If Flagler is known outside of Palm Beach mostly for his railroads, on the island his fame rests on his hotel-building. The Royal Poinciana Hotel (demolished 1935) was his first major project, described by that great chronicler of what used to be called society, Cleveland Amory, as a “six-story building, looking like a skyscraper lying down.” The architectural style was Georgian in the broadest sense, with a central portico and a series of hipped roofs with dormers. Green shutters adorned the windows, while its clapboard façade was painted pale “Flagler yellow.” At the time the largest wooden building ever built, the Royal Poinciana had space for 1,750 guests, and its construction created an economy overnight, leading Flagler to declare that West Palm Beach, just over his eponymous bridge, was the “city I am building for my help.” Amory wrote that “Flagler took no chances with [Palm Beach’s] early-day social promotion. The first train to cross Flagler Bridge to the Poinciana bore no less [sic] than four Vanderbilts—out of a total of seventeen passengers.” In 1896, Flagler doubled down on his bet on Palm Beach, constructing another hotel, this one directly on the ocean. Simply called the Palm Beach Inn, it soon became known as “The Breakers” for its proximity to the crashing waves. Postcards from the era show yet another yellow building, perhaps more American Colonial than strictly Georgian, with a series of two-story porches. That building, which burned in 1925, bears no relation to the site’s current Mediterranean structure. Leisure activities for Flagler’s hotel guests included golf, lawn tennis, fishing, bathing, and boating, which remain the favored pastimes of Palm Beachers today.
Other characteristic structures of the early days include the original Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, now a private residence, erected on the lake in 1894. Here we see shingles again, and a curious octagonal tower topped with a conical shake roof. One could be in Maine, save for the ubiquitous palms. The fact that parishioners could only reach the church by boat because of impassible swamps gives a sense of just how rustic early life on the island was. While Palm Beach was developing quickly under Flagler’s aegis, remnants of the pioneer days remained. At the foot of what is now Worth Avenue, today one of the world’s most elegant and expensive shopping streets, sat the thatched hermitage of one “Alligator Joe,” the nickname of Warren Frazee. For twenty-five cents, visitors could see various reptiles wrestle in mud pits. Archival photographs show a robust fellow with a Panama hat and a long pole amid a scrum of gators; others indicate just how jungly the island was, with groves of palms creating shady thickets.