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| Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, 1941 Florida State Archives |
An article written by Harford Powell, Jr. for Harper’s Bazaar in 1931 offers a glimpse of early Palm Beach. It must have captured the imagination of those shivering “up North” and who, during those drab days of the Depression, could not travel but only read about that glittering place in the sun. No doubt Powell contributed to the glamorous stature of the island. His very brief history of Palm Beach follows.
About traveling to Palm Beach: He claimed Florida bound railroad trains were on wings : " ... you have no more shaken the snowflakes off your hat before the porter is opening the windows and starting the electric fan."
In Palm Beach: Though there was no air conditioning at the time, he wrote
"men have really tamed the tropics at Palm Beach." He probably was referring to its hotels.
He claimed Palm Beach’s center of social life was its hotels – the Breakers and the "still more prodigious" Royal Poinciana--until the war.
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| Bathing Beach at the Breakers 1930 Florida State Archives |
A place to socialize: Singer built the Everglades Club, and Mizner designed the building, Powell wrote. It was designed as a home for the convalescent war officers. Before it was finished, the war ended and … it was opened as a club.
An astonishing change in Palm Beach, now a place to live: Paris Singer and Addison Mizner, the two responsible for making Palm Beach a winter home community, arrived in 1918. Powell asserted that it was this duo who made the beach-side town a place to live; it was no longer merely a hotel community.
Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury of Philadelphia saw it, admired the totally new note in architecture which Mr. Mizner had struck [with the Everglades Club] and commissioned him to build a home in similar vein for herself. So began the astonishing change in Palm Beach.
A place in the sun ...
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Tags: Florida history, Palm Beach history, Palm Beach hotels
