The Flagler Museum

Whitehall is the reason Palm Beach exists in its present form, preserved. Henry Flagler completed the 75-room, 60,000 square foot mansion in 1902, to designs by Carrere and Hastings, as a wedding present for his wife Mary Lily; the couple moved in that February. It is the Gilded Age argued in marble.

The house survived its hotel-tower years thanks to Flagler's granddaughter, Jean Flagler Matthews, whose foundation bought the property in 1959 and opened it as a museum in 1960. Fifty-five restored rooms are open to visitors, along with the railcar pavilion and a season of lectures and music.