Displaying items by tag: flagler museum

If Henry and Mary Lily Flagler were to walk into their music room at Whitehall today, they would feel right at home.

That’s saying a lot, considering that Whitehall, finished in 1902, has withstood more than a century of weather and wear. To reverse the inescapable ravages of time, the Flaglers’ Beaux-Arts mansion has undergone an extensive 15-year conservation effort.

The Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Fla., is lining its domed music room with newly restored seating that had long been shedding bits of gilding and threads from its tapestry upholstery. Meanwhile, the once-prominent original supplier of the furniture, Pottier & Stymus, is re-emerging from obscurity.

The oil and railroad magnate Henry Flagler and his third wife, Mary Lily Flagler, bought roomfuls of Pottier & Stymus furnishings around 1902, as Mr. Flagler’s longtime favorite architecture firm, Carrère & Hastings, was completing construction of the couple’s showplace Beaux-Arts house.