Ponce de Leon Hall, Flagler College

Florida · United States · Hotel

Henry Flagler's grand St Augustine hotel, now a women's residence. The fourth floor room at the centre of the story is boarded up, and students still look.

Ponce de Leon Hall at Flagler College in St Augustine, Florida was Henry Flagler's hotel, one of the most extravagant buildings raised in America in the 1880s, and it is now the women's residence hall.

The story students tell holds that Flagler's mistress hanged herself on the fourth floor. The room is boarded up, and students still go up to look through the keyhole.

No such death is documented, and the mistress in the story has never been identified. Flagler's private life was complicated enough without invention: his second wife was committed, and the Florida legislature changed the divorce law in a way that allowed him to remarry, which caused a scandal at the time.

When Flagler died his funeral was held in the front hall of the building.

The hall is a national historic landmark and one of the finest Gilded Age interiors in the country. It is also, still, a dormitory.

FAQ

Where is Ponce de Leon Hall, Flagler College located?

Ponce de Leon Hall, Flagler College is in Florida, United States.

Image: Flagler College / Public domain — Wikimedia Commons