Click here for all posts on the Flagler Museum. This week we’re looking at the upstairs of the mansion.
Master Bedroom
The Flaglers shared a bedroom (rare among the wealthy at the time) and a bath, although they had his and hers dressing rooms. The bedroom is decorated in Louis XV style with silk damask walls. The furniture is all original.
The master bath has all the modern conveniences, including a telephone on Mrs. F’s dressing table. In New York City, a room this size would long ago have been converted into a studio apartment.
Green Room
One of many guest bedrooms. The wallpaper pattern seems rather large and garish, but in 1902, it was obviously considered classy. Lovely detail on the woodwork, here and in all the guest rooms.
Colonial Room
The largest guest room. Love the color of the silk damask on the walls, and that ornament on the ceiling. Similar ceiling ornaments in nineteenth-century New York brownstones were put around gas fixtures: the owner could paint just the ornament when the smoke stained that part of the ceiling. Since the Flagler mansion was wired for electricity when it was built, the medallion is purely decorative – an elegant touch, in line with the elaborate ceilings on the ground floor.
Heliotrope Room
Such a pretty bed frame! I wonder if the border at the ceiling was from a roll, or was hand-stenciled on? I can’t see a paper edge on the close-up (below).
Each guest room has its own thermostat, with Flagler’s monogram.
Silver Maple Room
Yellow Roses Room
Whooooooooaaaaa, that’s a lot of yellow roses! Matching wallpaper and fabric were an innovation ca. 1902. Both were reproduced from a square of the original wallpaper found tucked behind a mirror.
As I recall, the floors here and elsewhere at the Flagler were designed with indented areas for the rugs, and parquet around the edges. The rugs couldn’t slide around.
Morning Room
A corner room on the second floor was Mrs. Flagler’s domain for playing music or writing letters.
Next week: Henry Flagler’s private railroad car.
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