Twelve years after Flagler's death, The Breakers caught fire again on March 18, 1925, attributed to an electric
curling iron that had been left on in a room occupied by the wife of
Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson. The hotel had more than 400 guests at the time, including
Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, actress
Billie Burke, and
General Foods owner
Marjorie Merriweather Post, People staying at the hotel tossed their expensive possessions out the window, but most of these items were stolen or lost. Approximately 10,000 spectators watched the flames burn buildings in Palm Beach. Although the fire departments of
Fort Lauderdale,
Fort Pierce,
Lake Worth, Additionally, embers blowing across the island ignited fires at many other buildings, destroying
Edward R. Bradley's beach club, Damage totals from the fire ranged from $2.5 million to as much as $7 million. On March 22, four days after the fire, Florida East Coast Hotel vice president H. E. Bemis announced the company's intentions of rebuilding The Breakers, with plans to abandon the wooden construction for
fireproof concrete. The architectural firm hired by the Flagler heirs,
Schultze and Weaver, modeled the 550-room replacement building after the
Villa Medici in
Rome, Italy. The firm worked with New York-based
Turner Construction Company, hired on December 4, The former lost most of its roof, windows, and the pier, Additionally,
The Miami News reported of standing water inside the building and sand being deposited as high as the third floor. However, The Breakers opened for business on December 10, earlier than the previous winter season by several days. During the summer of 1942, Florida East Coast Hotel company officials considered keeping The Breakers closed for the upcoming season due to
blackout orders in response to
World War II, before announcing that the hotel would open on December 24. However, on December 11,
United States District Judge John W. Holland issued an order granting possession of The Breakers to the
United States Army, who planned to use the building as a temporary hospital facility. The order also included The Breakers' pools and casino, but excluded the cottages and golf course. On November 8, 1943, the U.S. Army named the facility the
Ream General Hospital as a tribute to
Major William R. Ream, a
flight surgeon who died during
World War I as a result of a plane crash. The U.S. Army transformed the ballroom into a recreation hall, the Coconut Grove room into a dental clinic, the south
loggia into an officers' lounge, and the
mezzanine section into operating rooms, while also creating a maternity ward, where more than a dozen babies were born. Thereafter, Palm Beach architect and engineer John Volk and two Miami firms quickly restored The Breakers, ==Subsequent years==