Flagler followed the success of the Ponce de Leon, which opened in 1888, with the 1,150-room Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach, establishing Palm Beach as a vacation spot for wealthy Northerners.

The lakefront and now-long-gone Royal Poinciana was a mammoth ... During the early years, after Flagler hired 19 th-century baseball great Ed Andrews to run the hotel baseball program, the local ...