On one of the ubiquitous ghost tours in this
historic city, my fellow journalists are imagining that their photos reveal
evidence of dead dogs lurking by woodstoves, phantasmal children wandering in
the dark park. I see Henry Flagler. It’s not hard to imagine he’s still here in St. Augustine since the
entire city is full of his accomplishments.
Nothing stood in the way of his vision.
When he admired a building, he either bought it or imitated its
architecture. He built jails and
churches so he could dictate their location.
In his grandiosity he built a Venetian Renaissance church in the memory
of a deceased daughter, a magnificent hotel to honor his wife. He also spawned a legacy of entrepreneurism
that still fuels this city.
Flagler invited
industrialists to enjoy St. Augustine’s warm
climate, and built a railroad to get them there. People like John D. Rockefeller, with whom
Flagler started Standard Oil, broke bread with railroad tycoons, church and
elected leaders. I can imagine him
hosting a lavish celebration today in the newly remodeled Treasury on the Plaza,
an event space made from a 1928 bank. The
grandeur of the building is reminiscent of the
Casa
Monica Hotel
and
Flagler College architecture. The host might tell the story of building the
world’s largest swimming pool. “I was
worth $8 million when I got here. I
wanted a swimming pool. But no one would
use it because it smelled like sulfur. So I invited a bunch of Northern doctors
down. Gave them free vacations. Just
swim everyday I said. Then everyone swam.”
The deep end of that same pool is now Café Alcazar. Joseph Finnegan, the innkeeper at the
St. Francis
Inn is also a problem solver. Opened in 1791, his bed and breakfast is the oldest
continually used inn in
America’s
oldest city. Its unique rooms,
courtyard, swimming pool and dining room are charming and exceedingly well
appointed. But it didn’t have a beach so the owners developed some property on
the coast nearby and now guests can enjoy both when they stay at either: breakfast or parking in town, beach chairs
and towels at the beach.
Flagler
might go on to tell about his divorce from his second wife. She was in a mental institution but divorcing
her was illegal in
Florida. So he worked to change the law, much like that
of another of Flagler’s likely guests Philip McDaniel who started St. Augustine
Distillery. He worked two years to
change the law that prohibited them from
having their distillery, shop and Ice House Restaurant in proximity. “There were a lot of hurdles but we were
committed because of our love of the town.” A true farm-to-table enterprise, they work
with local farmers to preserve agricultural history by growing everything from
sugar cane to heirloom corn and citrus for their emerging line of liquors. One farmer, Mr. Arroyo, sums it up: “People
get excited about vegetables but they get more excited about booze.”
San Marcos is surrounded by walls made from
coquina shells. It’s never been
conquered. Captain Ryan explained “If you think of
throwing an M&M into a jar of peanut butter, that’s how the cannonballs
fired into the fort got stuck in the walls.”
The Spanish actually dug the cannonballs out, wrote hate notes on them
and fired them back becoming the “first white people to recycle”.
Sharing
Flagler’s love of the area’s natural beauty would be Captain Ben Evans and Zach
McKenna of St. Augustine Eco Tours.
Their passion for protecting the environment is obvious in their
excursions which combine nature and history.
They tell stories from the wake of shrimp boats as dolphins frolic. The iconic Castillo de
On the
table would be delights from the city’s best chefs: the deconstructed caprese salad from Chef
Jean-Stephane Poinard of Bistro de Leon with its beautiful peeled love apple
stuffed with mozzarella mousse, datil pepper sauces from Hot Shot bakery, pasta
from Nona’s Trattoria, exotic olive oils from The Ancient Olive and desserts
from French chocolatier at Claude’s
Chocolates. The guests might plan a further
exploration of the city’s culinary delights on The Tasting Tour where Flagler
would feel right at home climbing into the horse and buggy to discover hidden
dining gems.
Flagler and
his guests would proudly toast eachother’s accomplishments. St.
Augustine is now one of the country’s most popular
wedding destinations, girl’s get-aways and one of the top 5 places in the world
for Christmas lights according to National Geographic Magazine. I imagine the party winding down, the guests
ambling over cobblestone streets past their host’s magnificent namesake Flagler College,
back to the St. Francis Inn. They’d cap off the evening with one of Chef
Janice Leary’s nightly treats, a bit of sherry and revel in the enduring virtues
of St. Augustine.
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