In the Spring of 1913; my father was offered the position of
superintendent at the Colonel Payne estate.
How did :it
happen? This is the story: In 1909 Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, a Civil
War veteran and a multi-millionaire from Ohio, bought two adjoining
estates at West Park. The one on the North had been for over half a
century the home of Colonel George W. Pratt's widow, who was now selling
in order to live in France with her daughter, the Countess de Gasquet
James. The one on the South was being sold because George Neidlinger,
who had inherited his father's property, wanted to return to Germany to
live. Both estates had been owned by other millionaires. One of
the owners had been John Jacob Astor III, the richest man in the United
States.
Colonel Payne,
who had America's most beautiful yacht, chose West Park as the place for
his summer home as it was on the Hudson so he could use his yacht to
travel back and forth to New York where he had a town house.
Combining the two
estates, he owned over six hundred acres and he commenced at once
building a mansion for himself but also for employees and remodeling
service building and making other improvements. Former owners and
notably Adam Neidlinger, had spent thousands on the grounds and
gardens. Payne did more.
He had as his
superintendent Andrew Mason, a Scotchman who had been with him on the
trip around the world on his yacht . Sometime in the early spring of
1913, Mr. Mason was in an automobile accident in which his leg was cut.
The wound was not cared for properly and blood poisoning set in. Though
the Colonel had his own doctor come up from New York, it was too late
for the doctor to save him. As soon as the news of Mr. Mason's death was
known, there were many applications for the position.
My father did not
apply, but he got the job. This was due indirectly to my grandmother
who, when she gave him the Victrola, gave him the means of making
contacts with people he had no other chance to know. One was Emma C.
Larson, who managed the Colonel's household and had been with him for
years. When the vacancy occurred she thought of my father, whom
she had come to know through buying a Victrola and records for the
Colonel and she recommended him.
On April 24, my father went to New York to be interviewed by the Colonel
himself at his house at 852 Fifth Avenue. Writing of this in his memoirs
my father says, "I passed". On June 1, he began working for
the Colonel and a few weeks later, we moved to the superintendent's
residence, a big and beautifully furnished Federal Period house, which
was our home for the next five years.
At Riverby, the
year of 1913 began with the excitement of owning a car. I remember the
first time my father drove it with Glen Buck, who had come from Detroit
to show him how to operate it, my brother and I. My sister, who
could not go because she was sick at the time, remembers watching us
start off. We went up the highway to where it crosses Black Creek.
The turn here in the road is where, four years later, when my
grandfather was showing Dr. Barrus how to run his car, my sister turned
the wheel the wrong way and sent the car up the bank and it turned on
top of them both. After that, she gave up trying to learn.
My father was now
the manager of Colonel Payne's estate with employees under him in
several different departments. In addition, he was the architect for the
Colonel and had the job of planning new buildings; a new boathouse for
the launch from the Colonel's yacht, the new poultry plant buildings,
and the big barns. All these were built of stone from quarries on the
estate. My father, in his memoirs, says that he was both busy and happy,
for he loved to build and design and put up beautiful stone buildings
and now he could do it without any thought about the cost.
The architect of
the Colonel's mansion, Thomas Hastings of Carrere and Hastings of New
York, had not supposed the Colonel would let anyone else be the
architect for his buildings and had only scorn for my father, who had no
professional training. The new buildings for which my father was the
architect pleased the Colonel very much.
My father, in
turn, had scorn for Hastings, who in planning the Colonel's house, had
built it around an open court with a fountain in the center and walls
with beautiful murals. He did not however make any provision for
removing the snow that would accumulate in the winter. It all had to be
carried out in wheelbarrows over the marble floor of the hall. He put on
the mansion a roof of red tiles set in tar which in hot weather ran down
the stone work of the walls and had to be scraped off. Also, Hastings
showed poor judgment in choosing imported limestone for the house. It is
not suited for this climate and has weathered badly.
My father now had
a Packard car for himself and his family to use and his own chauffeur,
and we had a beautiful home with many comforts and no financial worries.
At Riverby, making ends meet had meant plenty of labor for my father.
Now he had the leisure to enjoy his fine collection of records of
classical music and, in season, go trout fishing with his chauffeur,
Pete. He and my mother would take trips to New York to hear the grand
opera at the Metropolitan Opera House where they were privileged to use
the Colonel's box.
In buying two
estates, the Colonel had acquired two mansions. The one built by the
Astors in 1851 with twenty-three rooms he replaced with a larger one of
his own. The other, the Pratt house, is where we lived and we loved it.
I have not been able to learn when and by whom it was built. It was
probably constructed in the early 1800's or before that. Colonel Pratt
bought it from the Pells of Esopus in 1859 and the Pells bought it in
1827 - the earliest deed that I could find - from a Scotch man with the
name of John Johnson Cameron.
I like to assume that the Scotchman with a middle name of one of my own
Scottish ancestors was the builder for the entrance suggested a Scottish
castle. It had a wooden door arched at the top and small side windows
with iron lattice grilles as in a castle and an outside grille door, a
heavy iron lattice door, always left open for it was just ornamental.
Like Riverby and
several other nineteenth century houses at West Park, it was built on
the side of a bank so that the lowest floor had the bank on one side and
only the three other sides had windows. The kitchen was placed here
because with a wood-burning stove, it could become very hot. The dining
room was placed above it away from the kitchen odors and the heat. A
dumb-waiter carried the food upstairs. When we moved in, the house had
been renovated so the kitchen was now upstairs and the basement had been
made into a laundry. The main entrance was under a
porte-cochere. My brother and I sometimes climbed out of a
window and sat on top of it. I remember reading some of Treasure Island
to him there.
This big house,
over a hundred years old, had been built for a wealthy family that
entertained house guests and had several servants look after them, but
we made it our home. Our comfortable living room was the front room
which was both the entrance hall and lounge with two rooms opening off
it at the right. One of these was the drawing room and the other was now
our dining room. The dining room may have been a library originally. To
the rear was the room my father used as his office, in which he had
placed the desk of John Jacob Astor brought over from the other house.
Also, at the back of the house on this floor, was the former dining
room. This was now the kitchen. It was large room and had a big bay
window looking north over the fields to the woods along the river. Next
to the kitchen, there was a sizeable pantry. Here, there were stairs
going down to the laundry and up to the next floor which the servants
used to go to their quarters.
On the third
floor were three bedrooms and a bathroom, with storage space. Our maid,
Lily, had one of these rooms and my sister and I took another for a
playroom and kept our dolls and our doll houses there. The second floor
had five bedrooms with baths and big closets.
Because of the period in which the house was built, it had special
features such as fireplaces and with mantels typical of the Adam style
of architecture. That in the dining room was decorated with a linen fold
wood carving. All of the rooms on the first floor had hinged wooden
shutters on the inside that could be closed to keep out the cold air,
and the glass doors in the dining room that opened out on the lawn had
inside wood shutters too.
Though there had been some changes when the house was wired for
electricity and the walls and floors were refinished, the stairs had not
been touched and the newel posts still had the original acorn-shaped
tops. The stairs had a landing that made a balcony where my sister and I
acted out scenes from plays that we made up. One could see the balcony
from the living room.
Some of the
furnishings in the house such as the Astor desk were from the other
house. From that house also were the rather ornate bed and bureau in one
of our guest rooms, the big comfortable leather covered chairs in our
living room, mantel piece items such as the pair of marble busts in the
dining room, and all of furnishings of the drawing room. This elegant
room looked as it had at an earlier period with heavy silk drapes and
rosewood chairs and a sofa covered in pan velvet (some gold and some
blue), and a Steinway grand piano. It also had beautiful wine glasses, a
punch bowl and other imported glass in a glass case, and some exquisite
Dresden China that may have been Neidlinger heirlooms.
The pieces marked
"Waldorf" we knew to be Astor's, but we were not sure of the
others. Some of it may have belonged to the Neidlingers. Adam Neidlinger
was a very rich man, the recognized leader of the malting industry in
this country, and his brother, the inventor of the flat-sided sewing
machine needle, was a millionaire too. Between the Astor and the
Neidlinger owners there had been another owner, Alexander Holland,
president of the National Express company, and some of these furnishings
may have been Holland's. The fact that among these items we found in the
Pratt house was a book about the history of the National Express
Company, which was obviously his, seems to confirm this.
My mother now had
no chores such as cleaning and filling the kerosene lamps. The estate
had two big diesel engines that supplied all the buildings with
electricity. Before Colonel Payne, there had been at West Park some
estate owners with gas-generating plants. The Neidlingers had one and so
did Frank Seely, the West Parker who had the tally-ho. He was a
millionaire who was known as the Soda Water King before he sold out to
Canada Dry. Now, electricity was replacing gaslight.
As an artesian well supplied the estate buildings with water, there were
no more water problems for us either for the time being. No more
carrying a pail up from the spring with water for cooking and drinking.
No more hand pump by the kitchen sink and no more out house.
We had various
services: a man to look after our furnace, another man to come twice a
week to polish the brass and the floors, and mail delivery, telephones
both for the estate and for the outside, and bounty from the estate such
as vegetables, milk, eggs, chickens, and ice from the estate pond for
our refrigerator. We were kept supplied with fresh flowers too from the
greenhouse and the big flower gardens. My mother now had a home where
she could entertain her friends and my father had a life he enjoyed and
we children on this big estate of a multimillionaire had more
opportunities for outdoor play. There were driveways on the estate where
my sister and my brother could ride their bicycles in safety. My
brother's bicycle had been a gift from Colonel Payne, who had the same
birth date as he. Another year, he gave him a magic lantern and slides
that entertained us all. On these driveways, we coasted in winter with
mother sometimes coasting with us. On the estate ice pond we went
skating for we learned to skate there and it was only a short walk from
our house.
There were
gardens; a large formal flower garden and the rock garden and the
greenhouse with tropical plants as well as flowers. My sister and
I spent much time in the gardens. There were so many flowers always in
bloom, and all had the best of care. The trees did too. There were
several well-pruned trees near our house to climb. I remember that I was
sitting up in my favorite tree the day in 1917 when war was declared and
I heard the bells ringing across the river at Hyde Park.
There were
several special treats for us such as riding on top of the hay wagon
down to the big stone barn my father built for the Colonel, where we
slide off into the hay. The farm buildings were on the part of the
estate that was west of the highway. Besides the cows, there were pigs
and sheep. In the late winter, we would walk down to the barn to see the
new lambs. There were teams of work horses, but there were also five
carriage horses. Their stable was one of the buildings in a quadrangle
on the Pratt side of the estate. The garage for the Colonel's Pierce
Arrow and Crane Simplex as well as our Packard were also kept on this
quadrangle. My sister loved to go to the stable to look at the horses
and she would be privileged to ride beside the driver who went to the
post office to get the mail for the estate.
Much of the
estate east of the highway was a well cared-for park with lawns,
shrubbery, flower beds, and paths. There was a lovely walk that one
could take on a path that Mr. Neidlinger had made at the edge of the
woods along the river shore. South of the estate at West Park, the river
front was mostly a scramble over rocks.
Riverby has a
beach but owns only one hundred and fifty feet of water front. The
Colonel's estate had ten times that. Along the path here and there were
stone beaches. At the south end was the Colonel's boathouse, a dock, and
a summerhouse with a view down the river to Crum Elbow.
The Pratt dock at
the north end was used for coal, and coal barges would be tied up there.
A crane on the dock with a bucket would unload them, dumping the coal
into a metal cart which was on a trolley to take it to a pit a few
hundred feet away for storage. We would go down to the dock watch
unloading and I have a picture of us riding on a cart.
Sometimes in
summer when the tides were right, we children would take our bathing
suits and bath towels and go down by the river to play in the water by
the dock.
When my
grandfather's friend Henry Ford sent my brother a fishing rod, he and my
sister went to the dock to fish. The first time, my sister remembers, he
caught an eel and they were unable to get it off the hook. They walked
back to the house with the eel dangling from the rod.
Near the Pratt
dock, there had once been a house but the Pratts, who would have known
its history, were gone and we were not able to find out anything about
it. The foundations showed that it had been a fairly large house. There
was a mystery about it and mysteries make such places very interesting.
My sister and I had played there. We would invent stories about the
people who lived there. Lilac bushes grew around the foundations and in
May were masses of fragrant lavender bloom. We used -to pick some and
take home with us though we did not pick the other flowers.
Every year, the
Colonel had a Christmas party for his employees children. In the big
carriage house (which was one of the buildings in the quadrangle) there
would be a handsomely decorated tree. Under this tree, there was a
present for each one of the children with his or her name on it. in the
adjoining harness room, an ornamental room, there would be cake and lots
of cookies for everyone.
Some of the
children lived in the cottages the Colonel had built on the northernmost
part of the estate. This was sometimes called the "English
Village". Others lived in the Village of Esopus or in West Park.
These were good times for West Park and Esopus because the Colonel's
estate gave employment to local people.
Our Christmas.
gifts from the Colonel were under our own tree. Miss Larson would pick
them out for us. There would be beautiful dolls and other toys from the
best known toy shops in New York and pretty clothes from Fifth Avenue
shops too. It all seems like a dream now. When my sister and I were
older, there would be platinum or gold pins from Tiffany.
One of my gifts from the Colonel was a Tiffany bracelet of scarab-like
stones.
One year the
Colonel gave my mother a pin in the shape of a bowknot, all diamonds. He
remembered that he had never seen her wearing any jewelry.
My mother won his admiration and in his Will, he left her the same
legacy as he did my father.
We children were somewhat shy and awed by older people especially in a
setting of such grandeur as the Colonel's, a magnificent house with
butlers and other servants, but the Colonel would draw us out and get us
to talk to him. He knew that my sister loved her Yorkshire Terrier,
Bunty, and he would ask her about her little dog. He gave my brother a
pedigreed Sealyham from the kennels of his nephew Payne Whitney so Bunty
would have another dog for company. He would find out what our interests
were and talk to us about them.
We always enjoyed
going over to the Mansion, "The Big House" as everyone called
it. We would visit with him in the library and have a chance to look
about for there might be some new art treasure from the Duveen Galleries
in New York to see and there were all the other treasures to look at
again. It was the most luxurious of all the millionaires' homes in the
Hudson Valley and had a wealth of art surpassing all of the others
combined.
The art
collection is all scattered now. I known that one of his Turner
paintings, "Juliet and Her Nurse" is now in Argentina, where
it was taken by a woman who bought it in 1980 for $6.4 Million. It was
one of the Turners in the southeast room of the Mansion that had walls
paneled in ebony with gold tracery. The Colonel willed to his nephew
Harry Payne Whitney a painting called "Les Demoiselles de
Village". This painting was by Courbet and hung in the long drawing
room. It is now in the City Art Gallery in Leeds, England. The other big
painting in that room, "Venus and Adonis" by Rubens, is in the
Metropolitan in New York as are the tapestries. I wonder where one would
now see the Hudon Bust, the other Turners, the Della Robbia Madonna and
Child, and the Exquisite Ming porcelains which, when we lived at Colonel
Payne's, we had become familiar with. Because I began going away to
school our second year at the Colonel's, my sister was there more often
than I but I remember all this well. It meant so much to me.
The Colonel's
yacht, the Aphrodite, the largest steam yacht at the time and the most
beautiful, became a familiar sight on the Hudson during those years. My
family had many cruises on it. Some were short and others were longer.
My family would usually take the short cruises while my sister and I
were lucky enough to be invited for longer ones. The first time we were
invited to accompany the Colonel on the yacht, the Poughkeepsie college
boat races were being run. My father and mother were not sure whether or
not the invitation included the children and did not take us. When the
Colonel learned that we were not on board, be dispatched his speed
launch to come and get us. We were brought to the launch by the
Colonel's limousine.
The yacht,
with a clipper bow, three masts, and a fan stern, was 350 feet long and
had a crew of fifty to sixty. It was a luxuriously comfortable boat. The
Colonel had his own quarters and had privacy for himself when he wanted
it. He always took some of his household staff with him and there were
staterooms for them and guests. He also had a combined lounge and dining
room for their use.
At Riverby, my grandfather must have often seen the Aphrodite pass by
for he loved to watch the boats on the river. Once in a while, my
grandfather would come and visit us but we lived our own lives now.
In the spring of
1914, when Henry Ford was visiting my grandfather at Slabsides, they had
dinner with us. I can see Henry Ford sitting in our dining room but I
cannot recall anything he said. Perhaps he did not say anything worth
recalling. While at the table, he looked at his watch. I remember this
because his watch was one that I had never encountered before. It was
flat and rimmed with sapphires. (Twice the Colonel called on my
grandfather at Riverby as my grandfather reports in his journal without
comment.)
I was eleven
years old when I was invited for the first time to go on a cruise on the
Aphrodite to Newport. I had my own stateroom with a bed (not a bunk) and
my own bathroom with salt water as well as hot and cold. I felt very
grown up. I knew the date was early August in 1914 as I remember seeing
in the ship's lounge a New York Times with headlines about the
assassination which brought about the outbreak of World War I.
At New York, the
yacht anchored off the Columbia Yacht club and we went ashore in the
launch. Miss Larson took me to lunch at the then fashionable Claremont
on Riverside Drive where, I remember, we had cream of corn soup which
was a revelation to me as I had not known that anything so delicious
could be made out of corn. While In New York, we stopped at the
Colonel's house at 852 Fifth Avenue where all the furniture was covered
with dust cloths in the summer. We also went to Duveen's at 726 Fifth
Avenue as the Colonel, through Miss Larson, kept in touch with what
Duveen's had for sale and we looked at some paintings.
On the decks
there were comfortable chairs, and reclining in one was pleasant way to
spend time. In the lounge, there were magazines to read and there was a
writing desk with Aphrodite note paper. I had not reached the age when I
did much letter writing so I did not bother with these things much. It
was much more fun to stay outside and watch all there was to see.
At Newport.,
there were other yachts in the harbor but the Aphrodite was the largest
of them all. It was the "Queen of the Yachts" and when we were
out in the launch we could see how she towered above them all. She had
graceful lines with that clipper bow on which there was a figurehead of
the goddess for whom she was named.
I went ashore
with Miss Larson in the launch and we saw something of Newport and she
took me shopping with her. At that age I was collecting Kewpie dolls and
she bought me one for my collection. My sister and I enjoyed being with
her for she understood little girls.
As I did not keep
a diary in those days, I cannot say long it was before we were sailing
up the Hudson on our return and once more seeing the Highlands and the
Poughkeepsie Bridge. The launch in which we came ashore on brought us
into the boathouse my father built for the Colonel with the peacock gate
that my father designed.
In winter, the
yacht would be put up until Spring and the Colonel would return to his
estate in Thomasville, Georgia, leaving my father in charge here, with
money to run the place at West Park. He had complete confidence in my
father's ability and judgment. My father did have to cope with petty
jealousies and disagreements among the employees. It was not all smooth
going, but my father had a personality which could handle such problems
and he was highly respected.
In the summer of
1915, my sister (now 10) and I were both invited to got to Newport on a
leisurely cruise on the Colonel's yacht and the youngest daughter of
Andrew Mason was also invited. She was older than we were and we looked
up to her in admiration. In New York, Miss Larson took my sister and I
shopping on Fifth Avenue where she bought us pretty slippers at
Alexander's, dresses at DeVinna, and dresses at Grande Maison de Blanc.
For us, this was a big adventure.
We liked to go on
the bridge of the yacht where the charts were. My sister remembers
asking someone who came to read them, "Where are we now?" and
being told, "Off Point Judith." She also remembers seeing the
Colonel's own dining room, which had walls of carved teakwood. On the
table were pink roses, linen, crystal, and the Aphrodite's own Minton
China. Two stewards in white coats were standing ready to serve a meal.
She asked one, "What is the Colonel going to have to eat?".
The reply was, "Cream of wheat."
At Newport, we
had a cruise about the harbor in the speed launch, with a sailor
standing with folded arms in the stern. We also had a ride in a
limousine along the shoreline to see the summer homes of the other
millionaires.
The harbor had
many other boats and other yachts anchored there so when the sunset gun
rang out across the water, we saw all these vessels drop their flags
simultaneously. This was an exciting moment that we would never see at
West Park.
For my twelfth
birthday, Miss Larson had a white birthday cake made for me at the Big
House which was sent over to our house. It was beautifully decorated and
made me very happy. She did other thoughtful things for us children such
as giving us big chocolate candy eggs at Easter.
In 1916, I
entered Kingston High School that fall even though in meant studying
during the summer. I would shut myself up every morning in our east
bedroom. This room, with the Japanese grass wallpaper and the ornate
bedroom set, was the one we did not use except when having house guests.
My sister and I
did have another cruise on the beautiful Aphrodite to Newport so my
summer was not all study. When we were in Newport, Miss Larson learned
that there was to be musical entertainment at the summer theater so she
arranged to have my sister and I go with the two Scandinavian girls from
the Big House staff who were on the yacht with us. The little outdoor
theater was bedecked with artificial flowers as a festive setting for
the dancing and singing. I remember the words of one of the songs which
reflected the mood of 1916. The first line was "I didn't raise my
boy to be a soldier."
One Saturday
evening, there was to be a dance in the carriage house for some of the
Colonel's household staff and some of the officers and stewards from the
yacht. My mother let me go. It was my first dance.
The big carriage
house was used as a hall for such occasions. Here was held the lovely
wedding reception the Colonel had for one of his officers from the yacht
and an English girl from the household staff. He name was Annie Payne
and we were all invited. The carriage house was also used for movie
entertainment for his estate employees, and movies were shown on
Saturday nights. There, we saw Westerns with Tom Mix and William S. Hart
and other films with early female stars such as Dorothy Dalton And
Marguerite Clark. It was all free.
The estate was in
some ways a self-sufficient community, an exception being in the matter
of church services. Some of the staff went to the nearby Episcopal
Church. The Colonel had this church wired for electricity and a new
house built for the sexton. He himself did not attend services there as
did his predecessors Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor and their son, the
later Viscount and owner of Hever castle.
Several of the
staff were Roman Catholics and went to the Church in Esopus so I am
sometimes asked whether we ever saw Mother Cabrini, the first American
citizen ever to be canonized as she was in West Park intermittently
during those years. The answer is yes. She came to the estate to solicit
funds both at the Big House and at our house. Mother gave her money and
served her tea.
Both my sister,
now eleven, and my brother, seven, were going to the West Park school,
but my brother only went for the morning. Peterson brought them home for
lunch. At the end of the school day, my sister would walk home from
school. Minka, the Colonel's German Shepherd, would be watching for her
inside the gate for which my father made the design to be cast in iron
as he did for the big gate the boathouse. He also designed the plaque
for the fireplace in the cottage of the poultry plant manager, a
building he planned. It was a scene from the Nibelungenlied, the Queen
Brunhilde on her shield surrounded by flames.
We had one more
Christmas with lovely gifts for us children from the Colonel. Mother got
a big fancy box of Millard's chocolates and father got a case of
champagne.
In Washington
during these days, the Senate and the House passed a Declaration of War.
We did not know what a war would mean to us. Our immediate concern was
that in trying to learn how to drive. While learning, Dr, Barrus
turned the Ford upside down on top of my sister and grandfather. She and
my grandfather escaped serious injury but were anxious for a time.
There is this
entry in my grandfather's Journal for June 28, 1917 :"Colonel Payne
is buried today. Peace to his ashes." We stayed on the estate for
nearly a year longer but there were some changes right away and
employees commenced leaving. Harry Payne Bingham, a son of Colonel
Payne's sister Mary, inherited the 645 acre estate at West Park along
with two million dollars. This being war time now, he was in service
with the rank of captain in the Field Artillery, and was at the estate
only intermittently. His wife Harriette and their two children moved
into the Big House to live. My sister remembers that they brought a
children's brown pony and a pony cart and coachman.
Harriette,
"nouveau riche" as she was, immediately wanted to show her
importance by making changes. My father, who tried to please her, says
in his memoirs that she even wanted to change the driveway with its old
trees and cobblestone gutters. In the Big House, those of the Household
staff who remained were distressed because, as they told my father, she
did not know the value of anything. Some of her changes were having the
silk curtains of the long drawing room, which had been made especially
for it, dyed and having the gold tracery of the gold and ebony room
removed with chemicals and the ebony painted a putty color.
The new year,
1918, began with very cold weather and bad news for us. Captain Bingham
was making changes and cutting down expenditures and my father lost his
job and would have to find something else to do. We had until April 1 to
move. This bad news came at a time when my father was already faced with
other problems since now, because of the death of his mother, he had to
keep up the Riverby buildings. My grandfather had deeded Riverby to my
grandmother in 1892. We said goodbye to the Pratt house and moved in to
Riverby and began to make it our home.
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