Tiffany's Studio
Tiffany's Studio is a spacious one-room suite with a
regal, yet inviting feel. You have it all with your
two-person Jacuzzi, comfortable sitting area, table and
chairs for two, private bath with slate tile shower, step-up
queen size bed, cable TV.
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Louis Comfort Tiffany –
American Artist and Designer
As light filters through the famous stained-glass
windows each day in Flagler College’s dining room,
one is reminded of the Flagler era grandeur and
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s influence on American
decorative style. Amidst the period furnishings
originally adorning the 1880’s Ponce de Leon Hotel,
it’s obvious that Henry Flagler missed no details in
building his empire. He commissioned Louis Tiffany,
of New York, to design the stained glass windows in
his palatial grand dinning room.
The American artist most associated with the Art
Nouveau and Aesthetic movements, Louis Tiffany was
born in 1848, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany
(founder of Tiffany and Company). Studying under
noted artists in Paris and New York, he became
interested in glassmaking before he was 30 and
formed his company, Louis Comfort Tiffany and
Associated American Artists. His business thrived
through his immeasurable talents and leadership, as
well as by his father’s connections and money. By
1885, the first Tiffany Glass Company was begun…and
the signature opalescent glasses in a variety of
colors and textures became his unique style of
stained glass.
An old French word for handmade, Favrile, was his
trademark, using this word to apply all of his
glass, enamel, and pottery. So much of his company’s
production was in making stained glass windows and
Tiffany lamps. At its peak, his company employed
more than 300 international artisans to design a
complete range of interior decorations. The Tiffany
Studios remained in business until 1932; today his
most comprehensive collection of jewelry, paintings,
art glass, leaded-glass windows and lamps are in the
Charles Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park, Florida
and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Etched into the inlaid floor of the Ponce de Leon
Hotel, which is still there today in the College for
all to enjoy, are the words to a verse written two
centuries ago at the Red Lion Inn in
Henley-on-the-Thames, England. One can climb a
majestic broad staircase to the dining room and
find:
Whoe’er has traveled life’s dull round,
Where’er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an Inn.
We dedicate our Tiffany Studio to Louis C.
Tiffany’s contributions to the Art Nouveau movement. |
