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Florida home

Henry Morrison Flagler, one of the co-founders of Standard Oil along with Rockefeller, bought the Ormond Hotel in 1890, located in Ormond Beach, Florida, two years after it opened. Flagler expanded it to accommodate 600 guests and the hotel soon became one in a series of Gilded Age hotels catering to passengers aboard Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. One of Flagler's guests at the Ormond Hotel was his former business partner John D. Rockefeller, who first stayed at the hotel in 1914.

Rockefeller liked the Ormond Beach area so much that after four seasons at the hotel, he bought an estate in Ormond Beach called The Casements in 1918. Rockefeller was seventy-eight years old when he moved into the Casements. He became known in the area for his elaborate Christmas parties, his love of golf, and for handing out dimes to his neighbors or visitors. During a golf game with Harvey Firestone, the tire magnate made such a good shot that Rockefeller decided he deserved a dime and handed one to his somewhat embarrassed guest.

In 1923, Rockefeller was interviewed by early 20th century American woman writer and a member of the Newspaper Enterprise Association staff, Josephine Van De Grift. Nationwide newspapers sent Van De Grift to spend a week with Rockefeller candidly asking humble questions, taking strolls together, asking about golf, church, and day-to-day life, while staying across the street from him at the Ormond Hotel. She later recounts how readers were only interested in his pocketbook and not about his thoughts on golf or religion. The Casements would be Rockefeller's winter home during the latter part of his life.

Sold by his heirs in 1939, it was purchased by the city in 1974 and now serves as a cultural center and is the community's best-known historical structure.