File:Ponce de Leon Hotel, Flagler College, King Street, St. Augustine, FL - 50784195633.jpg

English: Built in 1885-1887 and designed by the New York-based architecture firm of Carrère and Hastings, this ostentatious Spanish Colonial Revival-style luxury resort hotel was built by Henry Flagler to attract wealthy tourists to the warm winters of Florida, and was one of the first buildings in the world to have an electrical system throughout, utilizing DC generators provided by Thomas Edison. Built on the site of a salt marsh and orange grove owned by Andrew Anderson, Jr., owner of nearby Markland House, site work began in 1885, and the building was completed in 1887. The building’s ornate interior featured fittings by Louis Comfort Tiffany, with furnishings provided by Pottier & Stymus of New York City, murals by George W. Maynard, and the design of the guest rooms being carried out by Bernard Maybeck. With the success of the Ponce De Leon and Hotel Alcazar, Flagler was encouraged to continue his Florida East Coast Railway endeavor, constructing a line to West Palm Beach in 1894, extending it to Miami in 1896 and Key West in 1912. The construction of the railroad spurred the massive development of Florida’s east coast, with the success of the Ponce de Leon being the catalyst for its construction. The hotel featured a building at its rear that housed artist studios, which were utilized by many up-and-coming artists of the time, including Martin Johnson Heade, Felix F. de Crano, Reynolds Beal, Arthur Vidal Diehl, Albert Fuller Graves, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Harry L. Hoffman, and Heinrich Pfeiffer. Starting in the 1910s, the hotel began to experience a decline in demand, as resorts and vacation homes in areas with warmer winters further south, including Miami and Palm Beach, began to attract tourists away from St. Augustine. The hotel was closed during World War II, during which it was utilized by the United States Coast Guard as a training center. Despite these setbacks, it was the Hotel Alcazar and Cordova Hotel that closed during the depths of the Great Depression, in 1932, with the Ponce de Leon Hotel remaining open until 1967, when declining business led to its closure. In 1964, during one of its last years of operation as a hotel, a group of students from the nearby all-Black Richard J. Murray Middle School held a sit-in demonstration in the hotel’s dining room, the first sit-in demonstration during the St. Augustine movement. Following the hotel’s closure, in 1968, Flagler College opened in the former hotel, with a major restoration effort being undertaken on the building starting in 1976. Flagler College continues to occupy the building, with guided tours of the interior being offered to tourists starting in 1988. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006.