Whitehall: A Temple to Apollo and So Much More

Having completed the world’s largest wooden structure, the Hotel Royal Poinciana, on the eastern shore of Lake Worth, and laid out and named the streets for what he hoped would become a thriving metropolis on the western shore, Henry Flagler began to think about building a home near the Hotel where he would live out his remaining years.

Unlike the other houses Flagler owned or had built, this house would, as Andrew Carnegie advised in his essay the Gospel of Wealth, be a home “for all that is highest and best in literature and arts, and for all the refinements of civilization.” In other words, a home for Apollo’s Muses of arts and literature, a museum.

For Henry Flagler, the young architects John Carrère and Thomas Hastings, who had designed the Hotels Ponce de Leon and Alcazar in St. Augustine more than a decade earlier and were now enjoying the peak of their careers as the architects of the New York Public Library and the Pan American Exposition Buffalo, were the obvious choice for the design of Whitehall. And, the BeauxArts style of architecture made so popular by the

World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 seemed to provide the perfect means of expressing the view shared by the Titans of Industry, like Henry Flagler, of America’s destiny to become the ultimate realization of all that Western Culture had been evolving toward for millennia.

Carrère and Hastings’ design for Whitehall is filled with symbolism related to Western Culture that any reasonably well-educated person, as Henry Flagler certainly was, of the 1840s would have immediately understood. As one of the 40% of young men in the 1840s who was lucky enough to get an eighth-grade education, Henry Flagler would have been well educated in the traditions and mythology of Western Culture and very much aware of the rich meaning designed into Whitehall by the architects. Unfortunately, because our educational process has taken on a different focus over the last 180 years, much of that meaning is invisible to visitors today. However, with a little help we can see Whitehall through Flagler’s eyes and begin to understand how much more it meant to him than simply the large and beautiful home that most see it as today.

Carrère and Hastings’ design for Whitehall, featured in American Architecture in May of 1900, was an unusual blend of Beaux-Art design and details that seemed more appropriate to its subtropical location. The design of Whitehall’s façade and Grand Hall is clearly a reference to a temple to Apollo, the Sun God and leader of the Muses. Even Whitehall’s grounds are bacchanalian in nature, as would be appropriate for a Temple to Apollo. Surrounded not by an ornate garden but rather a cocoanut grove, Whitehall faces the rising sun. As is typical of a Temple to Apollo, a broad walkway forms the approach to Whitehall and while a winged sphinx stood guard atop an Ionic column at Apollo’s Temple at Delphi, at Whitehall four winged sphinxes support the two marble benches along the walkway. The marble steps leading to Whitehall’s front portico are flanked by Carrara marble urns decorated with bacchanalian scenes and Whitehall’s massive portico is supported by the same Doric column design that appears in all temples to Apollo. At the top of the steps heavy bronze doors decorated with large lion heads, symbols of the sun and Apollo, the Sun God, open into the Grand Hall, in the largest room of any Gilded Age home, where the symbolism further associates Whitehall with a Temple to Apollo.

A large dome at the center of the massive Grand Hall features a painting of Pythia, Apollo’s Oracle of Delphi. The dome is flanked at the cardinal points by allegorical figures representing the Four Rivers that flowed from Eden to nourish the four corners of the earth. Further out from the dome are celling paintings of allegorical figures representing sunrise and sunset. Four Carrara marble benches supported by winged sphinxes grace the east and west walls of the Grand Hall and were made specifically for Whitehall.

Atop the table below the south side of the dome is a bust of Augustus of the Prima Porta. Unearthed in Rome in the early 19th Century the original bronze of statue of Augustus, with his breastplate adorned with references to Apollo, resonated with Gilded Age Americans who strongly identified with Augustus’ efforts to address the criticism leveled against the Romans by the Greeks. As the Greeks saw it, while Rome may have had a powerful army and been talented engineers, they simply didn’t have the soul or aesthetics required to be considered a truly great civilization. To prove otherwise, Augustus allied himself with Apollo and transformed Rome from a city of bricks and mortar to the city of massive marble monuments that we think of Rome as to this day. The example of Augustus allying himself with Apollo, who used architecture and monuments to address Rome’s critics, seemed to the Gilded Age leaders to be the perfect way to address the same criticisms being leveled against America by Europe at the time.

Other symbolism in the Grand Hall attests to Henry Flagler’s sense of responsibility as a leader in both business and civic matters and the fact that his recent marriage to Mary Lily stongly informed his sense of place. The large “marriage chest,” or Cassone, on the south side of the Grand Hall features a reproduction of a mid-fifteenth century panel painting that was widely known and understood at the time to represent a marriage joining two wealthy Florentine business families who were also civic leaders. The full-size portrait of Henry Flagler in the southwest corner of the Grand Hall, by society painter Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, shows Flagler standing with the heal of his right hand resting on the corner of table (a bit of symbolism normally reserved for nobility) covered with both ledger books and leatherbound books, communicates to the viewer that Flagler is both a business and civic leader.

In the four corners of the Grand Hall are large Carrara marble sculptures, each representing an important aspect of what the Flaglers hoped their life at Whitehall would be. In the northeast corner is a statue with a base inscribed with the name Déessee (a generic French term for goddess that in this case is misspelled on the base of the statue with an unnecessary umlaut).

The seashell on the figure’s forehead, her right hand resting on an anchor, and the oar in her left hand, decorated with lion’s heads and serpent’s bodies, clearly denote that the statue is of Thalassa, the Greek Goddess of the Sea. In the southeast corner is Hesione (misspelled on its base by one letter as Hesiode), the daughter of the Greek God Oceanus and the wife of Prometheus, who represents Marriage. In the northwest corner is the Greek Muse Thalia, who represents Happiness. In the southwest corner is Eirene, the Greek Goddess of Peace. Together these four allegorical figures represented the Flagler’s hope that Whitehall would be their home by the Sea where their Marriage would be blessed with Happiness and Peace.

Christmas at Whitehall

Each year, the first floor of Whitehall is decorated in traditional Gilded Age splendor for the month of December. The focal point is a 16-foot tall Christmas Tree in the Grand Hall, adorned with colored electrical lights and traditional Gilded Age style ornaments. Experience holiday traditions, such as the Annual Tree Lighting where you can meet Santa Claus, enjoy refreshments, hear music on the historic organ and watch as the Flagler’s light the Grand Hall Christmas Tree. A Special Christmas Lecture will explore the history of Nabisco and animal crackers as Christmas tree ornaments. During Holiday Evening Tours families tour Whitehall after hours by the glow of the original light fixtures, and learn the origins of American Christmas traditions.

Special Christmas Lecture

The History of the National Biscuit Company: A Forgotten Christmas Tradition

By Gary Hoover, Author and Journalist

Sunday, December 4, 2022

2:30 p.m.

$15 per ticket for Members

$40 per ticket for non-members

Includes Museum Admission and Christmas Tree Lighting festivities.

The origins of many of our beloved American Christmas traditions can be traced back to the Gilded Age. This year’s Christmas at Whitehall program will feature a lecture on the history of the National Biscuit Company and how animal crackers became Christmas tree ornaments.

Annual Christmas Tree Lighting

Sunday, December 4, 2022

12:00 - 5:00 p.m. Free with Museum Admission

For more than five decades the Flagler Museum has observed the tradition of Henry Flagler’s youngest descendants lighting the Museum’s Christmas Tree on the first Sunday of December.

Schedule of Events:

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. — Santa Claus in the West Room

12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. — Piano and Organ Demonstrations

1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. — Kids Craft Table in the West Room

2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. — Nabisco Special Lecture in the Ballroom

3:40 p.m. — Bak Middle School Performance

4:00 p.m. — Christmas Tree Lighting in the Grand Hall

Holiday Evening Tours

December 19 - 22

Tours begin nightly at 7:25 p.m.

$50 per ticket for adults

$30 per ticket for children (ages 17 and under) Free for Visionary level Members and above, and Whitehall Society Members, plus 2 children.

During this beloved annual event, families tour Whitehall after hours and discover the origins of American Christmas traditions. Guests will have a rare opportunity to see Whitehall by the glow of the original 1902 light fixtures. Every visitor will receive a traditional Flagler Museum Christmas Cracker following the tour. A choral group will sing carols, holiday refreshments will be served, and the Museum Store will be open for holiday shopping.