{{Short description|Historic hotel in St. Augustine, Florida}} {{Use American English|date=July 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}} {{more citations needed|date=August 2009}} {{Infobox NRHP | name = Ponce de León Hotel | nrhp_type = nhl | image = Flagler College, Ponce de Leon Hotel, St. Augustine FL, South courtyard view 20160707 1.jpg | caption = The Ponce de León Hotel, today Flagler College | location = {{avoid wrap|74 King Street {{wbr}}[[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]], Florida, US}} | coordinates = {{coord|29|53|32|N|81|18|54|W|display=inline,title}} | locmapin = Florida#USA | area = | built = 1885–1887<ref name="Graham2014">{{cite book|author=Thomas Graham|title=Flagler's St. Augustine Hotels: The Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar, and the Casa Monica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y5hxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT36|date=October 1, 2014|publisher=Pineapple Press|isbn=978-1-56164-753-8|pages=36–38}}</ref> | architect = [[Carrère and Hastings|John M. Carrere and Thomas Hastings]]<ref name="Graham2014" /> | architecture = [[Spanish Colonial Revival architecture]]<ref name="BryanSavage2005">{{cite book|author1=John M. Bryan|author2=Fred L. Savage|title=Maine Cottages: Fred L. Savage and the Architecture of Mount Desert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gpRmO4FR85AC&pg=PA168|date=April 7, 2005|publisher=Princeton Architectural Press|isbn=978-1-56898-317-2|page=168}}</ref> | added = May 6, 1975 | refnum = 75002067<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref> | designated_nrhp_type = February 17, 2006<ref name=nhl>[http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2121558886&ResourceType=Building Hotel Ponce de Leon] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090502192329/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2121558886&ResourceType=Building |date=May 2, 2009}} at [https://web.archive.org/web/20000815215917/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/ National Historic Landmarks Program]</ref> | visitation_num = | visitation_year = | nrhp_type2 = nhldcp | designated_nrhp_type2 = April 15, 1970 | partof = | partof_refnum = 70000847 }} The '''Hotel Ponce de Leon''', also known as '''The Ponce''', was a luxury hotel in [[St. Augustine, Florida]], built by millionaire developer and [[Standard Oil]] co-founder [[Henry Flagler|Henry M. Flagler]]. Built between 1885–1887, the winter resort opened in January 1888. The hotel was designed in the [[Spanish Colonial Revival architecture|Spanish Colonial Revival]] style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm [[Carrère and Hastings|Carrère & Hastings]], which gained world renown for more than 600 projects, including the House and Senate Office Buildings flanking the US Capitol. Their final project was the New York Public Library.<ref name="nps.gov">{{Cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/geo-flor/26.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080422203241/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/geo-flor/26.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 22, 2008|title=Florida Historic Places – Hotel Ponce de Leon|publisher=U.S. National Park Service|access-date=September 17, 2017}}</ref><ref>Keys, Leslee F. Hotel Ponce de Leon: The Rise, Fall, & Rebirth of Flagler's Gilded Age Palace, U Press of Florida, 2015.</ref>
The hotel is the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete,<ref name="nps.gov" /> using the local [[coquina]] stone as aggregate. The hotel is one of the first buildings in the country wired for electricity from the onset, with the power being supplied by [[Direct current|DC]] generators installed by Flagler's friend, [[Thomas Edison]].
Since 1968, with the founding of Flagler College, the original building and grounds of the hotel serve as the centerpiece of the campus [[Flagler College]].
==Background== Henry Flagler spent the winter of 1882–1883 in St. Augustine where he became interested in the historic city and its potential for a winter resort for wealthy northerners.<ref name="nps.gov" /> He was particularly impressed with the poured concrete construction method of the [[Villa Zorayda]], the recently constructed winter home of businessman [[Franklin W. Smith|Franklin Smith]]. Flagler offered to buy it for his wife, but Smith would not sell it to him.
Flagler returned to St. Augustine in 1885 and made Smith an offer. If Smith could raise $50,000, Flagler would invest $150,000 and they would build a hotel together. Smith couldn't come up with the funds,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fifty Feet in Paradise|last=Nolan|first=David|publisher=Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers|year=1984|pages=101}}</ref> so Flagler began construction of the 540-room Ponce de León Hotel by himself, spending several times his original estimate. Smith helped train the masons on the mixing and pouring techniques he used on the Zorayda.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fifty Feet in Paradise|last=Nolan|first=David|publisher=Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers|year=1984|pages=105}}</ref> Two years later, Smith would build the [[Casa Monica Hotel]] opposite the Ponce de Leon, on land sold to him by Flagler.
==Design and construction== The Hotel Ponce de Leon is built on land that was part of a former orange grove and [[salt marsh]] belonging to [[Andrew Anderson (St. Augustine, Florida)|Dr. Andrew Anderson]], owner of the nearby [[Markland (St. Augustine, Florida)|Markland house]]. Construction began in 1885 by contractors and former New England shipbuilders James McGuire and Joseph McDonald; the building was completed in 1887.
Various famed and notable designers, architects, and painters worked on the project. The hotel was designed by the New York architecture firm of [[John M. Carrère|John Carrère]] and [[Thomas Hastings (architect)|Thomas Hastings]], as their first major project.<ref name="nps.gov" /> Soon after, they would design the [[New York Public Library Main Branch|New York Public Library]] in Manhattan. Interior design of the hotel was headed by [[Louis Comfort Tiffany]], and his company, [[Tiffany & Co.|Tiffany & Co]], which provided the stained glass windows in the hotel's dining room. The landscape was designed by [[Nathan Franklin Barrett]]. The hotel's furnishings were provided by [[Pottier & Stymus]], a prominent New York City furniture and design firm at the time. [[Bernard Maybeck]], whose later designs include the [[Palace of Fine Arts]] in San Francisco, served as a draftsman on the project and designed its 540 guest rooms.<ref name="Design 2013">{{Cite news|url=https://www.visitstaugustine.com/history/st-augustine-hotels.php|title=The development of St. Augustine in the twentieth century.|last=Design|first=Augustine Web|date=1996–2013|work=VisitStAugustine.com|access-date=September 17, 2017|language=en}}</ref> Architect [[Emmanuel Louis Masqueray]], who had recently arrived from Paris and would go on to supervise the [[Louisiana Purchase Exposition|1904 World's Fair]] in St. Louis, created the watercolor elevation of the hotel.<ref>A French Architect in Minnesota, by Alan K. Lathrop, in "Minnesota Profiles", Summertime summertime sadness 1980, p. 46</ref> Canvases depicting angels were painted by Virgilio Tojetti and stretched across the ceilings,<ref name="Harvey1992">{{cite book |last1=Harvey |first1=Karen G. |title=America's First City: St. Augustine's Historic Neighborhoods |year=1992 |publisher=Tailored Tours Publications |isbn=0-9631241-2-9 |page=102 |url=https://books.google.com/books/?id=UIwEAAAACAAJ}}</ref> while murals in the rotunda and dining room were completed by the well-known artist [[George W. Maynard]], who a decade later painted a second set of the Exploration series murals in the Treasures Gallery at the [[Thomas Jefferson Building]] of the [[Library of Congress]].
The murals at the Ponce were well known at the time. Writing of a visit to St Augustine, [[Ring Lardner]] has one of his characters say:
{{Quote|In the evenin' we strolled acrost the street to the Ponce—that's supposed to be even sweller yet than where we were stoppin' at. We walked all over the place without recognizin' nobody from our set. I finally warned the Missus that if we didn't duck back to our room I'd probably have a heart attack from excitement; but she'd read in her Florida guide that the decorations and pitchers was worth goin' miles to see, so we had to stand in front o' them for a couple hours and try to keep awake. Four or five o' them was thrillers, at that. Their names was Adventure, Discovery, Contest, and so on, but what they all should{{sic|hide=y}} of [sic] been called was Lady Who Had Mislaid Her Clo'es. <br /> The hotel's named after the fella that built it. He come from Spain and they say he was huntin' for some water that if he'd drunk it he'd feel young. I don't see myself how you could expect to feel young on water. But, anyway, he'd heard that this here kind o' water could be found in St. Augustine, and when he couldn't find it he went into the hotel business and got even with the United States by chargin' five dollars a day and up for a room.|''Gullible's Travels'' (1917)}}
[[File:The Dining Hall at Flagler College.jpg|thumb|The Hotel Ponce de Leon dining room, with Tiffany stained glass windows]] Electricity was supplied by the [[Edison Electric Company]], as Thomas Edison was a personal friend of Henry Flagler and architect Thomas Hastings' brother Frank, who was the company's secretary-treasurer. Edison oversaw the installation of [[Direct current|DC]] [[dynamo]]s in the hotel. The building was one of the first in the world to be wired for electricity and constructed with it in mind. When the hotel first opened, Flagler hired staff to turn power on and off for his residents, because the people staying at the hotel were too afraid to turn the switches on and off themselves.<ref>Ossman, Laurie; Ewing, Heather (2011). ''Carrère and Hastings, The Masterworks''. Rizzoli USA. {{ISBN|9780847835645}}.</ref>
Originally, the twin towers of the hotel were water storage tanks which contained 8,000 gallons each, providing running water for hotel guests. During World War II, a small room to the east of the central dome served as a [[Jail|brig]] when the hotel served as the founding headquarters of the Coast Guard Reserve [[United States Coast Guard|U.S. Coast Guard]].
==Operation== The Hotel Ponce de Leon opened on January 10, 1888.<ref name="Design 2013" /> It was an instant success, and within two years, Flagler opened another hotel in St. Augustine, the [[Lightner Museum|Alcazar]]. Just across the street, it absorbed guests that the Ponce could not accommodate and eased the massive demand. A year later, in 1888, he purchased friend and colleague [[Franklin W. Smith|Franklin Smith]]'s [[Casa Monica Hotel]], renovating it and reopening it as the Cordova. The projects were Flagler's first three projects as a partner in PICO, the Plant Investment Company. In 1882, Henry Plant, Flagler and nine other northern businessmen established the corporation to develop the Southernmost Frontier of the US – the Florida peninsula from Orlando south.
With the success of the Ponce de Leon, Flagler realized the need for a sound transportation system to support his resorts, and he purchased short-line railroads to form what would later become known as the [[Florida East Coast Railway]]. He modernized the existing railroads for them to accommodate heavier loads and more traffic, allowing guests to reach the hotel from New York City and other northern cities. Over the next two decades, Flagler expanded the system further south, until it reached [[Key West, Florida|Key West]]. The Overseas Extension is known as the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World. [[File:Flagler College (St. Augustine, Florida) 001.jpg|left|thumb|The front facade of the hotel, facing King Street in downtown St. Augustine.]] Noted personalities that stayed at the hotel during its operation included President [[Grover Cleveland]], [[Mark Twain]], future President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], as a college student on spring break, President [[Theodore Roosevelt]], President [[Warren G. Harding]], future President [[John F. Kennedy]] at age 13 with his family, Vice President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], [[Somerset Maugham]], [[Babe Ruth]] and [[Babe Didrikson]].
The headwaiter of the Ponce in the 1880s and 1890s was Frank Thompson, who was a pioneer civil rights advocate and an organizer of the professional black baseball team that became the [[Cuban Giants]]. One member of the team, [[Frank Grant (baseball)|Frank Grant]], was elected to the [[Baseball Hall of Fame]].
The hotel saw declining visitor numbers throughout the 1910s and 1920s. A major cause of this was the continuous extension of Flagler's railway, which allowed tourists to vacation in the warmer, tropical climates further south, giving rise to cities like [[West Palm Beach, Florida|West Palm Beach]] and Miami. However, even as the Alcazar and Cordova Hotels closed, the Ponce remained open and was one of three Flagler hotels in the state to survive the [[Great Depression]] and operate into the mid-20th Century.<ref name="nps.gov" />
==Art colony== Flagler established an artist colony at the hotel, with an Artists' Studios building constructed to the rear of the resort. The colony attracted many up-and-coming American artists of the time, including [[Martin Johnson Heade]], who painted, among other works, "Giant Magnolias on a Blue Cloth" in Studio No. 7. The painting now hangs in the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, D.C., and Heade has been honored on a U.S. postage stamp. Other works of his are in the [[White House]] and various significant galleries.
Other artists of the colony included [[Felix de Crano]], [[Reynolds Beal]], Arthur Vidal Diehl, the flower painter Albert Fuller Graves, the Provincetown artist and teacher [[Charles Webster Hawthorne]], the impressionist painter Harry L. Hoffman, and Heinrich Pfeiffer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa288b.htm|title=Lost Colony: The Artists of St. Augustine, 1930–1950; essay by Robert W. Torchia|website=www.tfaoi.com|access-date=February 22, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://paintinginparadise.wordpress.com/|title=Painting in Paradise|website=Painting in Paradise|language=en-US|access-date=February 22, 2018}}</ref>
During the [[Great Depression]], the federal government had organized several of its [[New Deal|direct aid programs]] in the city with the goal of revitalizing the area's tourism economy. Authors such as [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Zora Neale Hurston]], [[Robert Frost]], [[John Dos Passos]], and, most particularly, [[Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings]], visited or lived in St. Augustine during this time, and there was an active community of artists.
==Coast Guard Reserve training center== During [[World War II]], the Ponce de Leon Hotel was taken over by the federal government and was used as a [[United States Coast Guard|Coast Guard]] Training Center. St. Augustine is considered to be the birthplace of the [[United States Coast Guard Reserve|Coast Guard Reserve]], as one of the first classes to graduate from Reserve officer training did so at St. Augustine in May 1941. From 1942 until the end of the war in 1945, thousands of young recruits received their basic and advanced training at the hotel, with up to 2,500 trainees living in the building at any one time.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.visitstaugustine.com/history/modern-st-augustine.php|title=St. Augustine in the twentieth century|last=Design|first=Augustine Web|date=1996–2013|work=VisitStAugustine.com|access-date=September 17, 2017|language=en}}</ref>
One of the Coast Guardsmen the trained at the hotel was [[Jacob Lawrence]], already a famous artist. According to the official Coast Guard history,
<blockquote>In October 1943 Lawrence was drafted into the Coast Guard, then part of the Navy. As the armed services were still segregated, he, along with all African-American recruits, were automatically limited to the steward's mate rate. After his basic training at Curtis Bay, Maryland he was assigned to the Ponce de Leon Hotel (commandeered by the Coast Guard) in St. Augustine. Despite his rate, Lawrence was urged to continue his artistic endeavors by his commanding officer, Captain J.S. Rosenthal. He was later transferred to [[USCGC Sea Cloud (WPG-284)|USCGC ''Sea Cloud'']] [1944], the first integrated ship in the naval services.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/Jacob_Lawrence.asp|title=USCG: Frequently Asked Questions|website=www.uscg.mil|access-date=2017-09-17}}</ref></blockquote>
He became the first African-American artist to have his work hung in both the [[Vatican Museums|Vatican]] and the [[White House]].
==Post-war return to hotel== [[File:Ponce de Leon Hotel, St. Augustine, FL, US (41).jpg|thumb|An interior view of the hotel's rotunda and ceiling mural.]] After the war ended, the building was deactivated by the Coast Guard and returned to operation as a hotel. Large crowds that had stayed away from the city during the war returned, but the boom did not last.
The hotel saw declining visitor numbers in the following years, and in 1967 it was permanently closed.<ref name="Graham2014135">{{cite book|author=Thomas Graham|title=Flagler's St. Augustine Hotels: The Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar, and the Casa Monica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y5hxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT135|date=October 1, 2014|publisher=Pineapple Press|isbn=978-1-56164-753-8|page=135}}</ref>
==Flagler College== In 1968 the hotel became the centerpiece of the newly-established [[Flagler College]]. Beginning in 1976, with the nation's bicentennial anniversary, Flagler College embarked on an ambitious campaign to restore the hotel and other Flagler-era campus buildings to their original grandeur. In 1988 the College celebrated the centennial of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, and a decade later students created the Flagler's Legacy program, which provides guided historic tours of the former hotel to thousands of visitors annually.
The building was added to the US [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1975, and became a U.S. [[National Historic Landmark]] on February 21, 2006.<ref name="flagedu">[http://www.flagler.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=931 Flagler College's Ponce de Leon Hotel awarded National Historic Landmark designation] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807014129/http://www.flagler.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=931 |date=August 7, 2007}}</ref>
==In popular culture== * The 1920 silent film [[Stolen Moments (film)|''Stolen Moments'']], starring [[Rudolph Valentino]], was partially filmed and set in the Ponce de Leon Hotel and its courtyard.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.flagler.edu/about-flagler/timeline/|title=Who was Henry Flagler? {{!}} Flagler College|last=Horn|first=Mike|access-date=September 17, 2017|language=en}}</ref> * [[Route 66 (TV series)|''Route 66'']], [[List of Route 66 episodes#Season 4 (1963–64)|Season four, Episode 19]], titled "This Is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You", was filmed at the hotel.
==Gallery== <gallery> File:Ponce del Leon Hotel 02.jpg|alt=|Ponce de Leon Hotel Historic Marker File:National Historic Landmark Plaque, Ponce de Leon Hotel (2006).jpg|alt=|Ponce de Leon Hotel National Historic Landmark File:Ponce de Leon Hotel 1.jpg|alt=|Entrance - May 2019 File:Ponce de Leon Hotel 2.jpg|alt=|May 2019 File:Ponce de Leon Hotel 3.jpg|alt=|May 2019 </gallery>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== * Graham, Thomas (2004). ''Flagler's St. Augustine Hotels''. Pineapple Press. * Akin, Edward (1988). ''Flagler''. Kent State University Press. * Ossman, Laurie; Ewing, Heather (2011). ''Carrère and Hastings, The Masterworks''. Rizzoli USA. {{ISBN|9780847835645}}. * Keys, Leslee F. (2015). ''Hotel Ponce de Leon: The Rise, Fall, & Rebirth of Flagler's Gilded Age Palace''. University Press of Florida. * Branch, Taylor (1998). ''Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65''. Simon & Schuster. * Colburn, David (1985). ''Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877–1980''. Columbia University Press.
==External links== {{Commons category|Ponce de León Hotel}} * [http://ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/l/caha Carrère & Hastings Digital Collection, with over 200 drawings for the Ponce de Leon Hotel (now Flagler College), the Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Augustine, and select others] * {{HABS |survey=FL-173 |id=fl0212 |title=Hotel Ponce de Leon, King, Valencia, Sevilla & Cordova Streets, Saint Augustine, St. Johns County, FL |photos=13 |data=5 |cap=1}}
[[File:PostcardStAugustineFLHotelPoncedeLeonCirca1909.jpg|thumb|left|350px|Hotel postcard, about 1909]] {{St. Augustine, Florida}} {{Carrère and Hastings}} {{NHLs in FL}} {{National Register of Historic Places in Florida}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponce de Leon Hotel}} [[Category:1888 establishments in Florida]] [[Category:Buildings and structures in St. Augustine, Florida]] [[Category:Carrère and Hastings buildings]] [[Category:Defunct hotels in Florida]] [[Category:Historic American Buildings Survey in Florida]] [[Category:Hotel buildings completed in 1888]] [[Category:Mediterranean Revival architecture in Florida]] [[Category:Moorish Revival architecture in Florida]] [[Category:National Historic Landmarks in Florida]] [[Category:National Register of Historic Places in St. Johns County, Florida]] [[Category:Railway hotels in the United States]] [[Category:Renaissance Revival architecture in Florida]] [[Category:Spanish Revival architecture in Florida]]