Lightner Museum

Henry Flagler made his fortune as a partner in Standard Oil, then turned his attention to Florida, building a railroad down the east coast and a string of luxury hotels to draw wealthy northerners south for the winter. In St. Augustine he built the opulent Hotel Ponce de Leon, now Flagler College, and across the street the Hotel Alcazar, a resort with baths, a casino, and the largest indoor swimming pool in the world at the time.

The Alcazar flourished in the resort era but fell on hard times during the Great Depression and closed its doors. It sat empty until Otto Lightner bought the building in the 1940s to house his collections, giving the grand old hotel a new life as a museum and preserving one of the finest examples of Gilded Age resort architecture in the country.

Otto Lightner was a Chicago publisher who founded a magazine for hobbyists and collectors and lived by the conviction that collecting was a joy open to everyone. Over his life he amassed an enormous and delightfully varied trove, from fine European art and cut glass to mechanical instruments, natural history specimens, and oddities that defy easy category.

When he moved his collection into the Alcazar, he arranged it across the hotel's grand spaces, and the museum still reflects his wide-eyed enthusiasm. A visitor can pass from a room of shimmering Victorian art glass to a display of automatons, from Egyptian artifacts to a mummy, from fine furniture to the curious and the macabre, all under one roof.

Among the most celebrated pieces is the collection of American art glass, including works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose lamps and windows glow with color. The museum also holds a remarkable array of mechanical music machines, from music boxes to a self-playing orchestra, and regular demonstrations bring these Gilded Age marvels back to life for visitors.

The old grand pool, once the largest indoor swimming pool in the world, is now drained and repurposed, with a cafe on its former floor and galleries around its edges, so guests can dine in a space where Gilded Age bathers once swam. Wandering the building, you feel the double pleasure of the architecture and the treasures it holds.

St. Augustine, founded by the Spanish in 1565, is the oldest continuously occupied European-founded city in the United States, and the Lightner sits at its heart. Step outside and you are within an easy walk of the coquina-stone fort, the narrow colonial streets, and centuries of layered history, from Spanish and British colonial rule to the Gilded Age resort boom that gave the museum its home.

This concentration of history makes the Lightner an ideal part of a wider day in the old city. Many visitors pair it with the fort, the historic district, and the other Flagler-era landmarks nearby, moving easily on foot through one of the most storied small cities in America.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.