Henry Flagler ran a railroad down Florida’s empty Atlantic shore and hung a Riviera off it — grand hotels of poured concrete, winter palaces for the moneyed North, and a chain of lights to bring the ships in safe. He died in 1913, before Route 1 had a number. The coast he dreamed is still here, and the lights still turn.
They came south on his railroad, the moneyed East Coast wintering in the sun. Carrère and Hastings raised the Ponce de León and the Alcazar in poured concrete — among the first multi-storey concrete buildings in the world, with a casino, elaborate spas and the largest indoor swimming pool on earth. Franklin Smith’s Moorish Casa Monica opened beside them, a rival so fine that Flagler simply bought it.
The coast was lit before it was built. A Spanish watchtower kept a flame over Anastasia Island, and the coquina tower that followed stood two hundred years before the sea took it. Amelia Island’s light has burned since 1838 — Florida’s oldest — and for generations the keepers climbed at dusk to light the lamps. James Armour kept the Jupiter light for forty of them.
Flagler’s coast outlived Flagler. The Casa Monica went dark in the Depression, did duty as the county courthouse, and took guests again in 1999. The Alcazar keeps Otto Lightner’s rescued treasures, Tiffany glass and all. And at Gilbert’s Bar the last of ten houses of refuge still stands above the rocks, where the wrecks came in.
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