Flagler Museum

Flagler Museum, also known as Whitehall, is a 55-room mansion open to the public in Palm Beach, Florida in the United States. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

Henry Flagler, one of the founders of Standard Oil, built Whitehall for his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan.

The site of the home was purchased for $50,000 in 1893 (as of 2010 that would be $1,197,562.39) by Flagler; later surveyed for construction in July 1900 and the home completed in time for Flagler and his wife to move in on February 6, 1902. The architects were Carrère and Hastings, who had earlier designed the Ponce de Leon Hotel and several other buildings in St. Augustine for Flagler. Whitehall was to be a winter residence, and Henry gave it to Mary Lily as a wedding present. They would travel to Palm Beach each year in one of their own private railcars, one of which was No. 91.

Flagler died of injuries sustained in falling down a flight of marble stairs at Whitehall in 1913, at the age of 83. Mary Lily died four years later, and the home was devised to her niece Louise Clisby Wise Lewis, who sold the property to investors. They constructed a 300-room ten story addition to the west side of the building, obliterating Mr. Flagler's offices, the housekeeper's apartment, and altering the original kitchen and pantry area.