Pool Lunch
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 12 Feb 2012 22:17
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Lunch in the Deep
End The shallow
end seen from our seat. The deep end seen from
the first balcony.
Todays tourist thing is the Lightner
Museum, after a late start, Steve, Maggie and Trooper
met us in time for a bowl of soup in the café. The Café Alcazar is located on the ground floor of the former Alcazar Hotel. Built in 1887 by Henry Flagler, the hotel is
now home to the Lightner Museum. It is built over a river bed that had to be
filled, Henry bought a farm on the north of the city and had his workers bring
the soil in to use to level the ground. That done, the hotel soon took shape
using the poured concrete method, unique in the world at that time. The café
occupies the deep end of the casino swimming pool which was constructed in 1889.
The pool was the focal point of a health centre for wealthy hotel guests. It was
four stories high with a glass ceiling that could be cranked open to view the
stars. A 1,410 foot deep artesian well supplied a constant stream of fresh water
to the 120 x 50 foot space from three to over twelve feet deep. It was
considered at the time to be the world’s largest indoor pool. Dressing rooms
were provided at each end, with a private pool available at the west end for
women. A wide gallery on the first floor was graced with musicians and seating
for guests who preferred to watch rather than swim. A ballroom recently restored
to its original splendour on the second floor is now part of the museum. After
lunch the gang went off to do their own thing as they had already been into the
museum. Trooper was totally bemused when his ‘dad’ took the door handle off as
he made his bid to leave the building.
Johnny
Weissmuller (1904 – 1984) was a frequent guest at the hotel thrilling
onlookers as he dived from the top balcony. He was the Austrian-Hungarian-born
American swimmer and actor best known for
playing Tarzan in movies. Johnny was one of the
world's best swimmers in the 1920’s, winning five Olympic gold medals
and a bronze. He
won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven world
records. After his swimming career, he became the
sixth actor to portray Tarzan in films, a role he
played in twelve motion pictures. Dozens of other actors have also played
Tarzan, but Weissmuller is by far the best known. His character's distinctive,
ululating Tarzan yell is still often used in
films, he requested it be played three times at his funeral.
“Meet me at the
pool”, century old words still seem to echo high over the now empty pool.
In 1888 Henry Morrison Flagler, the wealthy partner
of John D. Rockefeller, had recently completed his fabulous Ponce de Leon (now
Flagler College) on the opposite side of the road. This magnificent hotel would
cost his rich and bored friends and acquaintances 250,000 pounds (in todays
money) for the January to March season, an escape from the harsh, cold storms of
the north. Treated like royalty Flagler still felt something was missing for his
guests well-being, something beyond the elegance and comfort of the palatial
Ponce.
So he planned his “casino” where the very
best exercise equipment was available. Pulleys, weights, punch bags, parallel
and horizontal bars were installed. Russian and Turkish baths were advertised as
the “finest in the south”, alcohol and cologne massages were available. Bowling
alleys, billiard rooms, a bicycle riding academy and
tennis courts were very popular with the guests
wishing for a little physical challenge.
The inaugural opening of the Hotel Alcazar
and Casino took place in march 1889. 1200 people jammed into the casino, the
event was touted as the most extravagant affair of its kind ever given in the
south. The hotel band performed from a Venetian gondola floating in the pool.
Originally the pool had a clear glass sun roof that could be vented. In the
evening 1000 electric lights illuminated the goings on.
The seventy degree pool water did have one
drawback, (like that used for the plumbing in the hotel), the water was
permeated with sulphur, and even aerating it did not completely remove the
“rotten egg” smell. The water was constantly circulating, at 7,000 gallons per
minute, entering through a flume from the south end of the pool and draining
from below. For twenty five cents anyone from the town or neighbouring hotels
could use the pool. It became very fashionable at noon, when the hotel band
would present the first of two daytime concerts. In the evenings weekly “pool
entertainments” were scheduled, which would include daring dives from the
ballroom balcony, games of water polo, races, comic events as well as general
swimming delighted one and all. The evening would be topped off with dancing and
refreshments in the ballroom.
The Russian
bath was a steam room, soon to be known as the “Senate,’ where patrons
sat on marble tiers wrapped in “togas” enduring the 112-120 degree heat. Flagler
had hired a Turkish attendant away from Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel to
supervise the baths. Advertising for the baths touted them as “cure-alls for
heart disease, as well as gout, rheumatism, liver and kidney disease,
neurasthenia and obesity.” The logic of treatment, to the extent that treatment
was explained, seems to have focused upon “relieving congestion in affected
internal organs by drawing the patient’s blood away from the body’s core to the
skin through induced sweating. A patron would enter the baths from the hotel or
the casino and go to one of forty cubicle dressing rooms to disrobe. Then he
would follow a path prescribed by his physician or by the staff which might
involve being sprayed from a hose and given a shampoo, followed by a steam in
the Russian bath, then a stint in the circular shower bath
where a variety of jets of water would be sprayed on the patient – then
back to the steam room and finally a quick dip in the cold plunge in the center
of the bath area. Afterwards he might repair to the “resting
room” for a massage and a glass of Clarendon Springs mineral water.”
Early visitors often described their
bathing experience in ambivalent terms. “Crowds swarm in these baths,” the
novelist Stephen Crane wrote. “A man becomes a creature of three conditions. He
is about to take a bath – he is taking a bath – he has taken a
bath.”
The 15th of March 1900. Alcazar
Ball.
”The ballroom at the Casino never looked more beautiful than it did last night on the occasion of the Alcazar ball. The entrance was through a bower of aromatic cedar and palm branches and stately potted palms stood irregularly around the spacious room. The balusters were thickly trained with wild smilax, and the opening arches overlooking the pool were trellised with long fronds of the coconut palm brought from Miami. Wreaths and festoons of delicate greenery adorned the white walls and were massed in corners. Gigantic punch bowls were embowered in a grotto fashioned of gray Spanish moss, studied thickly with pink roses, and, embedded in festoons, wreaths and mossy grottoes, on the vine-robed balusters and in green recesses were thousands of miniature colored incandescent lights which shed a soft glow over the scene of enchantment. The cornices of the windows were draped in pink and green. One wing of the room was converted into a supper room where fifty little tables each accommodating from six to eight persons, were arranged on heavy rugs. Between four and five hundred invited guests were present among whom were many beautiful women robed in handsome gowns. An original order of dances consisting of twelve numbers was contained in a dainty program of blue and silver, and with exquisite music and the floor in perfect condition, no detail was lacking which goes to made an ideal ball”. The 8th of April 1910
Dance at Alcazar. “The last of the pleasant informal hops to be danced this season in the parlors of the Hotel Alcazar was enjoyed last evening. This floor is perfect for dancing, the music, furnished by the Alcazar orchestra, is unexcelled, and these Thursday evening dances have been a delightful feature of social life at this hotel throughout the season. They have given pleasure not only to Mr. McAuliffs many guests in the hotel but to a number of young people of the city who were invited to attend the delightful affairs.” The 11th of April 1910 ”Alcazar Closes Tomorrow After Splendid Season. After one of the most successful seasons in many years the palatial Hotel Alcazar will close its doors for the winter of 1909 10 tomorrow morning after breakfast. Within a few days all of the members of the hotel staff will have left for the North and all will be quiet about the great building.” 1929. Single rooms with a bath were $75 a
month, furnished suites with hotel service were $150 a month and up. Since
liquor now was forbidden, the hotel had to advertise its availability for
"weddings, receptions, afternoon teas, cards and dancing."
ALL IN A NOVEL LUNCH
IN A NOVEL PLACE
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