Hypoluxo’s Autorama celebrated star’s cars

A half-century has passed since the October day in 1961 that the Autorama closed its doors for good.

The place — now the Hypoluxo Yacht Club on U.S. 1, a half-mile south of Hypoluxo Road — was an early tourist attraction in a much more provincial Palm Beach County.

And it’s a story, which we’ll tell in three parts, of Henry Flagler, casinos, Hollywood, religion — and, of course, cars.

In 1937, the Willis Reinharts of Palm Beach built a place in little Hypoluxo, near Lantana.

Palm Beach’s first hotel, Flagler’s 1894 Royal Poinciana, had closed the previous year. The Reinharts bought — and brought down the 10 miles by barge — some steps, balustrades and railings from the hotel. And a small tea house. They also brought down the hotel’s iconic colonnades.

The James Melton Autorama in Hypoluxo in December 1953. (Photo courtesy of the Florida Photographic Collection)

Later, in 1946, the building opened as the exclusive Lake Shore Club gambling house. That former tea house became the exclusive casino’s Gold Key Club.

As with E.R. Bradley’s Beach Club in Palm Beach, the Lake Shore was the worst-kept secret in town. It operated openly for three years before a federal crackdown on gambling shut it down.

Enter James Melton, “America’s Favorite Tenor.” Tall and dashing, his biography in Autorama pamphlets describes “his fastidious good taste and his remarkable showmanship.”

Born in 1904 in Moultrie, Ga., he got the music bug at the University of Florida and became a popular singer, appearing in movies and TV and the New York Metropolitan opera.

In the early 1950s, he hosted the Ford Festival, a music variety show in TV’s infancy.

He even has a link to the Indianapolis 500. In 1946, he began the tradition of singing Back Home Again in Indiana.

His ties to Ford and the Indy 500 were more than coincidence. He loved cars and is said to have collected more than 100.

He eventually decided his Connecticut car museum, opened in 1948 in a former bowling alley, was too crowded and, well, pedestrian. He decided to move it south, near his winter residence.

Famed tenor and car collector James Melton with a model for his planned Autorama car museum in Hypoluxo. (Photo Courtesy of the Melton Family)

Melton and 18 investors bought the 13-acre former casino site in Hypoluxo. The cars came down on U.S. 1 in a motorcade, and Autorama opened in April 1953. It was called “The Million Dollar Museum of Motor Memories.”

Next week: SPELLBOUND

Courtesy of the Melton family

Tags: automobiles, museums