THREE MORE DEGREES OF INTERIOR DECORATION.

Okay, I admit it. One needs a GPS to navigate the beginning of this story, but we'll get there.  It all began in New York Social Diary with an article I wrote about menservants behaving badly in gilded age Bar Harbor.  In the course of the story, some interconnected relationships were revealed.  That led to a second story posted last week in this blog, called 'Six Degrees of Interior Decoration', in which I picked up some threads of those relationships and carried it through several more houses before taking it back to where it began in NYSD.  Here we wrap it up for the moment, with three generations of decoration in the same family.

There are two choices:  One can read the dizzying synopsis in the paragraph below or go back and read the first two stories (Pt. 1 HERE and Pt. 2 HERE), if one hasn't already.  If you have read these stories, and don't need or want a synopsis, simply skip the next paragraph, and venture to the new territory.

Baymeath, the J.T. Bowen house at Bar Harbor

Mrs. J.T. Bowen of Chicago, friend and patroness of Jane Addams, built a summer home, Baymeath, at Bar Harbor in 1896.  She had two butlers who  fought in the butler's pantry.  Snatched each other's wigs off.  Joseph Pulitzer bought a house, Chatwold, at Bar Harbor in 1894.  He had some lazy footmen who smoked cigars when they were supposed to be sweeping the drawing rooms.  Pulitzer's daughter Edith married W.S. Moore, great grandson of Clement Moore.  Their Bar Harbor cottage was Woodlands, which burned in the Bar Harbor fire.  After the fire, Mrs. Moore bought Baymeath, where any problems with her butler are lost to history.  Got that?  Then, in the 'Six Degrees' post, I picked up the threads.  W.S. Moore's brother Benjamin, and his wife, Alexandra Emery, built Chelsea, a lovely and famous house on Long Island, designed by Delano and Aldrich.  Alexandra Moore's mother, Mrs. J.J. Emery, later the Hon. Mrs. Anson,  owned a granite pile at Bar Harbor, called the Turrets, designed by Emily Post's father, Bruce Post, another thread we won't follow.  Her son, J.J. Jr., built another handsome Delano & Aldrich house, Peterloon, in his native Cincinnati.  His wife was the daughter of Charles Dana Gibson, and a first cousin of decorator Nancy Lancaster, but we didn't follow that thread, so forget that.  However, another of his sisters, Audrey, twice married to Russian princes, built  a stylish Regency House in Palm Beach, later owned by Mme Jacques Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough, nee Consuelo Vanderbilt.  Mme. Balsan was a great friend of her first husband's cousin, Winston Churchill, who was a not so great friend of Nancy Lancaster's aunt, Nancy Astor---but we said we weren't going to follow that thread today, so forget I mentioned it.  Mme. Balsan's cousin, Frederica Webb, married Edith Pulitzer Moore's brother Ralph, which almost gets us back to Bar Harbor and Baymeath.  Did you get all that?  I feel like Suzy Knickerbocker on speed. 

Thorncraig was perfectly sited at the summit of Point Lookout

Near Baymeath, on Lookout Point in Hull's Cove, was a cottage called Yule Craig, designed by Rotch & Tilden of Boston for the son of Senator Yulee of Florida. In 1904 The house was purchased by Mrs. Bowen's friend, Jane Addams and Miss Addams's lady friend Mary Rozet Smith.   A half mile path connected Baymeath and Yule Craig, and there was much visiting back and forth, as Mrs. Bowen was one of the chief supporters of Jane Addams's Hull House Settlement in Chicago, and donor of the Bowen Country Club.  Miss Addams once famously said that she could raise more money in a single month in Bar Harbor than all the rest of the year back home in Chicago.

In 1931 Jane Addams died, and though the exact sequence isn't clear, it appears that the house was purchased 1932 by the Harry Hill Thorndikes.  Mrs. Thorndike's sister, Miss Belle Gurnee, owned the property between Yule Craig and Baymeath, a large chalet built in Switzerland and imported to her property on Lookout Point.  Miss Gurnee's uncle Augustus Gurnee was one of Bar Harbor's largest taxpayers a generation earlier.

Thorncraig, Entrance Front.  The house was set slightly into the summit of its little hill--one stepped down from the front door into the house, and the facade had a whimsical quality, with curved entrance hood, turret and curved brackets.

The Thorndikes apparently did not take immediate possession of the cottage, which they renamed Thorncraig, as the next summer found Mrs. Bowen's daughter Helen and her husband William McCormick Blair, in residence for the summer.  The design savvy reader will have a frisson of recognition, for Mrs. Bowen's daughter and son-in-law were the builders of a highly revered house designed for them by David Adler in Lake Bluff, Illinois.  If you don't mind a quick six degrees moment, don't forget that the front door of that house was inspired by one owned by the Blair's great friends, the J. Watson Webbs, he the cousin of Mme. Balsan, and the brother of Edith Moore's sister-in-law, Frederica Webb Pulitzer.  Got that class?  You may be quizzed.

Port of Call, the William McCormick Blair house on Crab Tree farm in Lake Bluff, designed by David Adler

Thorncraig was inherited by the Thorndike's son, Augustus Gurnee Thorndike, and was later purchased by John J. Emery.  Emery was the grandson of the Cinncinati real estate tycoon who had built the Turrets in the 1890s, and his aunt was married to Benjamin Moore, brother-in-law of Mrs. Moore who later owned Baymeath. Thorncraig proved to have notoriously irresolvable plumbing troubles, and was demolished in the early 1980's. The design of Thorncraig was  imaginative and playful, a large shingled cottage designed to appear smaller than it really was, and the roofs and central stair turret exactly echoed the hilltop whose summit it graced.  I always enjoyed seeing Thorncraig ahead on its on its hilltop as I left Bar Harbor, a cheerful little shingled chateau overlooking Frenchman's Bay.

Mrs. Bowen's Hall at Baymeath, Bar Harbor

Mrs. Bowen's daughter Mrs. William McCormick Blair's all at Port of Call, Lake Bluff, with the famous arrangement of Currier & Ives Prints set into the woodwork.

Mrs. William McCormick Blair Junior's stair hall in Washington, decorated by Billy Baldwin (House Beautiful, via Toby Worthington

It is interesting to to track sensibilities as style travels through several generations, as can be seen in these photos of Mrs. Bowen's Hall at Baymeath, the hall, living room, and library of her daughter Helen Blair in the Adler House at Lake Bluff, and the famous hall, drawing room and library decorated by Billy Baldwin in the Washington house of Mrs. Blair's daughter-in-law, Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr..  At Baymeath, we see the early Colonial Revival in play, with touches of Victorian taste still lingering.  In the William McCormick Blair Sr. house, we see the version of Colonial decor made high style, as popularized by Henry Davis Sleeper at Beauport, and adopted by many fashionable people in the 1920's and 30's, with humble objects chosen for their aged charm and soft colors, romantically arranged for modern living.  

Mrs. William McCormick Sr.'s living room at Port of Call, with 18th century paneling from Virginia

Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr's. Washington Drawing Room (Horst, Billy Baldwin Decorates/TW)

And though we don't have a picture of Mrs. Bowen's library at Baymeath, we can see it through the doors beyond the stairs, lined with books and mementos, and engravings and large travel photographs so ubiquitous to the era. Here are the next two generations: 

Mrs. Blair Sr.'s Library at Port of Call.

Mrs. Blair Jr's. library in Washington, by Billy Baldwin (Eric Boman, HB/TW)

 And last but not least, we have Edith Pulitzer Moore's redecoration of Baymeath after she purchased the estate in 1948.

Baymeath, drawing room

Baymeath, Hall (photographs by Elizabeth Mills, courtesy Sargent M. Collier)

There, have I forgotten anything?

Oh yes, thanks, Beth, for the photos of Thorncraig 

TODAY'S QUIZ

How are this unknown lost mid-century building:

and Robert Motherwell,

and Blueberry Pie,

and Quincy Marketplace,

and my local library, all connected?

The answers may all be found by reading my latest pieces for New York Social Diary HERE, and Portland Magazine HERE

Or maybe a few of you know the answers?

Sidekick, you are automatically disqualified.

DECORATORS ADVERTISE

These advertisements for interior decorators date from the 1910's, nascent years of the profession as we know it today.  Some of the names still resonate, others are long forgotten.

Tapestries and Medival ironwork, and faintly ecclesiastical furniture were all popular motif of the era

At the end of the second quarter of the 19th century, Herter Brothers ruled the field.  By 1918, the original partners were dead, it's distinctive style was distinctly out of fashion, and as Herter looms, the firm was attempting to capitalize on the taste of the day.

One easily sees why some have lasted in reputation and others have not.  I leave the reader to form his own opinion

Yet more tapestry, needlepoint chairs, and the rich Georgian atmosphere so beloved by the bankers of the day.  It became almost the official style of the Long Island set of the era, and the Hampton Shops were among the chief purveyors of the goods required for the look.

Mrs. Muchmore, 'Consulting Decorator' of Hollywood and New York.  Too perfect.  One yearns to see examples of her work.  For much more about the wonderfully named Minnie Muchmore after she moved to Hollywood, click HERE

Elsie de Wolfe.  Need I say more?

And last, before there was Eleanor Brown, there was Miss Swift, purveyor of controlled, edited, highly luxe interiors for the elegant and the fashionable.  I'm not social historian enough to know when the four hundred became five hundred but it says so below.  Miss Swift's elegant showroom was an early work by Mott Schmidt (thanks to the ever-surprising Ancient for the head's up)

MONEY USED TO GO FURTHER, # 3: Bar Harbor Property Taxes 1903

In the course of researching a story about the Vanderbilts in Gilded Age Bar Harbor for today's New York Social Diary, I came upon this little tidbit in the July 3rd, 1903 New York Times.  Here in down east Maine, late Winter is when the annual Town Reports are released, and absolutely everyone indulges in the voyeuristic sport of seeing how much their neighbors paid in property taxes in the preceding year.  Apparently it has been ever thus:

Naturally, I found this entertaining, and since I had far more important things to do, I decided to match those long-ago taxpayers to their houses instead.

Tax assessing has always been something of a mystery to this Dilettante, and this list was no exception.  It include several of the grandest estates in Bar Harbor, and left out several others.  Four of the cottages, Vanderbilt, Dorr, Kennedy and Morrell, sat on properties of 20-35 acres, and had many support structures---gatehouses, gardener's cottages, greenhouses, stables and carriage houses.  Most, as is typical in many resorts, sat on smallish lots of 2-4 acres, with perhaps a carriage house or lodge.

Pointe d'Acadie, the main house on the George Vanderbilt estate.

'Islecote House' at 'Pointe d'Acadie', the cottage occupied by Mr. Vanderbilt's niece, Mrs. William Jay Schieffelin, designed by Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, nephew of the poet.

A rights-free image could not be found of 'Whileaway', also designed by Longfellow, the third main cottage at George Vanderbilt's 'Pointe d'Acadie'
Total Tax Bill 1903:  $3,200.

The main house at George B. Dorr's 'Old Farm' off Schooner Head Road, designed by Henry Richards  (click HERE to see the porch at the left today)
Tax Bill in 1903,  $2,390

Augustus C. Gurnee's 'Beaudesert' on Eden St., designed by William Ralph Emerson
Tax Bill in 1903, $1,369

Charles T. How's 'Guy's Cliff', designed by W. Jordan, was next door to Beaudesert on Eden St.
Tax Bill in 1903, $1,263.

George S. Bowdoin's 'La Rochelle' on West St., designed by Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul.  
Tax Bill in 1903, $980.

John Stewart Kennedy's 'Kenarden Lodge' designed by Mrs. Kennedy's nephew Cornelius Baker's firm, Rowe & Baker, on Main St.
1903 Tax Bill, $2,280.

Joseph Pulitzer's 'Chatwold' by designed by Rotch & Tilden, with tower by McKim, Mead & White at right,  on Schooner Head Road.
1903 Tax Bill, $2,198.

John J. Emery's 'The Turrets', designed by Bruce Price, sat on Eden St. next door to 'Guy's Cliff'.  1903 Tax Bill, $1,375.

.

Edgar Scott's 'Chiltern' designed by A.W. Longfellow, on Main St., a few doors down from Kenarden Lodge.
1903 Tax Bill, $2,451.

Edward T. Morrell's 'Thirlstane' formerly the R.B.Scott cottage designed by William Ralph Emerson, sat on the largest property, 35 hilltop acres on Eagle Lake Road.  1903 Tax Bill, $1,046.

Charles Allen Porter may well have been one of Bar Harbor's biggest taxpayers in 1903, but he and his real estate eluded all attempts at identification.

Robert P. Bowler's 'Corfield' on Eden Street, designed by Rotch & Tilden.
1903 Tax Bill, $1175.

 Alexander J. Cassatt's 'Four Acres' designed by Chapman & Frazer, on Eden St., two doors of Corfield, and later the summer home of the E.T. Stotesburys.
1903 Tax Bill, $1175.

J. Montgomery Sears's 'The Briars', designed by William Ralph Emerson, was later the birthplace of Nelson Rockefeller, and still later, summer home of Evalyn Walsh McLean and her unlucky diamond.
1903 Tax Bill,  $1200.

One wonders if the article just selected these few, as there were many other houses in Bar Harbor grander than some on the list, one example being Major George Wheeler's 'Avamaya' on the highest summit in town.

'Avamaya', renamed 'Blair Eyrie' by later owners

Having wasted enough time on this silliness, I continued.  I searched the Bar Harbor assessor's site to find out how the properties were assessed today.  This was not as easy as it sounds, for most of the houses referenced have been demolished or were destroyed in the 1947 Bar Harbor Fire, and the properties are mostly abandoned or subdivided. today.  Hence some, like the Vanderbilt and Morrell estates, were impossible to reconstruct for comparative purposes.

The three surviving properties offered some basis for comparison to their 1903 valuations:

Kenarden Lodge retains its original 26 acre property and outbuildings, and is still residential.  The 40 room main house was torn down in the early 1960s and replaced with a (relatively) smaller house on the same site.  The current tax bill on assessment of 7,177,900 was 67,759.  This tracks about right if one accepts a suggested adjustment factor of around 30 from 1903 to 2011 dollars, and a bargain compared to similar property on Long Island.

Gate House at Kenarden Lodge

'The Turrets' is now owned by the College of the Atlantic. Since 1903 it has lost its large stone and shingle carriage house to the Bar Harbor fire of 1947, and sits on 2.41 acres of land, and the cottage has gross square footage of 28,686 sq. ft. of which 18,825 is  living space. The house, used as an administration building, was slightly enlarged after 1903 by the addition of a third floor to the servant's wing (one can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many servant's bedrooms. Sadly, none of these apply to me).  Valuation in 2011 was 4,851,000.  Measured against Kenarden, with its main house gone, the Turrets, in much shabbier condition and without its significant carriage house, seems to have maintained parity with Kenarden from the 1903 assessments,  

The Turrets as it appears today.

Incidentally, College of the Atlantic is the recipient of the Dilettante's 2010 Bad Preservation Award, for removing the original granite wall, iron fence and magnificent iron gates, the finest in Maine, which were a significant landmark on Eden Street for over 100 years.  The College was a 2008 recipient for a willfully insensitive renovation  of 'Sea Urchins', a highly entertaining and idiosyncratic cottage designed by the seminal firm of Rotch & Tilden, given them by an owner who doubtless expected better. In fairness, The Turrets, abandoned for 25 years after the original owner's death in 1953, would not stand at all if the college had not saved it, and thus the college also has a Lifetime Achievemetn Award for that effort..  Although that does not excuse the removal of the gates.

La Rochelle had the biggest discrepancy between 1903 and 2011 valuations and parity.  I suspect that this is because the cottage was probably still under construction at the time of the article. According to the assessor's report, the house sits on two acres has 41 rooms on four levels with 13,392 square feet of living space.  The current valuation is 5,369,000.  The house was donated by the family of its last private owner, Campbell's Soup heiress Ethel Dorrance Colket, to the Maine Sea Coast Mission as their headquarters.  It is a three time winner of the Dilettante's Bad Preservation Award, for removing elegant French windows on the entrance front, and replacing them with blank panels topped with single panes of glass.  They also built a pre-fab 2-car garage in the service court, removed several hundred feet of iron fencing, and removed two of the sculptural tall chimneys essential to the architectural composition.  Although they did not have enough money to repair the chimneys, or worse, just didn't care, they did find the money to re-landscape the entrance court.  Obviously some well intentioned soul thought it was too formal, and replaced it with a 'natural' composition of boulders and shrubs.  

La Rochelle as it appears today.  The cedar trees replace iron grill fence

Good intentions are often the enemy of good design.  I like naturalized clusters of rocks and shrubs just fine, but not when they replace the carefully integrated design intent of the architects and landscape designer, in this case the great Beatrix Farrand.  Context is everything.  This was not one of those cases in which an interesting aesthetic tension was achieved between formal and informal elements.  Rather, it was just dumb.  On the plus side, the Mission did receive the Dilettante Good Preservation award once, for realizing their mistake with the French windows and putting them back.  (For Pete's sake guys, if it ain't broke, don't fix it).  One has to have seen this property when still in private hands to appreciate the sad decisions made since then.

But I've wandered far from the point.  Be sure to check out this week's piece in New York Social Diary (Click HERE)

And to read the Dilettante in a completely different vein, click HERE for a story  in the current issue of Portland Monthly, about a lost mid-century building in Down East Maine with ties to the early days of Design Research. (the article opens on a full-page kitchen ad.  Just scroll down)