8 Minerva Chapel

[8] Minerva Chapel

Only a handful of buildings from the 1800’s still stand in Palm Beach County. The Minerva Chapel is one of them – and it led seven lives.

An unusual building with ornate columns and cornices, it began as a tea house at Henry Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel when it opened in

1894, the year Flagler’s railroad arrived.

The disastrous 1928 Hurricane destroyed the hotel, so the tea house was floated 10 miles south to Hypoluxo to serve at the Willis Reinhardt estate as a guest house.

Next it became the exclusive Gold Key Club, part of the Lake Shore Club gambling casino. Only people who could afford substantial losses had a gold key. In the 1950s, it was used as an artist’s studio, caretaker’s cottage, and ended up as a gift shop at the Melton Autorama.

It moved yet again when James Brown bought it and sent it a short distance to his trailer park, where the Yacht Club is today. Brown turned it into a spiritual sanctuary. He installed a carved wooden altar, stained glass windows, added an exterior stone railing, and named it Minerva Chapel, after his mother’s first name.

Today the Minerva Chapel, relocated once more, is Holy Spirit Church on Drew Way in Palm Springs -- an Old Tradition Anglican Church. Its

66-seat capacity serves an active congregation.