 The architectural firm hired by the Flagler heirs, Schultze and Weaver, modeled its 550-room replacement after the Villa Medici in Rome, this time working with New York-based Turner Construction Company and a local well-known Palm Beach contractor, Eugene Hammond, who built the first theater in West Palm Beach and worked on the Palm Beach estate built for Rodman Wanamaker by Addison Mizner (that would become a Kennedy winter retreat in 1933).The contractors decided to abandon the wooden construction for fireproof concrete.Built by 1,200 construction workers, the hotel reopened on December 29, 1926, to considerable acclaim.