Munyon’s Island was once home to Hotel Hygeia
Near North Palm Beach stands the little-known and mostly untouched Munyon’s Island.
Originally 15 acres, it was used in the 1930s and 1960s to dump fill from the dredging of the waterway, tripling its size to 45 acres.
From 1992 to 1997, Palm Beach County restored 20 acres of wetlands. As an environmentally sensitive tract, operated by the state park, visits to it are restricted, and it’s open only by day. Once, rising above the island was the glamorous Hotel Hygeia. Alas, its glory was fleeting. Here’s a 1990 look back by our friend and former colleague, Norv Roggen, who died in 2001:
No doubt Dr. James Munyon was heartbroken when his Hotel Hygeia on Big Munyon’s Island burned down in 1917. But he would be pleased to know the 21-room structure won’t be forgotten.
The five-story hotel was a popular overnight stop for boat-traveling tourists in the early 1900s. It was also the distribution point for Munyon’s Paw-Paw tonic, a mixture of sulphur water and papaya juice that sold for $1 a bottle as a cure for dozens of ailments.
But one night in 1917, tragedy struck Munyon’s utopia.
The hotel, named after the Greek goddess of health, burned to the ground.
Disappointed, Munyon sold the island to New York restaurateur Harry Kelsey, developer of Kelsey City, now Lake Park.
Later, sand was dredged from the Intracoastal Waterway and dumped there, burying the hotel’s remnants and foundation.
The North Palm Beach Village Council’s persistence had prevented the building of high-rises that would have obliterated the Munyon hotel site. Billionaire John D. MacArthur acquired the property from Kelsey in 1955 and planned to build a bridge to the island and develop it. The village objected, and after a lengthy court battle, MacArthur gave up when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. After MacArthur’s death in 1975, the state acquired the island.
Hygeia Hotel on Munyon’s Island burned down in 1917 and was not replaced. The island later was acquired by the late John D. MacArthur, who planned to build a bridge to the island and develop it. But the North Palm Beach Village Council resisted. (Palm Beach Post file photo)
For more information:
John D. MacArthur Beach State Park: (561) 624-6950.
Historical Society of Palm Beach County: (561) 832-4164.
Tucked Between the Pages of Time: A History of Lake Park and Environs, compiled by Dorothy Borden Gooding
Tags: hotels, Munyon's Island
Hi Eliot, It’s me again.
“Disappointed, Munyon sold the island to New York restaurateur Harry Kelsey, developer of Kelsey City, now Lake Park.”
I don’t think so. Dr Munyon died 3-10-1918 eating at a Palm Beach Hotel. Harry Kelsey first arrived Jan 1, 1919. I would like to know who Harry Kelsey actually bought the Munyon Island from. The son maybe? L J Parker Lake Park Historical Society
Larry,
Kelsey bought the island from the executor of the Munyon estate on 1 Jan, 1925, recorded in PB County Plat Book 236/529. (“Munyon’s Island Old and New “, edited by Ann Mathews. John D. Macarthur Beach State Park, March, 1999, p.7)
Kelsey first offered to buy it in 1919 from the estate. Kelsey applied to Army Corps of Engineers in 1925 for permit to build a bridge from the mainland to the island. His plans for a hotel on the island and the proposed bridge never materalized. (“A Phase I Archeaological and Historical Assessment of Munyon Island ….” AHC Technical Report # 87, Feb. 1994, p.30.) Copies of both at NPB Library. Joyce