Florida Impressions

On the way to Palm Beach it seemed to me that Florida is a place full of walls, hiding secluded enclaves.
And those walls are green.. covered with green leaves, not ivy though, just lush green vines of a sort.

The other thing that stood out... almost all buildings seemed to ape Italian palazzi or Italianate villas in design lurking behind rows of Royal Palm Trees, and Jacarandas, and Hibiscus, and other hedges insuring precious privacy.
Florida, a veritable microcosmos of USA and Canada, for that matter.
Every conceivable license plate from states in the frozen North is present..
Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Maryland,  Rhode Island, Utah, Washington,  Connecticut....where WERE the Dakotas and Maine, though?
Quebec.. oui from Quebec, and other Canadian regions. 
Kinda made me wonder who in the heck is left up there to freeze?

Here and there a lonely Missouri, North Craolina or South Carolina, and, yes, even ONE Texas plate was espied meandering around this Deluxe area of Florida.
I say meandering.. more like driving like bats out of hell, these Northeners ..LOL!

A veritable River Oaks of Mansions on 'private drives-keep out'!  Naturally.
And yachts massed on Lake Worth.. better call them ships.. that big!
Our former motor sailer 'Brigadoon', would have been a very poor relation amongst them.

So we visited the Flagler Mansion.
A White House on Lake Worth, gilded, mahagonied, silkily wallpapered, even the loos.
And the 'servants' rooms seemed deluxe..taken in context to those times.
And there were bathrooms with flush toilets (the pulley kind).
Laundry rooms, closet rooms.
Ballrooms (the small one on first floor), the BIG one on third-so we were told-3.rd floor off limits to plebeian visitors..LOL.
Morning room, billard room, library, veranda rooms. 
Inner courtyard with statuary and kumquats.
Bedrooms galore, all properly named.
A breakfast room, a big dining room, a parlor and ...and.
A Music room with a real organ whose pipes visible.
Stucko putti on coffered ceilings, gilded naturally.
Car Nr 91, which Flaglers used to travel South from the cold North or anywhere else he could couple it onto any train, was there.
AND to top it all off, we had 'luncheon' in style suitable to that GILDED AGE, as Mark Twain baptized these years of robber - and other barons whose in comprehensible wealth still is, almost, unmatched by our modern billionaires!
Photos will follow.