PBSCV1599
Gen. James Patton Anderson Camp 1599
Celebrating 34 Years 1992 - 2026
1st PALM BEACH HOTEL
Located on the site of the Biltmore Condominiums
The Palm Beach Post
Sat, Feb 10, 1917
Page 6
Next To The Largest Hotel In The World
“Two Famous Palm Beach Rides”
“ Garden of Eden” trip and “Down the Jungle”
Everyone takes these 4 mile rides once; they take them many times. The logical starting point is, of course, “ Palm Beach Hotel” -- just a few steps to the north of the ferry landing -- saves the long ride across the bridge. Bikes for these trips also can be rented -- avoid the inevitable and annoying solicitation of chairs blocking the narrow path. Start each trip from our ”Chair Starter Stand” on our dock at hotel entrance, where you will avoid the trouble over rates and have correct time kept. Make the trip with our native boys who know the places of interest. Souvenir cards of points of interest can be had at our “starter” gratis, and special rates made for special trips.
You are welcome to our restful Palm Room porches overlooking the beautiful sunsets, where you should enjoy an orangeade or luncheon on our open-air dining porches after your chair or boat trip.
Outdoor school for children daily in the Palmetto Grove. Dancing in the Palm Room Grill from 10:00 to midnight. Mrs. Kibbe has instruction class in dancing in Palm Room on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:00 PM. Better join the class.
Excursion boat trip to places of interest on lake, starts from our Palm Beach Hotel dock only at 2:15 PM. Don’t miss this beautiful trip.
“Palm Beach Hotel” has the best land sub-division here, where lots overlooking the water are for sale. Inquire of H. C. Bartholomew, Agent, at Palm Beach Hotel or in West Palm Beach, inquire at Maddock building. Opening of new broad Street north of town will start a rapid rise in values in our north addition to West Palm Beach.
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At the turn of the century, Henry Maddock purchased a piece of land with a small building on the shores of Lake Worth. It was located where we find the Biltmore Condominium today. Henry gave the land to his son Sidney, who in turn, enlarged and improved the building. In 1902, Sidney Maddock opened the first Palm Beach Hotel under his management and care. The Palm Beach Hotel would prosper for more than two decades. Located next door to Henry Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel, the Palm Beach Hotel afforded Palm Beach winter vacationers 400 additional rooms. Even in those days, this must have been welcome news
Palm Beach visitors, whose seasonal visits were much longer in those days, depended on hotel-provided entertainment. Those staying at the Palm Beach Hotel were not disappointed. Outdoor dances and concerts in the orange and coconut groves were daily affairs. Golf courses, tennis courts, and hotel beaches on both Lake Worth and the Atlantic were but steps from the hotel doors. Afromobiles, the wicker wheelchairs peddled by young hotel employees, took guests on tours around Palm Beach, across Lake Worth to West Palm Beach, down to Miami on rock roads, smooth as glass in time for lunch and shopping.
Palm Beach Hotel guests enjoyed vaudeville concerts, card games, casino gambling, deep sea fishing and a host of other leisure activities. By March 17, 1925, the Palm Beach Hotel was at the peak of its season. Sidney Maddock had found a highly successful and personally satisfying occupation as its sole proprietor and manager. On March 18, 1925, embers from the burning Breakers alighted on the roof of the Palm Beach Hotel. Firefighters battled the blaze to no avail -- the Palm Beach Hotel was destroyed.
Sidney Maddock sent these words to his beloved wife, Lucy Lacoste Maddock, the day after his hotel burned to the ground.
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"Lulu Dear –
Well, the Breakers Hotel caught fire and then the Palm Beach Hotel caught from sparks that fell on the roof and no one got hurt at our hotel but the dear old Palm Beach Hotel is a total loss, burned to the ground, also the Breakers. I was there at the time and held the hose like the rest but it blazed in seven places at once way up on the roof. It’s history now. Too bad. it was a pleasure for many a person but no more. They say everything happens for the best, but it seems hard luck that we should have to go from sparks from the other fire when we were always so careful."
Sydney Maddock left Palm Beach following the fire. never to return.
The Palm Beach Post
Sun, Apr 12, 1981
Page 212
Not every young man on America’s East Coast followed Horace Greeley’s advice to seek adventure and fortune in the West during the latter part of the 1800s. Some stayed exactly where his words found them and others, like Henry Maddock, traveled south to the pioneer settlement at Palm Beach. Henry and Jennie Elizabeth Maddock brought their teenage son, Sidney, on his first trip to Palm Beach in 1890. In 1891, the family returned to Palm Beach. Henry Maddock was soon busily involved in establishing his family in their estate ”Duck’s Nest,” a prefabricated structure delivered from New York to Palm Beach that same year..
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Sidney Maddock was actively involved in establishing himself in the Palm Beach business community. His first venture was to become a partner in a newly established pineapple plantation -- Maddock and Matham -- located just four miles from Palm Beach. it was not long before Sidney Maddock determined that pineapples did not provide the investment security he desired. He turned his time and talents to a second business venture.
THE AFTERMATH
The Palm Beach Hotel Fire
As The Breakers burned for the second time in 1925, Palm Beach resident Stafford Beach watched from the ocean pier as embers floated up through the air, across the island, and landed on the 400-room Palm Beach Hotel. Its 160 guests, who had been watching The Breakersfire, barely reached their own rooms in time to save small articles; the frame building burned down completely.
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The hotel’s owner, Sidney Maddock, lamented: “The dear old Palm Beach Hotel is a total loss. … I was there at the time and held the hose like the rest but it blazed in seven places at once way up on the roof. It’s history now.”
His parents, Henry and Jeanie Elizabeth Smith Maddock, of Staffordshire, England, had made their home at Duck’s Nest on North Lake Way in 1891, which is still owned by their family. Sidney Maddock had married Lucy Lacoste and in 1902 built the Palm Beach Hotel on Lake Worth. After it burned down, Maddock left Palm Beach and never returned. His son, Paul Lacoste Maddock, moved to Palm Beach in 1939 and married Ruth Marian Quigley Moffett, a descendant of Charles Carroll, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence.
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​On the site of the Palm Beach Hotel, Maurice Heckscher built the $7 million Alba Hotel. Named for his polo-playing friend the Spanish Duke of Alba, the 12-story hotel opened in February 1926 with 550 rooms. The first party for 1,000 was hosted by Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury, Mrs. Paris Singer, and other notable socialites. By May, the hotel was bankrupt, although it reopened the following year. By 1929, it became part of the Ambassador Hotel chain. The next owner, Colonel Henry Doherty, changed the name to the Biltmore in 1934.
Palm Beach, FL Fire Destroys Two Hotels, Mar 1925
Submitted by Stu Beitler
$4,000,000 FIRE HITS PALM BEACH.
TWO BIG HOTELS ARE REDUCED TO PILES OF ASHES.
By Associated Press.
Palm Beach, Fla., March 18 -- Fire which for a time threatened to wipe out an entire section of this famous winter pleasure resort, was brought under control Wednesday night after two big hotels, the Breakers and Palm Beach, had been reduced to piles of glowing ashes. Property damage was estimated in excess of $4,000,000.
Rumors that guests had perished in the Breakers and the Palm Beach hotels were current as the flames hurled blazing embers into the air and even across Lake Worth to West Palm Beach, but none had been confirmed late Wednesday night.
An elderly man and woman were reported burned to death in the Breakers, and two small children and their nurse were said to be missing from the same hotel. Parents of the children were searching frantically Wednesday night in the ruins, but neither would give their names.
Martial law in Palm Beach with troops guarding bridges between Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, followed the seizure by police of two motor trucks and several automobiles filled with goods stolen during the fire. Eight negroes and one white man were arrested.
Fire fighting forces from Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Lake WOrth fought the flames and other firemen were on the way when the upper hand was gained by the men on the scene.
In addition to the two hotels the Poinclan barracks and a number of shops were burned. Bradley's Club, long noted as a playground for the rich, was saved, although for a time it was thought certain that this widely known resort would fall a victim of the flames.
No definite loss of life had been confirmed pending a check of the guests.
The fire started in an upper floor of the south wing of the Breakers Hotel, which had nearly 900 rooms and provided accommodations for nearly 2,000 persons. The cause was variously reported as a carelessly handled cigarette, a plumber's torch and a woman guest using an electrical appliance.
Flames broke through the roof and smoke almost immediately spread throughout the hotel. Guests hurriedly left the burning structure, many not waiting to save their personal belongings and loss of valuables of persons residing in the hotel is expected to be great.
When the Palm Beach Hotel, a 250 room structure, began to burn, the fire forces were divided. It became apparent at once, however, that the building was doomed and those assigned to this part of the battle concentrated successfully on saving adjacent buildings. Meanwhile, four cottages which were part of the Breakers property had been destroyed and the roof of the Royal Poinciana stated smouldering. The fire there, however, was stopped before it gained any headway.
The confusion and wildly flickering flames continued far into the night and no reasonably accurate survey of the loss was possible.
San Antonio Express Texas 1925-03-19