Qualla: The Breakers Palm Beach https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Breakers Palm Beach https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel The Breakers Palm Beach: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Guests kept asking for rooms "over by the breakers." It was 1901, and the oceanfront hotel that Henry Flagler had built just five years earlier on his Palm Beach barrier island still carried the modest name Palm Beach Inn. But the Atlantic surf crashing against the shore had given the place its real identity, and Flagler relented. The renamed Breakers became the first oceanfront hotel south of Daytona Beach, a destination for the industrial fortunes of the Gilded Age. What stands on that site today is the third building to carry the name -- the first two were consumed by fire -- and its Italian Renaissance facade, modeled after the Villa Medici in Rome, has anchored Palm Beach society for a century.

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Breakers Palm Beach: Flagler's Gamble on the Shore https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Henry Flagler was already reshaping Florida when he decided Palm Beach needed a second hotel. His Royal Poinciana Hotel, perched along the Lake Worth Lagoon, was thriving, and his Florida East Coast Railway was delivering northern tourists by the trainload. In 1895, he broke grou...

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-flaglers-gamble-on-the-shore.mp3 0:06 2 full The Breakers Palm Beach: Twice Burned, Three Times Built https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The second Breakers opened on February 1, 1904 -- a four-story Colonial-style building with 425 rooms where a night's stay cost $4 and included three meals. The guest registers read like a roll call of American industry: Andrew Carnegie, William Randolph Hearst, J. P. Morgan, J. ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-twice-burned-three-times-built.mp3 0:06 3 full The Breakers Palm Beach: A Roman Villa on the Atlantic https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Leonard J. DeFrancisci, CC BY-SA 3.0. Four days after the 1925 fire, the Flagler heirs announced they would rebuild in fireproof concrete -- no more wooden structures. They hired the architectural firm Schultze and Weaver, designers of New York's Waldorf-Astoria, who modeled the replacement after the Villa Medici in ...

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Image: Leonard J. DeFrancisci | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-a-roman-villa-on-the-atlantic.mp3 0:06 4 full The Breakers Palm Beach: When the Ballroom Became a Hospital https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. In December 1942, a federal judge granted possession of The Breakers to the United States Army for use as a military hospital. The transformation was total: the grand ballroom became a recreation hall, the Coconut Grove room a dental clinic, the south loggia an officers' lounge, ...

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Image: Ebyabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-when-the-ballroom-became-a-hospital.mp3 0:06 5 full The Breakers Palm Beach: 140 Acres of Permanence https://qualla.com/the-breakers-hotel/ Photo credit Rich Andrews, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today The Breakers occupies 140 acres beside the Atlantic Ocean, employing over 2,300 people. It has held a AAA Five Diamond rating since 1996 and was ranked seventh on the American Institute of Architects' Florida Chapter list of the state's most important buildings across 100 y...

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Image: Rich Andrews | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/h/x/p/the-breakers-hotel-wp/dhxp-the-breakers-palm-beach-140-acres-of-permanence.mp3 0:06 6 full