Lynn, he supports a variety of philanthropic causes.
Morton L. Mandel
Although he has deep ties to Ohio, Morton L. Mandel has had a family home in Palm Beach for some 50 years. He is the chairman and CEO of Parkwood Corp. He is also chairman of the Mandel Foundation, a major force in Jewish philanthropy. He founded leadership institutes in Jerusalem and Negev, Israel, and is the founding president of the World Conference of Jewish Community Centers. He is a board director of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, which established the Mandel Center for Excellence in Leadership. Through family foundations and with his wife, Barbara, he also supports the Jewish Community Center of the Greater Palm Beaches.
George G. Matthews
The great-grandson of Henry M. Flagler, George G. Matthews has been president of the Flagler Museum’s board of trustees since 1960. Professionally, he manages diverse real estate and commercial investments, as well as philanthropic interests. An avid wildlife enthusiast, he was recently inducted into the International Gamefishing Hall of Fame. His extensive community service includes serving on the Palm Beach Town Council for 16 years, eight of those as president. He is also a chairman emeritus of the Palm Beach Civic Association.
William M. Matthews
William M. Matthews is the son of Henry M. Flagler’s granddaughter, Jean Flagler Matthews, and the longtime treasurer of the trustees of the Flagler Museum, founded by his mother. He has been involved with investments and venture capital activities for more than 25 years. Married to Jean L. Rhodes Matthews, he is active with the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Over the past decade, he has focused on nonprofit and charitable concerns, including the Palm Beach Day Academy, The Society of the Four Arts and the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties.
Brownie McLean
For decades, society icon Brownie McLean has enjoyed Palm Beach’s active social scene and supported numerous causes in the process. Born Mildred Brown — hence “Brownie — she became popular on the island’s social scene after marrying the late John R. “Jock” McLean, the son of Ned and Evelyn McLean, who once owned the Hope Diamond. The couple owned El Salano, the Mizner-designed oceanfront mansion Brownie later sold to John and Yoko Ono. She’s a supporter of the Global Futures Foundation. In 2009, the American Red Cross honored her for her lifetime of service — she has attended more than 40 of the charity’s 53 Palm Beach balls.
Ogden Mills ‘Dinny’ Phipps
The fourth generation — his great-grandfather Henry Phipps was Andrew Carnegie’s partner — of a monied family that at one time owned 28 miles of coastline between Miami and Palm Beach, Ogden Mills Phipps is the former chairman of his family’s bank, Bessemer Trust. Known as “Dinny,” he continues the family tradition of breeding champion horses and is a recipient of the Eclipse Award, the racing industry’s highest honor. Married to Andrea, Phipps is a past chairman of the Jockey Club of New York and of the New York State Racing Association, and a board member of the Breeders’ Cup. He is a member of the board of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
David V. Reese
A fourth-generation Palm Beacher, David V. Reese is a member of a Palm Beach pioneer family that arrived on the island in 1876. His great-grandfather Elisha Newton “Cap” Dimick was the town’s first mayor. His father, Claude D. Reese Sr., and grandfather, Thomas Tipton Reese, also served as mayor. David Reese remains involved in the town’s oldest real estate firm, named for his father; the family also had a longtime insurance agency of the same name. Reese is a founder of the Eastern Surfing Association, co-founder of the Palm Beach County Surfing Association and member of the Surfing Heritage Foundation. His wife was the late Jean Hurst Reese.
Janet Reynolds
Janet R. Reynolds was married to the late Wiley R. Reynolds Jr., the longest-serving president of First National Bank of Palm Beach. In 1940, she was responsible for founding the Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adults, among Palm Beach’s oldest social-service agencies; her husband’s family in 1949 donated property for the center on Royal Palm Way. Today, Reynolds is an honorary board member of the center, having spent seven decades helping people with physical challenges. Other causes that were supported by the couple include Adopt-A-Family, Good Samaritan Medical Center, The Society of the Four Arts and the Norton Museum. She is a member of Colonial Dames of America.
Doyle and Barbara Massey Rogers
A graduate of the University of Florida and its law school, Doyle Rogers is a shareholder in the law firm of Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay. Rogers and his wife, Barbara Massey, daughter of Tennessee philanthropist Jack Massey, are active in many civic and charitable projects, including The Society of the Four Arts, the Palm Beach Membership of Hospice Foundation of Palm Beach County Inc., the Palm Beach Civic Association, the Town of Palm Beach United Way and the Community Foundation. Doyle Rogers also is president of the University of Florida Foundation and the school’s national alumni group and a former member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission for the Southern District of Florida.
Dr. Saul D. Rotter
A specialist in internal medicine and clinical cardiology, native New Yorker Dr. Saul Rotter moved to South Florida in 1941 and retired in 2002 after 61 years as a physician. Since the 1940s, Rotter has served as a medical adviser to the Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adults. Noted for his massive seashell collection, he donated most of it to the South Florida Science Museum. He is also a longtime volunteer at the King Library of The Society of the Four Arts. His wife was the late Margaret Waldman Rotter.
Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau
Proving that there are, indeed, second acts in life, the well-born young Palm Beach matron with the orange juice stand, then married to Peter Pulitzer, became a fashion icon when her prep-school classmate Jacqueline Kennedy was photographed wearing one of her splashy tropical designs. She closed the business in 1984. Remarried to the late Enrique Rousseau, she was content with her gardens, her grandchildren and her advocacy for animal protection when a licensing deal put her at fashion’s forefront again. To this day, her name is synonymous with Palm Beach’s much-envied style.
Stanley M. Rumbough Jr.
A recipient of the 2010 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Stanley Rumbough is a graduate of St. Mark’s in Southborough, Mass., and Yale. As chairman of the Palm Beach Civic Association, he built a small group of residents into a cohesive organization of 2,000 members that is now a powerful political force. Among his charitable interests are the Washington Tennis and Education Center, which he founded; Planned Parenthood; and the Town of Palm Beach United Way. He is a life trustee of the International House and served on the board of the Kravis Center. Rumbough received the Pride of Palm Beach Award from the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce earlier this year. He is married to Janna Rumbough.
Kathryn ‘Kay’ Rybovich
The master bridge player, conservationist and storehouse of historical knowledge is the daughter of a Danish sea captain. She moved to Palm Beach in 1924 and graduated from Palm Beach High School. She adopted from her late husband, John Rybovich Jr., a love of fishing and with him advocated for maritime conservation, especially catch-and-release practices. In 1955, with two friends over a table at the Sailfish Club, she founded the International Women’s Fishing Association. She was inducted into the International Gamefishing Hall of Fame in 2008. She also has supported the South Florida Science Museum.
Rose Sachs
Rose Sachs and her late husband, Mortimer Sachs, arrived in the early 1940s in Palm Beach, where for several years they owned Palm Beach Mercantile department store. But they became intimately involved in the life of the town after purchasing Addison Mizner’s Via Mizner and his tower apartment, the Villa Mizner. (A tombstone in Via Mizner famously marks the final resting place of the couple’s dog, Laddie.) Over the years, the couple bought and developed many properties on Worth Avenue. She has supported many charitable causes, most particularly Palm Beach Atlantic University, of which she and her husband were major benefactors.
Lesly S. Smith
The second generation of a four-generation Palm Beach family, Lesly Smith is a former town councilwoman, council president and mayor. She is a trustee of the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, founded by her late husband, U.S. Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith, and served on the boards of the Pitt Foundation, the Palm Healthcare Foundation, the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation and the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. She also is a longtime member of the Garden Club of Palm Beach. She served as president of the Fortin Family Foundation, which has supported Opportunity Inc., the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County, the Town of Palm Beach United Way and the Animal Rescue League, among many others.
Dr. Donald E. and
Betty Anne ‘Bebe’ Warren
Cardiologist Dr. Donald E. Warren is the founding chairman of Palm Beach Atlantic University, where he served as chairman of the trustees for 38 years before retiring in 2007; the West Palm Beach university’s library is named for him. Meanwhile, he built a successful medical practice. He is a past president of the American Heart Association, Palm Beach County Chapter; and of the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin Counties. Among her efforts for Palm Beach Atlantic, Betty Anne “Bebe” Warren founded the Woman of Distinction Award and was its longtime chairwoman. She chaired the Good Samaritan Medical Center ball in 1993.
Floyd L. Wideman Jr.
Married to Lois, Floyd L. Wideman Jr. has been an active volunteer with the Town of Palm Beach, serving for a decade on the Architectural Commission (1996-2006) and as both an alternate and voting member of the Planning and Zoning Commission. A retired manufacturing executive, he also served on the committee that oversaw the recent renovation of the Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course.
Society Editor Shannon Donnelly contributed to this story.
Link to original article. Thanks to the Palm Beach Daily News
Category : News
January 29th , 2010 → 9:23 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
Ninety-seven years after his death, Henry Flagler is finally returning to Palm Beach in the form of a bronze statue that will greet people arriving on the island over the North End bridge that bears his name.
When the statue is unveiled at 11 a.m. Saturday in a median on Royal Poinciana Way, it will culminate a decades-long effort to honor in bronze the man whose singular vision turned Palm Beach into a winter playground for the wealthy of America’s Gilded Age.
“It’s long past time for Henry Flagler to be recognized in the town as a whole, not just for his home,” said John Blades, executive director of the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum at Whitehall, the winter mansion built by Flagler in 1902. Blades has been involved with the statue project for more than 10 years.
The statue is a replica of a monument unveiled at St. Augustine on Jan. 2, 1916, which would have been Flagler’s 86th birthday. The co-founder of Standard Oil had died three years earlier in Palm Beach after suffering injuries from falling down a set of stairs at Whitehall. He is buried in St. Augustine, the first of a string of towns along Florida’s east coast that Flagler transformed into first-class resorts by extending his railway to carry guests to the hotels he built.
It took another 90 years for similar statues to work their way down Florida’s Atlantic coast, which developed in the intervening years from the wasteland of scrub and swamp that nonetheless had captured Flagler’s imagination as a developer of towns, infrastructure and even agriculture.
In 2006, a replica of the St. Augustine statue was erected on the steps to the Miami-Dade County Courthouse and in Key West at the southern terminus of what had been Flagler’s crowning achievement, the extension of the Florida East Coast Railway through the keys.
The Palm Beach statue is scaled up a bit. Flagler himself was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, according to Blades, and the original statue is 5-foot-10. Blades traveled to St. Augustine with an artisan, who made a fiberglass mold of the piece. It was then turned over to Bronzart Foundry in Sarasota to be cast.
Statue’s origins
The original sculpture was reportedly commissioned in 1902 by the woman for whom Flagler built Whitehall as a wedding present — his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan. It was cast in Italy but the artist is unknown. Only the initials “CJR” appear on the work.
“There were a lot of 19th century artists who could have done it,” said Blades.
The Palm Beach version of the statue was donated by G.F. Robert Hanke, a retired Marine Corps colonel who also donated Miami’s version of the statue. He is a great-grandson of Henry Flagler and vice president of the Flagler Museum’s trustees.
Hanke is expected to speak at the unveiling ceremony, along with Centennial Commission Chairman Bill Bone and Mayor Jack McDonald, said Jay Boodheshwar, town recreation director and a member of the Centennial Commission who helped organize the event. Bone and McDonald will make some remarks in adjacent Bradley Park prior to the unveiling.
“It’s the official kickoff of the Centennial season,” said Boodheshwar. “We chose the date because we wanted it to be early enough to start the Centennial celebration, but late enough so that people were here for the season.”
Officials are expecting a crowd of about 200.
The monument will be positioned in the westernmost median strip on Royal Poinciana Way, near a statue of a gold-leafed bald eagle erected in 1976. Like the statue of the town’s first mayor, E.N. “Cap” Dimick on Royal Palm Way, the Flagler statue will greet drivers heading east from West Palm Beach. It will directly face the Flagler Memorial Bridge, which the Florida Department of Transportation will replace beginning next spring. Once the bridge construction begins, the statue will likely be moved to a different location farther east on Royal Poinciana Way, according to officials.
The sculpture weighs 930 pounds, and the granite pedestal weighs 112,500 pounds. The final cost, including installation, is expected to be about $80,000, according to the Flagler Museum.
The statue was scheduled to arrive in town Monday, with installation scheduled for Tuesday, according to officials involved with the project.
Back in St. Augustine
The St. Augustine statue has an interesting history. It was originally dedicated at the railway station before being moved to City Hall. It was then moved to Flagler College in 1972, because the college encompasses part of Flagler’s former Ponce De Leon Hotel.
Over the years, weather and college pranks took their toll on the statue, according to Susan Parker, executive director of the St. Augustine Historical Society. “Every once in a while, somebody will stick a cigarette between his fingers,” she said. “Or sometimes they put flowers in his hand.”
In 1999, the St. Augustine monument underwent some maintenance. Theodore Monnich, a sculpture-restoration specialist from Salisbury, N.C., said the head and coat of the St. Augustine statue showed severe signs of deterioration.
“It was common in sculptures cast 50 years ago or more,” Monnich said. “What happened is that the poured bronze cooled too rapidly, and that caused bubbles to form and then tiny pinholes in the sculpture. That led to oxidation, especially with the humid climate in St. Augustine.”
It turned parts of the sculpture green. Monnich cleaned it up, applied a new coat of lacquer and a coat of wax. Similar pieces poured today with better technology usually don’t have those problems, he said.
Blades said the new Palm Beach statue won’t require much maintenance beyond the need for wax. “It should be easy to maintain,” he said.
Flagler’s legacy
What surprises both Blades and Parker is the scant understanding among the public of what Henry Flagler actually means to Florida. The Palm Beach statue, they say, could help bring a greater understanding of the pivotal role he played in setting the stage for modern Florida.
“I don’t think most people are aware of what he did for the state,” said Parker. “They think of him as an almost invisible partner in Standard Oil.”
He was actually a full partner in the company but left for St. Augustine in 1876 for the sake of the health of his first wife, Mary Harkness Flagler, who was ill.
She died two years later and Flagler remarried. But it was actually his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, who is credited with having the bronze statue cast of her husband. Later that same year, Flagler and Mary Lily moved into their Palm Beach home at Whitehall.
Flagler’s extension of his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami having been accomplished several years earlier, he eventually set his sights on Key West, and in 1912 saw construction completed of his Over-Sea Railroad linking the keys. It would operate until 1935, when it was damaged by a hurricane.
“People definitely need to be educated about Henry Flagler,” said Blades. “People think he’s just a railroad guy, which really cracks me up. That railroad was the only way to get around in the state. The railroad was just a means to an end. What he was really doing is laying the groundwork for making Florida what it is today.”
Link to original article. Thank you to the Palm Beach Daily News
Category : News
January 29th , 2010 → 9:16 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
Although modern-day Palm Beach dates to the 1870s as a pioneer community and had developed by 1894 into a winter resort for the nation’s wealthiest residents, it didn’t become an actual town until 1911: April 17 to be exact.
Some historians say that railroad-and-hotel magnate Henry M. Flagler was never a fan of incorporating Palm Beach as a town. A driven businessman, Flagler liked to do things his way. And as a major landholder on the island — with two hotels in place by 1896 — he would have been a major taxpayer had the town incorporated.
But by January 1911, Flagler was no longer the only player in town, explains Chief Curator Debi Murray of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.
In 1908, pioneer resident and former Florida legislator Elisha Newton “Cap” Dimick — who had opened Palm Beach’s first hotel 14 years before Flagler completed his first-class Hotel Royal Poinciana in 1884 — co-founded the Palm Beach Improvement Co. The group, which also included nephew Harvey G. Greer, George W. Jonas and Jonas’ brother-in-law Otto Kubin, had plans to develop residences on 160 acres of swampland north of what is today Royal Palm Way.
But to ensure their Royal Park Addition’s success, they needed a permanent bridge far south of the railroad bridge that brought guests to Flagler’s Hotel Royal Poinciana.d
“They needed a way to get [potential homebuyers] to their location without having to pass the hotel,” Murray said, which they viewed as their competition.
In January 1911, Dimick and his partners approached city leaders in West Palm Beach, an incorporated town since 1894, for permission to land their bridge on the west side of Lake Worth. At that meeting, they heard that West Palm Beach officials were about to lobby Tallahassee lawmakers for approval to annex Palm Beach into the city. As the Legislature met only once every two years, time was of the essence, Murray noted.
Alarmed at this prospect, Dimick and his group rallied lawmakers and others in Palm Beach, and on April 17, 35 men gathered at the Palm Beach Hotel — then standing on what is today the site of the Palm Beach Biltmore — and voted to incorporate the Town of Palm Beach. Flagler was not among the voters. He was not an official Florida resident and so was ineligible to cast any ballots here, Murray said.
Dimick was subsequently elected as the town’s first mayor, a position he held until he retired from public life in 1918, the year before he died.
Category : News
January 29th , 2010 → 9:08 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
A tea dance in the Cocoanut Grove
In Gilded-Age Palm Beach, those enjoying a holiday in the sunshine at the dawn of the 20th century’s second decade change their clothes every few hours, a daily transition in which the apparel becomes increasingly more formal.
So, as sunset approaches, guests of Henry Flagler’s mammoth lakeside Hotel Royal Poinciana — it’s been hailed as the largest wooden structure in the world — and The Breakers, just east, find themselves dressing for the daily tea dance in the Poinciana’s Cocoanut Grove, a festooned garden with an orchestra awaiting and coconut palms illuminated with crimson balls.
Men — many of them captains of industry and commerce who have achieved more wealth than ever imagined in an era of unprecedented technological change, including electricity — don white straw skimmers and dinner coats.
Their wives wear gowns, although not as elaborate as the French charmeuse pearl-and-silk number Mrs. Flagler wore at the last annual Washington’s Birthday Ball, which caps the January-through-March social season.
The daily tea dance is part of a daily ritual that has evolved since Flagler, a Standard Oil partner, railroad magnate and developer, extended his railroad south and turned a once-jungle-ish Palm Beach into a resort town with his two lavish hotels built in the mid-1890s. Ritual resonates among guests who, flush with their good fortune, consider themselves heirs of a great Western tradition.
Getting a table in the Cocoanut Grove for the 5 p.m. tea dance can be competitive, but Mr. and Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury — the Philadelphia financier-couple who recently honeymooned at The Breakers and in a decade will winter in a 40-room lake-to-ocean manse — have reserved one, and attentive waiters offer them coconut cake, cinnamon toast and tea sandwiches.
It’s a Saturday, so everyone gathered — is that Mrs. Frederick W. Vanderbilt? — is anticipating the Cake Walk dance contest, a show of rhythmic virtuosity, as nattily dressed hotel employees, in couples, dance, vying to “take the cake” and win $100, $50 and $25 prizes. With any luck, the panel of judges will include actor and showman Joseph Jefferson, a pal of Flagler’s who has been a regular visitor.
— M.M. Cloutier
1921-1931
High rolling at Bradley’s Beach Club
In an understated green-and-white-decorated casino with lighting designed to flatter the complexions of those of the female persuasion, roulette wheels spin as men in tuxedoes and women in beaded gowns win and lose stacks of chips etched with “BC.”
In a blue-blood gambling establishment like this, you’re as rich as the sauce-laden cuisine served in its restaurant, where C.W. Barron of Barron’s Weekly is a regular — and rumor has it that each winter season, he purchases five dinner coats of ever-increasing size to adjust to his growing girth.
Since it opened in 1898, the rambling green-trimmed white Beach Club — a stone’s throw north of the Hotel Royal Poinciana — has been a main attraction, especially since it began allowing women, as long as they’re escorted by male members, in 1899. It later added chemin de fer, a variation of baccarat.
So far, the only day it has been closed during each social season is March 18, 1925, when The Breakers burned to the ground — fleeing visitors and guests included cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and Titanic-sinking survivor “unsinkable” Mollie Brown — only to then be rebuilt within a year at a cost of $6 million.
The casino’s illegal, of course, but Florida authorities just seem to turn a blind eye. And anyway, the club’s tall and lanky owner, Edward Riley “E.R.” Bradley, a wildly successful Kentucky racehorse breeder, has it all worked out. The club’s incorporated with the state as a “private dinner club” and word of the casino doesn’t surface much because members have to be seasonal visitors — no Florida natives, especially locals, allowed.
To protect the place, Bradley has some 30 armed guards with whistles; two sharp blows on a whistle means “danger of a holdup,” while three means “fire!” The whistles rarely are blown. Bradley runs a tight ship. And really, who would want to cross him? He has supported just about every local charity and in 1925, he contributed most of the funds for the construction of St. Edward Catholic Church, where he typically sits in Pew No. 13.
— M.M. Cloutier
1931-1941
Hollywood glamour at the Paramount
On a cool evening, capped drivers open doors of long-bodied, white-wall-tired Packards and Rolls-Royces, and the Huttons, Biddles, Repogles, Zeigfelds, Phippses, Wannamakers and Hearsts step out.
They’re dressed as if going to a Metropolitan Opera opening. In the darkness, their faces are illuminated by bright lights, just ahead and above, that spell “Paramount,” heralding one of America’s grandest movie palaces at a time when talkies are a worldwide phenomenon.
Inside, they take their seats in the “Diamond Horseshoe,” the 26 private balcony boxes — flanked by 60-foot floor-to-ceiling canvas murals depicting fish swimming through lacy seaweed — that they have leased for the season amid what Photoplay magazine is calling “The Millionaire’s Movie Theater.”
Palm Beach’s Paramount Theater, at the corner of North County Road and Sunrise Avenue, opened Jan. 9, 1927, with the showing of the silent film Beau Geste, an affair complete with a 16-piece orchestra and Emil Velasco at the organ.
It has been said Austrian architect Joseph Urban — the set designer for the Zeigfeld Follies and the Metropolitan Opera — first sketched the theater’s plans on a tablecloth.
The theater combines a fan-shaped 1,236-seat auditorium (1,080 orchestra and 156 balcony-box seats) with retail shops and offices in a courtyard and along North County Road and Sunrise Avenue. You’d be remiss not to visit Helena Rubenstein’s and Hattie Carnegie’s shops.
From the end of December through early April, first-run movies are shown for two- or three-day engagements. When Gone With the Wind opens in 1940, the Duke and the 24-inch-waisted Duchess of Windsor are there and she, always dressed as compactly and elegantly as a Louis Vuitton traveling case — as society photographer Cecil Beaton likes to say — is in an ensemble from her favorite Paris couturiers.
You never know which celebrities you’ll see at the Paramount, especially since they perform at or attend the Kiwanis Club of West Palm Beach’s annual charitable benefits there. In this decade alone, the movie palace has hosted Jack Benny, Irving Berlin, Maurice Chevalier, George Gershwin, Agnes Moorehead and Sophie Tucker, to name a few.
The Paramount will remain a mainstay until 1980 and later become the Paramount Center, home to shops, offices and the Paramount Church.
— M.M. Cloutier
1941-1951
Red-white-and-blue Palm Beach
In the early 1940s, Palm Beach is reeling in a patriotic crescendo.
It almost seems as if everything revolves around support for the troops and the cause of World War II.
Every gala, supper dance, dinner party and auction unfurls a red-white-and-blue tableau. Soldiers come over from West Palm Beach’s military outpost, Morrison Field — it eventually will be transformed into Palm Beach International Airport — where tens of thousands of planes and military personnel pass through on their way to Europe.
Mrs. Henry Rhea and The Everglades Club’s High Dillman have done wonders with the local Volunteers for Victory — 400 volunteers and counting — which operates a canteen at the corner of South County Road and Worth Avenue, where baby-faced soldiers and their gals share 5-cent sandwiches and listen to Big Band tunes on the Victrola. V-for-V’s beach bath offers soldiers towels and lockers for a nickel.
Gone are the days when life on the island — it’s now home to a groundswell of full- and part-time residents — centered around its two primary resort hotels, The Breakers and the Hotel Royal Poinciana, which was razed in 1935.
In fact, The Breakers during the war has been stripped of its rich carpets and tapestries, and its chandeliers have been swapped for stark G-I lights to make way for Ream Army General Hospital. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt recently visited there, dressed in her favorite shade of Eleanor blue.
Some war-bound changes in town are jolting.
Local citizen beach and air patrols train sharp eyes for German submarines. An Army patrol guards the Palm Beach Inlet. The Coast Guard paces the beach at night with dogs. In compliance with blackouts, street lights and all east-facing windows are painted black, including those at Wert’s — look ahead a few decades and it will become Charley’s Crab — where a good 50-cent meal no longer comes with an ocean view.
The blackouts haven’t been entirely effective. German U-boats have sunk more than a dozen American ships transporting aviation fuel and other resources between Cape Canaveral and Boca Raton.
The good news: All are doing their part — ration books and all.
— M.M. Cloutier
1951-1961
Nightclubbing in style at Ta-boó
In a carefree, post-war Palm Beach, there’s no end to the nightly, glamorous partying procession.
The black-tie and mink crowd favors Frank Hale’s Celebrity Room at the Royal Poinciana Playhouse.
Regulars at Chesler’s on Worth Avenue have spotted a visiting Cary Grant mixing drinks.
Dolled-up couples at The Patio on North County Road dance to Val Ernie and his all-violin orchestra.
But at some point, everyone goes to Ta-boó.
If you haven’t been seen at Ta-boó — with its bamboo bar, lighted fruit clusters, log-burning fireplaces, piano players, dance floor and doorman named Cecil in a uniform with braids on the shoulders — you haven’t been seen.
Unlike other hot spots, Ta-boó — its retractable roof rolls away for what seems like endless nights dancing under the stars — is open year round and its blueprint of good food, good drinks, good times and good prices appeals to anyone who’s someone and anyone who aspires to be.
Visiting celebrities always make an appearance — Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, Barbara Eden. And Jackie Gleason recently popped in with a boisterous “Away we go!” before playing the drums — badly, one might add — beside the headlining piano man.
Dashing locals such as Kleenex heir Jim Kimberly make the scene, and it won’t be long before regulars say Ta-boó invented the Bloody Mary — although a thousand places levy this claim to fame — to soften a hangover for actress and part-time local Barbara Hutton.
It’s de rigueur to make a night of it, hopping back and forth between Ta-boó and The Colony, just to the east. None too few park with a valet at one or the other and then forget at which place they’ve left their cars.
Ta-boó has been open since 1941, when Ted Stone, who had owned the Pent House Club in New York, introduced it a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entrance into World War II.
Already, the place is legendary, with juicy — but questionable — anecdotes about World War II German U-boaters coming ashore for cocktails, and Joseph P. Kennedy barricading himself in the bathroom with his paramour, Gloria Swanson.
Then there’s the yarn about how Ta-boó got its name. As the story goes, Stone and some buddies, in a boozy colloquy, considered suggestions. Most of those were a variety of bawdy suggestions, and all seemed too “taboo.” So why not call the restaurant Ta-boó — a name that somehow seems perfect for carefree Palm Beach?
— M.M. Cloutier
1961-1971
All-too-brief presidential encounters
On Sundays at St. Edward Catholic Church, it’s easy to be swept away by the wisdom of Monsignor Jeremiah O’Mahoney and the magnificent stained-glass windows depicting the life of the Blessed Mother, but one can’t help but dart a glance or two at America’s royal family in a small pew up front.
After all, one of the family’s members is the president of the United States. He favors cheeseburgers and coffee milkshakes at the Green’s Pharmacy lunch counter and an occasional via stroll on Worth Avenue, wearing penny loafers without socks alongside his glamorous wife in two-toned Jack Rogers sandals.
Of all of the celebrities that circulate in Palm Beach in these initial shining moments of what will later be dubbed the Camelot Era, the sight of John and Jackie Kennedy — die-hard Democrats in an old-money den of Republicans — is always captivating. Looking back on these days, future pundits will coin the phrase “barefoot Palm Beach,” an image complete with Lilly Pulitzer selling juice at her stand in Worth Avenue’s Via Mizner, wearing a sleeveless cotton shift in a bright print of pinks, greens, yellows and oranges, a garment that will inspire a fashion empire.
The Kennedys have been a winter-months fixture in Palm Beach since 1933, when Rose and Joe Kennedy bought the Mizner-designed 2-acre estate at 1095 S. Ocean Blvd. and had it renovated in 1935 by architect Maurice Fatio. Rose always rules the roost, determining which family members will visit and when.
These days, the estate’s known as the Winter White House, and insiders know it has direct lines to the White House in Washington and that JFK wrote much of his inaugural address and Pulitzer prize-winning Profiles in Courage here in between games of touch football with his brothers on the oceanfront lawn.
Over at midtown Palm Beach Towers at 44 Cocoanut Row, Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, holds press conferences. The Colony’s annex is rented for Kennedy’s staff and Secret Service agents when the president is in town.
And as he sips his milkshake at Green’s, there’s no reason in the world to believe that this peaceful world will be shocked to its core on Nov. 22, 1963.
— M.M. Cloutier
1971-1981
Big doings south of Sloan’s Curve
Finding a rental apartment, cooperative or condominium in Palm Beach in the 1970s has gotten a lot easier, as developers have embarked on an aggressive multi-unit building boom, especially in the once-sleepy area south of Sloan’s Curve.
The boom is less than a decade old, spurred in part by the legalization of condominiums in the mid-1960s. Residential buildings such as Lowell House and Winthrop House have transformed the look of the midtown oceanfront by the end of the 1960s.
The numbers have been startling: According to town records, for example, more building permits were issued in Palm Beach in 1968 than in any year prior. And a report prepared for the town manager showed that in 1969, Palm Beach had gained 888 new apartment dwelling units — and only 25 single-family houses.
Meanwhile, new multi-unit buildings appeared on South Ocean Boulevard in the suddenly hot area south of Sloan’s Curve — eight buildings rose there between 1967 and 1969 — with Ibis Isle adding a number of multi-residence buildings, too.
All of that development had the Town Council worried that the south part of town could become a canyon of high-rises, boosting the town’s winter population to as much as 100,000, according to Palm Beach Daily News coverage at the time. So in March 1970, the council passed the first major overhaul in 23 years to Palm Beach’s comprehensive zoning plan, including a measure to limit the heights of new multi-unit residential buildings to five stories. The town’s first councilwoman — and future mayor — Deedy Marix said on casting her “yes” vote: “It’s a matter of survival. The only way to keep Palm Beach as a community — a community that is known worldwide,” reported the Shiny Sheet.
Even with the those restrictions, the 1970s will see 15 more multi-family buildings rise in the south area on the fairly narrow stretch between the lake and the ocean, culminating in the massive Sloan’s Curve development in 1980 and 1981.
The result is that more people than ever before can have return addresses with the coveted 33480 ZIP code, even if the town has effectively capped its population at about 30,000 winter residents.
— Darrell Hofheinz
1981-1991
Curtain up at Royal Poinciana Playhouse
On a cool January night, Carol Channing and Mary Martin are feuding under the footlights along the Royal Poinciana Playhouse’s stage.
They’re playing two legendary actresses past their prime — hence the play’s title, Legends — and their comedic banter generates plenty of laughter, rattling the teardrop pearl earrings in the audience.
But it’s the surprise planned by Zev Bufman — he operates and manages several Florida theaters, including the Royal Poinciana — that keeps Palm Beach theater-goers from bolting before the final curtain to beat the valet-parking crunch.
A giant cake is wheeled out, and Bufman and his wife, Vilma, come from the wings to join Channing and Martin. James Kirkwood, Legends’ playwright, is in the house, and he’s nearly in tears as the packed house rises, stomps and cheers.
What a memorable 1986-87 season it has been at the 850-plus-seat theater! And it has only just begun, having kicked off with Anthony Newley starring in Stop the World — I Want to Get Off.
Frank Hale would have loved all of this.
Until 1972, he was the ever-dapper, mustachioed and showman-president of the Royal Poinciana Playhouse, a position he had held since the day it opened in 1958. He brought legions of celebrities and Broadway stars to Palm Beach, right down to the day he picked Ginger Rogers up at Palm Beach International Airport.
Hale’s tenure was marked by national press and local television stations chronicling and telecasting opening-night arrivals of black tie-and-gown theater-goers, perhaps headed for dinner and drinks in the theater’s Celebrity Room with its trompe l’oeil domed ceiling depicting 125 celebrities.
The scene isn’t quite as glamorous these days — the theater has evolved into a great equalizer since the price of a ticket opens up the experience to anyone. It will continue to offer performances for the next 16 years before it shutters its doors in the wake of increasing competition from other more-state-of-the-art venues.
The theater was designed by Palm Beach architect John L. Volk, who knew more than a thing or two about theatrical design. For the project — its final cost approached $1.5 million — Volk chose to adapt the traditional Regency style, which seemed fitting given that John S. Phipps hired him with a mandate to create a showpiece that stylistically would endure for 50 years.
Mission accomplished, as far as United Press columnist Bob Considine was concerned. After visiting the American Theater at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958, he wrote, “I have now seen the second most beautiful theater in the world. The first is the Royal Poinciana Playhouse.”
— M.M. Cloutier
1991-2001
The Breakers regains its luster
The mid-1990s is a busy time at The Breakers Palm Beach, where plans are in the works to transform the 572-room resort, a move that has gathered momentum since 1992, when Paul Leone was promoted to president of Flagler System Management.
In fact, $105 million in improvements will be approved by The Breakers owners, the Kenan family, during the decade. The Kenans, of course, are related to Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, Henry M. Flagler’s widow; the family inherited The Breakers in 1913 at Flagler’s death.
The late 1990s will see the construction of a new beach club, spa and ballroom facility, along with a golf and tennis clubhouse built in the Old Florida architectural style. In 2000, the historic Ocean Course will open after a major redesign and the opening of a new golf-and-tennis center.
The goal of The Breakers’ leaders has been to restore luster to the aging resort, which dates to 1896, when Flagler opened it as The Palm Beach Inn. It was an oceanfront complement to his massive 1894 Hotel Royal Poinciana on the island’s lakefront. The Inn was renamed The Breakers in 1901 and rebuilt a year after it burned to the ground in 1903. A catastrophic 1925 fire destroyed that building, and the present one took its place in 1926.
When cousins James G. Kenan III of Lexington, Ky., and Owen Kenan of Chapel Hill, N.C., assumed board leadership of the resort in 1986, they proposed an aggressive plan to reverse 40 years of passive neglect, investing substantial sums in the physical plant and its fine-dining restaurant while improving and adding guest amenities.
The cousins also want to regain the resort’s coveted fifth diamond in the AAA hotel-rating system — a distinction achieved in 1997. They also create a service-focused employee culture of teamwork and accountability that continues today, championed by Leone and his management team.
The Kenans — related by marriage to the Cox family, which owns the Palm Beach Daily News — won’t stop there in the intervening years. In the next decade, they will invest another $250 million in continued capital improvements to The Breakers, Florida’s oldest hotel.
— Darrell Hofheinz
2001-2011
The Red Cross Ball marks a half-century
For years regarded as the grande-dame event of the busy Palm Beach social season, the International Red Cross Ball in 2007 is even more special: The edition is marking its 50th anniversary Jan. 27, and chairman Bill Rollnick and chairwoman Nancy Rollnick have delivered a white-tie event designed to capture the glamour of the old days.
The fact that the event is taking place at The Mar-a-Lago Club seems a nostalgic choice, too, as it was once the lavish home of the ball’s first honorary chairwoman, the no-nonsense cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.
The ball is, perhaps, best known for its tradition of having international ambassadors attend, a reference to the charity’s international focus. Diplomats from Afghanistan, Ecuador, Finland, Malta, Qatar, Slovenia and Thailand assemble at 7:30 p.m. to greet guests in a receiving line in Mrs. Post’s Ballroom.
For the first time, the ball has an honorary Marine Corps chairman, Palm Beacher and former Marine Leo Albert, who leads the USMC color guard for the introduction of the ambassadors. Society favorite Peter Duchin and his orchestra supply music; an Elvis Presley impersonator will entertain later.
After cocktails by the pool, dinner is served in the club’s two-year-old gilded-and-marbled Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, named for club owner Trump, who had acquired Mar-a-Lago in 1985, opening it a decade later as a private club after restoring the faded home’s glory.
Many women are wearing red and ivory gowns, the colors of the Red Cross, and there’s more than one glittering tiara atop the coiffed heads. Among the notable guests is actor Pierce Brosnan, attending with his son, Sean.
The evening’s highlights include the presentation of two new chapter honors, the Marjorie Merriweather Post Award, given to her daughter, actress Dina Merrill; and the Sue Whitmore Award, named for the late Listerine heiress, another longtime honorary ball chairwoman. The latter award goes to May Bell Lin, Whitmore’s longtime assistant and social secretary for the Red Cross Ball — a charming nod at the rich history of one of Palm Beach’s signature charity events.
— Darrell Hofheinz
Link to original article. Thanks to the Palm Beach Daily News
Category : News
January 29th , 2010 → 7:10 pm @ Palm Beach Centennial
1830 – Henry Morrison Flagler born Jan. 2 in Hopewell, N.Y.
1852 – With half-brother Dan Harkness becomes a partner in the newly organized D. M. Harkness and Company.
1853 – Married Mary Harkness, Nov. 9.
1855 – First child, Jennie Louise, born March 18.
1858 – Second child, Carrie, born June 18.
1850s (late) – Became acquainted with John. D. Rockefeller, a commission agent with Hewitt and Tuttle for the Harkness grain company.
1861 – Daughter Carrie dies at age 3.
1862 – With brother-in-law Barney York, founded Flagler and York Salt Company, a salt mining and production business, in Saginaw, Mich.
1865 – The Civil War ends, causing a drop in the demand for salt. Flagler and York Salt Company collapses, leaving Flagler in heavy debt.
1866 – Moves to Cleveland, Ohio and reenters the grain business as a commission merchant.
1867 – Needing capital for his nascent oil business, J. D. Rockefeller approaches Flagler, who obtains $100,000 from Steven Harkness, half-brother of Dan Harkness. Rockefeller, Andrews and Flagler form partnership with Flagler in control of Harkness’ interest.
1870 – On Jan. 10, Rockefeller, Andrews and Flagler create a joint-stock corporation named Standard Oil. Son, Harry Harkness, born Dec. 2.
1872 – Standard Oil leads the American oil refining industry in production
1877 – Standard Oil moves headquarters to New York City, where Flaglers relocate.
1878 – Upon advice from Mary’s physician, Flagler and his wife visit Jacksonville for the winter.
1881 – Mary Harkness Flagler dies at 47 on May 18.
1883 – Flagler marries Ida Alice Shourds. They travel to St. Augustine, where Flagler finds hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate.
1885 – Returns to St. Augustine; begins construction on the 540-room Hotel Ponce de Leon. Purchases the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax Railroad.
1888 – Hotel Ponce de Leon opens Jan. 10 as an instant success.
1889 – Daughter Jennie Louise dies following complications of childbirth.
1890 – Builds railroad bridge across the St. Johns River to gain access to southern half of state. Purchases the Ormond Beach Hotel in Ormond Beach.
1894 – Flagler’s 1,150-room Hotel Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach is completed. Train service is extended to West Palm Beach. Ida Alice Shourds Flagler is institutionalized for mental illness.
Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Indian River Railway is renamed the Florida East Coast Railway.
1896 – The Palm Beach Inn opens in Palm Beach. Railway reaches Biscayne Bay.
1897 – Flagler’s Hotel Royal Palm opens in Miami.
1901 – The Florida Legislature passes a bill that made incurable insanity grounds for divorce. Flagler divorces Ida Alice.
1901 – Aug. 24, Flagler marries Mary Lily Kenan of North Carolina.
The Palm Beach Inn is renamed The Breakers.
1902 – The Flaglers move into Whitehall, the Palm Beach winter retreat Flagler has built as a wedding present for Mary Lily.
1903 – The Breakers is destroyed by fire. Rebuilt and opens in 1906.
1905 – Expansion of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West begins.
1911 – Flagler ceases being an active director at Standard Oil.
1912 – Flagler rides the first train into Key West on Jan. 21.
1913 – Flagler dies May 20 in Palm Beach and is buried in St. Augustine.
Courtesy of Palm Beach Daily News
Category : News
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