our throwaway society has come to houses we throw away houses now over and over again sometimes it's inevitable sometimes they're not salvageable but good design there's something there that makes it worthwhile anyone can go out and build a new home but not everyone has the wherewithal and the dedication to restore a landmark property and to do it right it's not just the house it's not just the physical aspect of the house it's the knowledge that's embedded in there as well it tells the story of the people who lived here and made Palm Beach and I find them as interesting as the buildings so when you preserve something you're preserving not just the house but you're preserving the knowledge that made it and particularly when you take it back apart you understand it so that's what you learn that's what you take away [Music] people come and go in Palm Beach and some like it and some don't but those of us who like it really like it Palm Beach is a small town on a barrier island but it's a very seasonal community it's a little hot here in the summer Palm Beach is really paradise in many ways it's very elite which is whatever it is it just happens to be but in my case I'm still seeing families that I knew 50 years ago when you come here everybody is so nice they're just so happy to be in good weather and so when people are in a bad mood you sort of have to scratch your head what's going on here if you look at a place like Palm Beach the reason it's so beautiful is because of all the old protected architecture it's what makes this place such a culturally interesting place we were happily living on Everglades Island honestly I thought I was going to be carried out of that house feet first but uh this house came up on golf here which right next to the Everglades club we used to drive by it all the time it really resonated with me because of the history of it it's a landmark as in the true sense of the word but it was sort of falling apart in front of our eyes nothing was really being done about it [Music] and when we had the opportunity to bid on it at an auction we thought let's try and when we got it we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into it well the front half of the house is intact and it's pretty much unchanged the back L had been mucked around with a lot so we're not changing what Wyeth had designed we're changing what had been done in the 1980s but we're going to make the back part of the house actually match the front part of the house in terms that it's not an American house it's acting like a Spanish house it had so many original features the front stair the the architrave over the front entry the uh door the hardware the floors the castone staircase the wrought iron railing uh the light fixtures all still intact original to the 1924 house but the challenge is to try to get a house like this and bring it to modern living and yet still maintain its original integrity which is a hard thing to do well I think the house in Palm Beach is a great place and anything that can be done to keep it going and keeping it a landmark in part of Palm Beach and the history of Palm Beach I think is terrific I think that whole street is a wonderful Street I for one am very happy about it I think it's [Music] marvelous and here's our beauty [Music] so we are pretty much done uh completed the interior demolition we are digging footers on the exterior to start our sight walls we're going to be raising the grade up here approximately 2 ft we putting some collars on those rafters so when we take these lower ones out put the tray in make room for the tray they won't there windows let the walls give way so this was section that was and this was added on this was added on right you can see here's the old the old wall right here this is 1980 none of these older houses had insulation in the ceilings or the walls so the hollow tile I think did the trick in the winter time down here they say the barrel tile roofs help a lot cuz you got a lot of air flow through the space of the barrel tile what's really nice about this room is if you open these windows like spectacular yeah so what do we learn by taking some apart and putting it back together again a lot we learn how it goes together we learn why how they dealt with water how they dealt with the infiltration you can also understand what went wrong the last owner of the house was a man named Frank Butler and he died in 2014 at the age of 86 when Mr Frank Butler moved into it I was his assistant so I basically moved into it and then I I helped him remodel it cuz I knew all the trades by then from working on his other houses he was attached to that house like it was part of him Frank was a renaissance man is the best way to describe it he loved beautiful things he had great taste but he was a bit of a wild card and he was lots and lots of fun everyone on the Avenue knew him of course and if you start roller skating down Worth Avenue we were bound to be known and uh so he would roller blade like miles lots of miles you know to West Palm and to the doctor's office he had this wonderful imagination always kind and sweet and very exotic he was a charmer he always charmed the women and so he had a lot of women friends we loved to entertain I was there for dinner I was there for tea and he loved to dance just like grandmother Butler he adored and he was is a beautiful dancer and he was part of my life is forever he was really a good-hearted person but he had you know different quirks about him at one point he had five or six cars and they all had the same paint two-tone paint job and he'd make you drive in a row with um what entourage I was in the front and I had emergency lights on and he'd make me turn them on like flashing lights and we had like six cars all driving in the Entourage and we'd all go to the airport like that he would do like an illegal u-turn or something and of course you had to follow him and we all got pulled over by the police you know what are you doing you know he like oh we're just following him he pops out of the car with a white like the white fur coat and the hat I remember for my 60th birthday Frank asked me what I would like to have for a present and I said Frank you know what I really want are you going to the so- and so's party on Saturday night he said yes I'd love to have you drive me there in your role well of course Edith I'd love to I was so excited about this I thought I'd be on the arm of Frank Butler going to this party it would be simply wonderful guess what he pulled up in the rolls into Fisch's Plaza and there was another woman in the front seat basically he was a good person and I can't say that about a lot of people but I can about him [Music] okay so Frank Butler inherits 16 Golf View Road from his father Paul Butler in 1981 Paul Butler buys 16 Golf View in 1949 my father was very quiet really enjoyed people had a very good sense of humor Paul Butler he died tragically he got hit by an automobile at age 89 he was hit by a drunk driver so he would have gone further you know most people don't get to live that long but the Butler family has very good genes they live for a long time the Butlers were a great Chicago family they started Butler paper company which was one of the biggest paper companies in the world at the time they owned a town in Illinois called Oak Brook I think one way people know Butler today is Butler Aviation well Dad founded Butler Aviation Butler National very well-known golf course in Chicago and the butler family uh particularly Paul was really uh into the polo father loved polo that was his great passion in life he lived in Oakbrook which was outside of uh Chicago near Hinsdale and he developed big farms there into the Oakbrook Polo Club where they had 10 Polo fields Michael's first and he was a year and a half older than Frank and then brother Frank was born and I was born in 1930 Michael is still with us at his 90th birthday a couple of years ago big feast in California people came from all over the world because he's so well known because of hair and Michael's very dramatic and he was very very handsome all of them were energetic the brutal raw energy of the whole family was incredible the Butler family had owned it for 70 years which is really unusual for anybody to own a house for that long it was a wonderful location daddy was a bachelor and he was right on the edge of Worth Avenue he was very daer dressed beautifully so father liked Worth Avenue because there were several older fashioned stores were there when we were growing up and uh they all knew dddy [Music] [Music] my name is Tim Lve and I'm job site supervisor on the 16 Golf View project te achitects have this concept what's going on they put it on paper it all comes out of Richard's office is it what the Architects are drawing is the finished product and I take it from the finished product and I work backwards into the rough right now we're uh just about wrapped up with all the structural work all the framing all the hurricane tie downs to bring it up to what we consider current codes we're right on schedule roofers are up there now drying in the roofs we won't have any more moisture in the house it's good things are moving forward sbs are starting to come in mechanical contractors are going to be coming in the electrician the alarm the air conditioning plumbers you know getting all the mechanic IAL trades in yeah it's really coming together the painters will be here starting beginning of the year they will be here for 10 months new construction is cool remodeling is a is is like an art you got to use your mind a lot more you're part of the whole house and and mentally it's all like you're all connected so Paul Butler buys a house in 1949 now while it's a gracious house at this point we should mention it was really only one half of a much larger House the full house comprised both 16 and 14 Golf View Road the house was divided in 1948 and the architect that was in charge of the division was a man named Belford Shoumate there was a move after the war toward austerity and so people didn't really want these ostentatious homes and so a lot of the homes got demolished and this one fortunately the solution was to cut the house in half and make two homes the way Shoumate decided to divide the original home preserved two grand entertaining spaces for each property one received the living room and the other the dining room what came out of it from the standpoint of 14 Golf View where we are right now is uh this living room The Fountain the pool area and a good part of the Terrace this would have been part of the original outdoor space between both homes because this wall backs up into the courtyard of number 16 this is the original fountain and pool area and balustrade area that the houses combined would have had so the full house was purchased in 1948 by James Hannah and James Hannah lived in the East half of the house and he sold the West half to his good friend Paul Butler interesting side note James Hannah is the grandfather of actress Daryl Hannah we lived in 14 rather than in 16 and Paul bought 16 and I remember wandering around between these houses I especially liked going up in the tower room of this house my father was a real character he only had a ninth grade education and he was a truck driver uh one day quit driving the truck and uh said I'm going to start my own company which he did so with that he started James a had incorporated and he built a very large uh trucking company throughout the Midwest 10 states he was a a very charismatic guy and he was a great athlete and he also was a polo player he played at Oakbrook but that's where he met Paul Butler and my dad was president of the Oakbrook Polo Club for 30 years my father said look I didn't have a great education but you guys are going to so my brother went to Yale I went to Virginia my sister went to Vasser she said but don't get any funny ideas your father's a truck driver so don't get don't ever be a snob so I've never forgotten [Music] that today Palm Beach is reserved and quiet you can literally roll up the sidewalks at 10:30 at night but back in the 1920s and really through the 1970s Palm Beach was a real party town it used to be fun here I mean there was debauchery in this town and that's was its appeal it was fun back in the old days the police would drive you home if you were drunk you could call them up and the Palm Beach police would come take you home my wife she said I never learned anything in school cuz I never got an education cuz I was always tired and sleeping in school because her mother and stepfather would go to the a party somewhere and then they'd frequently buy the band and have an afterparty in their house with the band in the house middle of the night wake up to this music blasting from downstairs then she was supposed to get up and go to school at 8:00 in the morning the whole thing was around drinking and parties because they didn't have anything to do except that and my parents they didn't raise us we never had any advice any concern we weren't allowed over the bridge across the bridge was a world that was [Music] forbidden so where we are now is that we're installing Windows the plumbing roughs are getting complete the electrical roughs are getting complete so what that means to us is we start hanging drywall which is where we want to be start hanging drywall I'm uh all around comp for Tim Givens I do Tim Givens is good at everything it's from the ground to the crown as they will put it well they've added new construction to the old so they've implemented new construction versus 19 you know 1920s we tie the two together and I'm sure when you're done you'll walk in here and think that it was here since the 20s you got a lot of finish work doors trim a lot of trim a lot of work a lot of a lot of outside work classroom and now it's going to concentrate outside yeah and inside work in the wood you know sand prep there is a big difference of coming out of the ground with brand new and building a house from the ground up it's more of a baby this is has more of familial that the old connecting with the new every single house is different so it's always kind of a challenge when you come to one of these houses get to do this beautiful work you know create what we call masterpiece you know very nice to find out about the 1924 Marion Sims Wyeth house and to really understand the context of it you have to know a little bit about the origins of Palm Beach as a resort and to understand that you have to know about a man named Henry Flagler those of you that don't recognize Flagler's name everyone recognizes his business partner's name John D Rockefeller so his first Fortune was standard oil his second career was Florida East Coast Railways he first came to Florida 1878 now in those days you couldn't get as far south as Palm Beach cuz the railroad ended up in North Florida that's where they went each winter do recommendation in the '90s Flagler extended the railroad and uh came all the way to West Palm Beach we had two terrific big hotels the Royal Poinciana hotel and the breakers one on the Intercoastal Waterway and one on the ocean and they brought with them architectural styles and construction methods that were familiar to them and all of the social life centered around flaggers hotels the breakers for the daytime activities by the beach the big hotel the largest wooden structure in the world the Royal Poinciana Hotel and 1500 people could stay there it was an extraordinary time Americans of great wealth began to come here and retire here he built amazing hotels and it became a seasonal place for society that later started to build amazing homes here in American history they say there's no one man that developed more property in the United States than Henry Flagler when he took the train from St Augustine all the way to Key West they call it actually Flagler's Folly cuz the year it gets it there he dies which made him 83 and Mary Lily Kean in 45 and soon to be one of the wealthiest women in the United States one of the wealthy people coming down here at the time was Paris singer he was a son of Isaac Singer who founded the Singer sewing machine company Paris singer brought with him a fascinating artist and architect by the name of Addison Mizner and in 1918 they developed Worth Avenue and the Everglades Club Paris singer whose father invented the Singer sewing machine in 1851 he was one of the wealthiest men in the United States Mr Mizner was from Bia California his father had been a diplomat to Guatemala in Central America and they lived in Antigua the old capital of Guatemala and that's where Mizner fell in love with Spanish or Mediterranean style architecture he goes to school in Salamanca and so he has all this immense visual background this Encyclopedia of form that he was able to draw upon Paris singer and Addison Mizner decide after World War I that they're going to build a convalescent home for shell shocked officers from the first world war and that's what's to become the Everglades Club Fourth Avenue is basically a trail through the jungle uh what is now the Everglades Club was alligator Joe's Alligator Farm you'd pay 25 cents to see Alligator Joe wrestle the alligators so when Paris singer decided to do this development Not only was there land for a new shopping Street a new club there was also plenty of land for residential development of course they had lots of problems first of all they couldn't find construction workers in terms of Labor there's nobody down here America was an AM masonary culture the cast stone he basically set up an industry to make it my industry was built in West Palm Beach it was the biggest employer in West Palm Beach he had uh Los Manos Pottery which had beautiful handmade tiles some of which we see 16 Gul view there was a gentleman by the name of Joe Diaz that worked for Meer Industries and he described his hand cut they took the tiles they dipped them into a glaze face down shook the glaze off then stacked them into a kill the clay was actually um kneaded by a mule so it was that crude of an operation and that was all done down bunker Road there was a blacksmith who would create railings and chandeliers he knew what he wanted knew the designs and he knew how to make them and he taught his Artisans down here how to make this Sunday October 27th 1918 Mr Mizner has taught the Floridian the value of color and he is introduced a new era in architectural design which makes the most pretentious efforts of his predecessors appear at once inappropriate and common place the Palm Beach Post when the war ended in November they switched to the idea of making a club the first big dinner was February 4th 1919 and he had 250 people for dinner by 1920 a year later he had 400 members and immediately the social scene shifts from the public hotels to a private club Singer ran it as a fiefdom and it was annual membership and had everybody terrified whether they get the letter or not that particular year and it is architecturally an overnight success all the uh society folk want to have a mansion designed by Mr Mizner so Mizner becomes terrifically successful my great-grandfather's wife went there for lunch and fell in love with it and immediately wanted Mizner to build a house for them which he did so he set the pace and he basically set the image of Palm Beach prior to that you know it looked like a beach down in New Jersey Mizner had different view it's Guatemala let's do it here let's make a place that's a new place it's a place where you go and you've been transported to someplace else people say oh my god Palm Beach has changed so much yeah sure changed his part of life but there's a lot of Palm Beach that's still the same in those days it had nothing to do with money it had to do with the person themselves and the class and that classiness came from generations before whether it was from the era of Newport or the era of New York when there were enormous houses down Fifth Avenue it's instinctive they were ladies and gentlemen it was an honor system they were afraid of the world outside and who might come into their world and they knew with the people they had around them that everything was all right it was very defensive but it had to do with having that in Instinct having that sensitivity being nice to each other being gentle literally the gentle money causes a lot of joy and a lot of unhappiness [Music] it was a big part of my life Palm Beach was it's a very easy place to be and everybody comes here at one point or another whether they live here or not but everybody wants to go to New York and people all want to come to Palm Beach the 1920s are called The Roaring 20s for a reason Americans had just made it through World War I a devastating war that killed 117,000 Americans and 20 million people worldwide at the same time we had the 1918 flu pandemic that killed something like 675,000 Americans anyone lucky enough to survive these events was very much looking forward to a new era in the 1920s people had yes large homes they had large staffs they could afford it was a very he time the banking business became a dominant influence in federal policy and foreign policy there's all sorts of social changes going on it was radical women went from wearing the long dresses to wearing short dresses they started cutting their hair and actually the 20s were very modern this is generally referred to in Florida as the boom times Florida real estate is going crazy and people are making a fortune up and down the Southeast coast of Florida there's a lot of shady dealing going on but Palm Beach is booming [Music] by 1920 Addison Mizner was one of the best known society architects in the United States but by then he was not the only game in town Marion Sims Wyeth opened his office here in [Music] 1919 I was 20 years younger than Addison and the only reason I got anything to do actually was because a lot of people were afraid of Addison some people who came along didn't want to spend all their money on a house so they came to me and I was a little more careful and that's how I got my start Marian Sims Wyeth Marian Sims Wyeth was born in 1889 born in New York he graduated from Princeton and also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and that's very impressive it's very difficult to get into the Beaux-Arts and at the time were very few foreign people Marion Sims Wyeth has a job with Carrère and Hastings he comes down to see what they've done with the Flagler house and he also has a small job that he's going to do for them down here that introduces him to Palm Beach and he sees an opportunity and decides to move his young family down here in 1919 Marion Sims Wyeth is early he's coming in right after Mizner maybe even a little before Maurice Fatio the story begins in the spring of 1920 when I was walking down 16 View Road towards the Everglades parking lot and Martin Sweeney then manager of the newly opened Everglades Club introduced me to a very attractive couple Mr and Mrs Edward F Hutton who were looking for a possible site for cottage they wish to build before we parted that day I had been commissioned to build a house on a lot which projected into the Everglades Golf Course Marion Sims Wyeth Golf View Road was completely blank the road was in but there were no houses at all Wyeth says by the end of the day I had a new commission to build what is now Hogarcito which is 17 Golf View Road which is the first house on the street E.F. Hutton was a stock broker and was very uh successful broker and he was married to Margerie Merryweather Post the heiress to the Post family post cereal competitor to Kellog so seems to me between the two of them they had a lot of money to spend Marjerie started her house Hogarcito means little cottage the house is finished for the season in 1922 Thursday October 4th 1923 New York City my dear Marion Mrs. Hutton has asked me to write you regarding Palm Beach regarding her bathroom okay regarding the telephone installation that is okay too and that is about all there is to it so shoot the works my best to you always sincerely yours E.F. Hutton to most people they look at Hogarcito this is a beautiful home why would anyone want to leave this home but it turned out to be not big enough for her taste and so uh they went down further south than they built Mar a Lago Mrs Hutton would like to have some control over who's going to be on her street and what's going to be built on her street so E.F. Hutton Paris Singer and Marion Sims Wyeth form a partnership the Golfview Road Development Corporation Marian is the president E.F. Hutton is a private partner but it's his money that's financing it and he buys the Lots from Paris Singer they decide that they're going to start with six spec houses they draw out a budget the houses were first supposed to be sold for $32,000 each Monday June 26th 1922 Dear Mr Hutton the market in building materials has been going up and I've had to take the bull by its horns and order a certain amount of building tile and lumber without waiting for the papers to be signed this may have to pay for while I'm down there with best wishes sincerely yours Marian Sims Wyeth not only does he have the connections on Golfview Road not only does he have the basis of Mar a Lago but he also did Shangrala in Honolulu Hawaii for Doris Duke he did the governor's mansion in Tallahassee Florida he did the original Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach these are the foundations of community another prominent institution within the city that was designed by Wyeth is the Norton Gallery of Art which is today known as the Norton Museum of Art there's almost not a street in Palm Beach that hasn't been touched by Marion Sims Wyeth Addison Meisner is flamboyant full speed ahead damn the torpedo style Marion Sims Wyeth is not that Marion Sims Wyeth is thoughtful Marion Sims Wyeth makes sure that he has all the bases covered he doesn't have a monkey that comes to your dinner parties it it's a whole different aesthetic he had such a long career that lasted from 1919 until 1972 he dies in [Music] [Applause] 1982 hey Paul Feel Love uh still looking for that estimate on the basement got to move forward quickly on that we're running out of time and I want to get you completed so uh give me a call back please that's nothing that's nothing it's not oh headboard is this a retractable a or no that one's fixed because the afternoon Sun's in here is insane we're about 20 months into the project and supposedly to be finished in the next month or so the exterior is mainly the big thrust good news is the kitchen's ready to go it's totally operable all the appliances are here all the lights are pretty much in the floors are looking great there's hardware people here it's going in everywhere the door knobs the window knobs well it's looking darn good Tim and we're going to be able to move in on Saturday that's what we're supposed to yeah I think the inside be cuz there's a lot of intricate details it sounds like you'll be with us for Thanksgiving set a seat I just want to know that before I order the turkey [Music] okay so let's go back to Wyeth's early career and to a man named Clarence Geist Thursday March 2nd 1922 Clarence H Geist a Philadelphia businessman yesterday filed a deed for Lots 14 and 15 Golfview road which he bought from the Ocean and Lake Realty Company the Paris Singer Corporation Mr Geist will direct a dwelling soon and make Palm Beach his winter home the Palm Beach Post Clarence Geist comes in and buys those lots and hires Marion Sims Wyeth to do the design for his house that house is early this across the street the Everglades Club Worth Avenue this stuff was all a huge change in style this was the avanguard these were the style makers not the followers if you just look at architectural style you look across the street at Hogarcito which is Spanish mission style comes out of the Catholic missions that were in California and on the west coast it's a much plainer variety The Geist house is not that it's Spanish Baroque it's about as ornate as you can get it with the platter esque door surround that's the style that Wyeth used for Geist Wyeth was very good at adapting himself to the desires of his clients and designing buildings that represented their personalities it's very imposing it's on an important corner it has ostentatious architectural detailing I think it was definitely a statement to build his home where it was located directly across from EF Hutton and Margorie Maryweather Post and right within sight line of the Everglades Club Thursday January 22nd 19 1925 one of the new Spanish Villas to be completed in Palm Beach this season is that of Mr Clarence H Geist of Overbrook Pennsylvania Mr and Mrs Geist with their three daughters spent the entire summer in foreign travel and purchased many interesting things for their new house which is one of the most attractive in the Golfview Road Colony the Palm Beach Post Clarence gist is a self-made man born in Indiana on a farm he went West for a time then he becomes a railroad conductor in Chicago where he meets Charles Dawes who was the Vice President under President Harding and Dawes has made all of his money in utilities and he takes gist under his wing and teaches him about developing and owning and operating utilities nowadays you don't really think about utilities magnates being you know among the wealthiest people in the country but back then h were just really starting to get plumbing and electricity and water which we all take for granted but at that time it was sort of a modern convenience I am often asked how a man can build up a fortune well the first money I ever made was as a boy of 14 trading horses and I am still trading horses hard work some luck and a watchful eye open for the right opportunity explain most fortunes opportunities usually do not come with bells and whistles you have to discover them without signals Clarence gist he starts the Seaview Country Club by Atlantic City he lives in Villanova which is outside of Philadelphia he's on the board of directors to Brinmar a very fine woman's college he belongs to the Union League in downtown Philadelphia and he's made all of this money and he comes to Palm Beach in the winter [Music] so the way Wyeth designed this house there's a concrete and hollow tile wall that comes up and it supports Western platform framing the these exterior walls were then framed up off of those and then again the second floor is either sitting on top of a wall plate or it's balloon frame which goes go all the way to the plate that carries roof line and then they would come up outside of that with hollow clay tile and they would mud set that like we do brick so it's a hip frame roof and then you've got your sheathing and then they would put a uh use a collar roof membrane and then they would muds set uh pan tiles and then muds set handmade cap tiles I mean the type of architecture is from time of Memoria it's not what we do up nor which is the stick kind of architecture buildings are made of sticks or mud right and so this is a mud architecture so it's a Mediterranean it's the most antique form of architecture so in Mediterranean houses the focus is often inward towards the courtyard and not so much out towards the street in a Roman house which goes back to the Egyptian house the Greek House a hot weather Mediterranean climate you have the courtyard which actually provides a controlled world you're looking inward at your controlled world you're not looking outward of where the barbarians are rooms are thin the winds always open on both sides it's light and it's free and it's somewhat exotic and that's how those houses were made [Music] so by 1925 Geist is in his new state at 14 Golfview Road next door Paris Singer and Addison Mizner are having some sort of a falling out and Mizner has big ideas for a resort at Boca Raton and one of the backers of that enterprise is Clarence Geist Paris singer and Mizner went their separate ways Mizners's bad boy brother Wilson shows up and he convinces Mizner to get all his Palm Beach clients and his own personal money and invest in this what was to be like a Meisner world in Boca Raton So Mizner along with his brother Wilson and a lot of very wealthy backers create the Mizner Development Corporation and their eyes light on little Boca Raton which is a little farm town established in the 1890s unfortunately by the end of 25 the land boom was actually going bust all the phony deals in Florida real estate and people stopped making their payments when people find that out there's a run on the banks as if that were not enough September 18th of 1926 was South Florida's Hurricane Katrina direct hit on Miami was a huge storm a lot of um destruction uh in Miami all the way up to West Palm anybody who could get the heck out of town did anybody who was planning to come didn't everybody lost their shirt and by the time 1927 rolls around Mizner Development Corporation unfortunately goes bankrupt and for the locals here the great depressions already started so it was a total disaster for Mizner personally and then Paris Singer went his other way he tried to develop what's now Singer Island and again same situation for him um it was a financial disaster for them and basically never happened sad ending for both of them really the two of them died a year apart interesting enough and both of them quite young when they died and then you had 1928 you had a really big hurricane that hit West Palm Beach it severely damages the town of Palm Beach but also goes out to the agricultural areas and creates a tidal wave and there were 3,000 people killed out by Lake Okeechobee and then the worldwide stock market crashes in 1929 there was virtually no regulation of the securities markets we had at that point like 20,000 banks in this country none of them very well supervised 10,000 of them ceased to exist jobs disappeared people were on breed lines huge levels of unemployment it was a terrible time I mean people were as we remember jumping out of Windows and that's what happened to a lot of families [Music] Mizner's Boca development fails in 1927 and Geist one of his early backers sees an opportunity [Music] Mr Geist pays uh $71,500 for all the assets of the Mizner Development Corporation but he also had to take on the debt which was approximately $7 million which was a lot of money he hires New York Architects Schultz and Weaver who did The Breakers the Biltmore the Waldorf Historia to more than triple the size of The Cloister in which opens in January of 1930 as the Boca Raton Club my loaning the city of Boca Raton the money to build the waterworks is something that I take great pride in water is the foundation of every community and without good water no one will ever come into this town there are three things that kill people the first is bad water the second is bad whiskey and the third good whiskey Clarence Geist he stays in Palm Beach at 16 Golfview while Schultz and Weaver are doing the addition to the Cloister Inn in he has a private railroad car but there is no train station in Boca Raton 1930 is when the railroad station in Boca Raton opens it's then that Geist stays at his new club in Boca Raton and at least for one maybe two seasons leases the house at 16 Goldview Road remember it's the depression the club became the main economic engine of the little town of Boca Raton for the next decade so uh Mr Geist really saved the town of Boca from absolute We believe now that Mr Geist uh really did not make money at the end of the day because of the times I mean he had no control over what history was handing out at the time and so he actually probably carried the club uh through his own finances his wife's name was Florence and she kind of took over for him I'm sure her staff did um after his death in 1938 Philadelphia June 13th 1938 Mr Geist's interest in utilities continued to increase for many years until in 1930 he was looked upon as the largest individual holder of public utility stocks in the country funeral services will be held at his home at 4:00 p.m. Tuesday burial will be private the New York [Music] Times we know that in 1934 Geist rents 14 Golfview to Mr Guy Thomas from Minneapolis and after Geist's death his estate sold 16 Golfview to a Clinton Sibli Dow in 1940 but Dow died unexpectedly in 1944 and a Mrs Frank C Henderson rented and then bought the house in 1945 she was born Elizabeth Faulkner in 1877 and was from Boston Society her marriage to Frank Henderson in 1912 was her third marriage and coincidentally it was her third marriage to a wealthy oil man and for some reason she had the nickname Opera Legs Henderson by all accounts she was complicated outrageous and fascinating they called her Opera Legs Henderson because she was a supporter of the Opera and her swains would pour champagne in her shoes and she would drink the champagne out of the shoes so that's all I know about that but she must have been a character [Music] the town of Palm Beach and the Preservation Foundation is incredibly fortunate that there are people in Palm Beach that do understand why historic preservation is important historic preservation gives each community a unique sense of place it's a physical representation of the history of that place and how it came to be sharing local history is absolutely key to building a sense of community even if you're a relative newcomer how will you ever fully embrace your community until you learn about the history of the community of which you are now a part we love our grandmothers and we love our grandfathers and you're getting a slice of that that energetic 1920s you can't that doesn't leave it's still in in in the bones like the wood here this was built by somebody and you still have their heart and energy in it it's a great old Palm Beach landmark and I think it's wonderful to keep it going and here we have the good look of the family that are going to keep it going I find real Beauty in Old construction and it's attention to detail it helps us to understand you know where we've been who we are and where we're going everything we need to drive to Orlando tomorrow [Music] morning doing a project like this takes a lot more work than I think most people realize uh but I've seen it and I don't have the bandwidth for it there are thousands of decisions that have to get literally thousands of decisions and you know you think about well you have to pick out the flooring you have to pick out countertops you have to pick out paint colors you have to pick out Plumbing fixtures and you have to decide what height the toilet paper holder is in the bathroom one time she gave me the unilateral authority on where the number 16 would go not in the front of the house but on the back of the house she said Paul why don't you decide where exactly that should go so I felt pretty good about that the code here actually talks about charm believe it or not our code says the house should be charming so you have to dig down into what that actually means and to charm means to enchant which means to cast a spell and so you're trying to cast the spell [Music] we have to have comfort in our homes because we have four kids we starting to have grandchildren we' got dogs we got cats we love having people come in and out we have a very informal lifestyle so I don't want to have it be a [Music] museum [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the e [Music] [Music] la d n [Music]