In 1887, Henry Flager, the co-founder of Standard Oil and railroad tycoon, built his second posh accommodation for rich northern snowbirds in St. Augustine called the Alcazar Hotel. This elegant Spanish Renaissance structure delighted its guests with the world’s largest swimming pool until it closed in 1932. Fourteen years later it was purchased by Otto C. Lightner, a newspaperman from Chicago, for his collection of Victorian art, furniture, costumes, musical instruments and glassware. He gifted it all to the city in 1948 when it became the Lightner Museum.
