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Thumbnail sketch of the Winter Club - Oakes Mansion (WD) 1983Wra*KIDAY Thumbnail sketch of the Winter Club- '0 Oakes Mansion R History makes interesting reading The history of Winter Club has been traced back to April 30, 18839 when J.A. Anders and S.B. Bell purchased Government lots 2, 3 and 4 from the United States of America. In early 1925 Harry S. Kelsey, developer of Kelsey City, purchased the land. Kelsey City included what is now known as Lake Park, North Palm Beach, and a good part of Palm Beach Gardens. But it really all started in 1919, when Ha Kelseyvisited to recuperate from pneumonia." He �' visited Palm Beach p arrived on New Years Day; 3 days later, on January 3rd, he met Harry Greene, a real estate broke that same day bought 44,000 acres of land. r, and In addition to the land under L.P. , N.P.B. and P.B.G. , Kelsey now owned 14 miles of oceanfront, from Miami to Jupiter. This included what is now Bolden Beach, part of Pompano Beach, the NPB waterfront section, and the Seminole Golf Club property. Whereas other developments, such as George Merrick's Coral Gables, Joseph Young's Hollywood -By -The -Sea, and D.P. Davis' Islands in #Tampa Bay, were all geared to the rich and the retired, Kelsey had a different. vision. He hired the Olmstead Brothers, from Boston, to lay out the town, it was to be ,a city for people who worked i Kelsey built the country club and golf course and called it the Palm Beach Winter Club. It was intended to be used by the people who bought his houses in his city. g Kelsey City, incidentally, was the first zoned community in Florida. Interestingly enough, what we today imagine g y gine as the front of the house is actually the back: Remember, U.S. 1 did not exist in 1925. Winter Club was reached via a dirt road that wound east from Prosperity Farms Road. And the front of the mansion faced the golf course and approach from ProsperityFarms. The lake i g the n the back of the house, which extended all the way to Miami and at least as far North as Jupiter, was Lake Worth or the Intracoastal Waterway. The water carne uhe where U.S. 1 now runs. visitors to Winter Club often cam tied up right behind the mansion. a by boatt t and The Club opened for business in November, 1926, and the grand opening celebration started January 5, 1927. It must have been quite a party, it lasted for 3 full days, and 3 boatloads of smuggled liquor were used. Attending the party were the wealthy and elite from Miami and Palm Beach, in addition to European nobility. The Palm Beach winter society partygoers included the Phipps, the Harrimans, the Woolworths and the Basches. Unfortunately, Harry Kelsey ran into a few financial problems toward the end of the 1920's. Land values started fallinggin the end of 1926; the hurricane of 1926 didn't help the situation; then tiie monstro of 1928 destroyed most eve in in its us hurricane Ci • the stock an g path, includin much of Kelsey City; market crashed in 1929• man g • arsons who bought 1 1925 on an installment plan were unable tokamak g and an payments; and the IRS started a ion � or keep u� with the g investigation into Kelsey s financial empire. The IRS never proved that Kelsey did one thing improperly, but Simply being under investigation dampened his activities because he could not borrow money. Kelsey lost approximately $8 million during these troubled years. A= tow 14 �965� Ace. 19Y3/96P' In 1923 the. Winter Club was purchased by Harry Oakes. Around the turn of the century, Oakes left the United States, in search of old in Canada. In 1910 he made his first important old strike at Kirkland La Eleven years later he was considered one of the Lake. the richest ' Oakes found it expedient to renounce his men maths world. became a Canadian citizen. American nationality, and he tizen. He contributed $ /4 million to the Conservative campaign in Canada, expecting to be appointed a Senator. But his party lost the election, and Oakes decided to leave Canada. He paid a visit to Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife and 5 children. While in Palm Beach, attorney Walter Foskett introduced Harry Oakes to Harry Kelsey. Foskett encouraged Oakes to use his Canadian funds to furchase unpaid tax certificates from the State of Florida. Oakes ollowedthe' suggestion, and a great deal, perhaps as much as 80%, of the Kelsey City area, including the Palm Beach Winter Club the possession of Harry Oakes, doingbusiness under the came into Tesdem Inc. e name of Oakes built a two-story, 27' x 44' addition to the southwest corner of the mansion, plus a couple old smaller room additions. He lived in the Club off and on during the middle '30s,, and did a number on the place. The additions sort of fit in, but ultimately destroyed the architectural integrity of the original house, designed by architect Louis De Puyseger of Paris, France. Oakes then destroyed some of the greens and fairways so his children could ride their horses close by the house. y Oakes then met a real estate promoter from Nassau named .Harold Christie. Christie convinced Oakes to renounce his Canadian citizenship and move to the Bahamas. Oakes complied, since the Bahamas had no income tax or inheritance taxes. So Oakes moved into a 20 -room mansion on the edge of the Bahamas Country Club and, in a short time, owned about a third of the island of New Providence. He wanted to have a titles he wanted the prestige of being somebody besides just rich. Se he made the arrangements to buy a title, and contributed $1/2 million to St. George's Hospital in London. As arranged, King George VI knighted him is 1939, and plain Harry Oakes became Sir Harry Oakes. In any case, the Palm Beach Winter Club, after Oakes was murdered in the Bahamas in 1943, passed through the hands of industrialist Ralph Stolkin and insurance magnate John D. MacArthur. In 1955 the Ross Brothers bought if from MacArthur and continued to operate it as a country club. In January, 1%1, the Village government of North Palm Beach was advised of the owners intentionto, sell the Country Club. The Village was offered first refusal to purchase the site. Charles Graves was hired to prepare a feasibility study and he strongly recommended that the Village purchase the North Palm Beach Country Club. At that time Graves recommended retention of the Winter Club and suggested it be used for group meetings, ceramics, arts and crafts classes, gymnastics, . Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, etc. Until recently, this is exactly what the Palm Beach Winter Club has been used for. Next week we shall continue with the various attempts made to obtain State and Federal money for the complete renovation and restoration of this national monument of historic importance, the Palm Beach Winter Club. It is our intention to present the entire picture so the public is fully aware of the facts in the case, prior to the NPB Village Council meeting in July to determine the fate or the future of the building.