The Everglades Club is the preeminent social club in Palm Beach, Florida. When its construction began in July 1918 it was to be called the Touchstone Convalescent Club and was intended to be a hospital for the wounded of World War I. But the war ended a few months later and it changed into a private club before it was able to open as a hospital.
History
Paris Singer (1867-1932) was an immensely wealthy man in the early 20th century. Singer's father, Isaac Singer (1811-1875), had invented the sewing machine and Paris Singer had an income of one million dollars a year at this time.
Paris Singer and his friend, the developer Addison Mizner (1872-1933), were visiting Palm Beach in the spring of 1918. Singer decided to build a hospital with Mizner as the architect. Singer had already built three hospitals in France for the wounded. It was during World War I when only war related buildings could be built. Construction began in July. Singer purchased laboratory and surgical equipment.
However, as World War I ended, the hospital was reinvisioned as a private club. There was a main building, eight separate villas, tennis courts, a parking garage across the street, and a yacht basin. The club opened on 25 January 1919. Paris Singer was the President of the club and he decided who could become a member. For its second season in 1920, Mizner supervised the construction of a nine-hole golf course and the landscaping of the club's 60 acres. He also built an addition to the club on Worth Avenue with eleven apartments and sixteen shops.
Mizner's design for the Everglades Club helped establish a new architectural style for Florida. In the club's first season Mizner received four architectural commissions. He went on to become America's foremost society architect of his era.
Singer began his club with twenty-five charter members. The club was an immediate success. Two years later the membership was closed at 500 members. Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb (1860â€"1936) was one of its earliest female members.
Today
An additional nine holes were added to the golf course in 1930. Today, the club does not have a website. Cellphones are prohibited on the property. When Ian Brown approached the club in 2016, an employee dressed "straight out of Dickens" intercepted him and, when asked, denied that it was the Everglades Club. Brown stated:
And bingo, right there, you have the ultimate Palm Beach response, the ideal mélange of politeness and refusal, of manners and condescension, of give but give no more, whose implication is the town’s unofficial motto: If you have to ask, you don’t belong here.
References
- Notes
- Bibliography
External links
- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. FL-226, "Everglades Club, Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, FL", 20 photos, 1 color transparency, 13 data pages, 3 photo caption pages, supplemental material
