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Palm Beach has always been more than lavish parties and
ornate buildings; the island's history is rooted in the people who have
called this enchanting place home. They are the industrialists and the
socialities, the civic leaders and the cultural elite, people dedicated
to keeping alive the notion that Palm Beach is like nowhere else in the
world. That notion, like there is nowhere else in the world. That
notion, like their vision, has endured.
For
everyone from Hollywood stars to heads of state, from literary and
artistic icons to Old Money and international business magnates, the
allure of this lush island has been irresistible. It is known all over
the world as a place synonymous with "The Good Life."
Some of
the names may have changed but the very essence of this highly coveted
14-mile-long strip of paradise has not. In the old days, Palm Beach was
the backdrop of an ultra-elite social season originally only 10 weeks
long - mid-December to Feb. 23, the day after the George Washington
Birthday Ball at Henry Flagler's mansion. When the social season ended
in Palm Beach, it shifted and scattered north to New York (the Hamptons),
Massachusetts (Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard), Rhode Island (Newport) and
Maine (Bar Harbor), and to the mid-western mansions of the world's most
affluent leaders of industry. And while changing times and the advent of
air conditioning have quadrupled the length of the season, now from
November to April, Palm Beach has kept pace.
Henry
Morrison Flagler "created" Palm Beach when he opened the Royal Poinciana
Hotel in the winter of 1894 and claimed the island as the country's
premier winter resort. Flagler's beloved mansion "Whitehall," which he
built in 1901 for his wife, Mary Lily Kenan, was sold by his heirs in
1925 and used as an elegant hotel residence until 1959, when Jean
Flagler Matthews purchased the property, acquired many of the mansion's
original furnishings and opened it as the Flagler Museum off Cocoanut
Row, says James Augustine Ponce, resident historian for the Palm Beach
Chamber of Commerce and The Breakers hotel.
A
descendent of the country's oldest documented family, Ponce was born in
St. Augustine in 1917 and grew up in Flagler's presence. Ponce's father,
a mortician, was the one to bury Flagler when he died in 1913 - "his
career's crowning glory," says Ponce from the modest West Palm Beach
home in which he has lived since 1958.
Ponce, a
Palm Beach fixture, worked at The Colony when it was painted purple, The
Brazilian Court when it was painted robin's egg blue, and the Holiday
Inn where the Four Seasons now sits. He retired as assistant manager at
The breakers in 1982 and now functions as the hotel's resident
historian, tour guide and lecturer.
"In the
mid-30s, you can't imagine how undeveloped the island was, "Ponce says.
"There was an army base at the northern end of the island, in charge of
coastal defense to make sure that German subs weren't coming ashore, and
The Breakers and Biltmore hotels were new, and Whitehall with its
10-story addition was quite a sight to see. I was also lucky enough to
see a portion of the Royal Poinciana Hotel before it was torn down."
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