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Henry Flagler, the son of a Presbyterian minister, left home in NY at 14, made his fortune first in Ohio in grain, then salt mining and most famously as a partner with John D. Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews in Standard Oil. In his 50's he started developing Florida's agriculture and tourism with his Florida's East Coast Railway (you can see his see his private rail car near the gift shop) and luxury hotels, turning Florida from a swampy wasteland into a vacation playground.

Who wouldn't have liked this wedding present that Henry Flagler gave his 3rd wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler? It's a winter retreat with more than 75 rooms built in 1902 during America's Gilded Age which established, for the wealthy, the Palm Beach "season".

Original and period furnishings grace Whitehall - a Louis XV ballroom, Italian Renaissance library, Elizabethan dining room and Louis XIV music room. See if you can find the secret staircase or Mary Lily's 5 ft. strand of pearls. Flagler made it till age 83 and would have lived longer if he hadn't slipped and fallen on one of the marble staircases here.

Admission Fees:
Adults: $18
Youth ages 13 - 17: $10
Children ages 6 - 12: $3
Children under age 6: free