Social History
Palm Beach• January 12, 2017

America First: Howard Major at Palm Beach

America First: Howard Major at Palm Beach Architect Howard Major was Palm Beach’s leading advocate for an American-based classical building style during the post-WW I boom when Spanish and Italian reproductions became commonplace. Foreshadowing today’s “America First” populist sentiment, Major believed a mix of Old World styles should never represent Palm Beach’s architectural character. Disparaging […]...

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Aristocratic Artist: Albert Herter at Palm Beach

Palm Beach• August 23, 2016.
Aristocratic Artist: Albert Herter at Palm Beach “Well, Albert Herter simply has no right to exist. To begin with, he was born to wealth and social position; he is handsome and attractive in manner, and he has exceptional talent. You see, his career knocks the props from under those accepted saws about the impetus of […]... READ MORE
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Otto Kahn’s Palm Beach

Social History• February 27, 2015.
At Palm Beach, where most everyone was a somebody at some time somewhere for something, prominent Jewish personalities are not customarily included in the telling of the resort’s history. By recounting their lives, it enriches our appreciation for the complex social order that once existed when notables like Otto Kahn made Palm Beach their re... READ MORE
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Resort Life, Chapter XXXVIII: January 1970 – December 1970 Palm Beach + Boca Grande + Down East + Brittany + Ireland

Palm Beach• March 24, 2014.
On New Year’s Day 1970, maestro Leopold Stokowski was visiting Palm Beach. Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin was due for a vacation at The Breakers. Dina Merrill and Cliff Robertson were put up at Mar-a-Lago. Alvin and Lilly Fuller were ensconced in their new Chinese-style house with a ten-tier pagoda by the pool.  During the holidays... READ MORE
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Resort Life, Chapter XXXIII: August – December 1967 Down East + Palm Beach + Naples + Virgin Islands

Palm Beach• January 14, 2014.
By 1967, Brooke Astor had already made a name for herself.  Following her short-lived five-and-one-half year marriage to Vincent Astor, and his ensuing death in 1959, she spent the next more than four decades dispensing as much as $200 million.  As head of the Astor Foundation, she became New York’s most generous godmother. Having transforme... READ MORE
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Palm Beach Social Diary Remaking History: Paris Singer & the Everglades Club, 1918-1932

Palm Beach• November 1, 2013.
No matter how thorough Palm Beach’s past was documented, filtering fact from fiction can prove a daunting task to anyone interested in exploring the resort’s hybrid genre of reality. Time and again, social historians must rely on revised memoirs, third wives, feuds, after-dinner speakers, hearsay, and deadline items dashed off by Cholly Knicke... READ MORE
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Palm Beach – 1937

Social History• March 17, 2013.
“Happy bedlam” wrote social columnist Nancy Randolph in describing the 1937 Palm Beach season at the same time pointing out to her Palm Beach Daily News readers of the prevailing conservative undercurrent: “The trouble is this colony remembers the resort’s supreme Silliest Seasons of 1928 and 1929 when the stratosphere was the limit and... READ MORE
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A Temple for the Arts: Summer Society in Bar Harbor

Social History• January 14, 2013.
Summer Society needs its amusements, and Gilded Age Bar Harbor was no exception. Golf came first, as it often does. With the founding of the Kebo Valley Club in 1888, Bar Harbor was in the vanguard of the newly popular sport in America. The new club, with six holes designed by H.C. Leeds, was stated to be […]... READ MORE
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Palm Beach Social History

Palm Beach• January 3, 2013.
Our Palm Beach members want quick action and thrills, roulette and hazard. Card games are not thrilling.” –The Beach Club, Palm Beach, 1913. “ … Go to Palm Beach, which is not exclusive, but merry, sumptuous and expensive and where there is a chance to meet many prominent men in the gambling rooms …” –Advice […]... READ MORE
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Palm Beach Social Diary – Title Search: Reflections on Palm Beach Proper

Social History• April 19, 2012.
Several months after Dame Celia Lipton Farris died last year, I contacted a family member to ask if I could snap some photos of her stately South End house to illustrate a chronicle of this unique property’s architectural and social history. For whatever reason, my request did not fit in with Farris family priorities. Almost a year […]... READ MORE
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Part XV: Resort Life, 1959-1961

Social History• March 28, 2012.
Part XV: Resort Life, 1959-1961 Cannes – Greenwich – Locust Valley – Newport For a look at Ellen Glendinning Ordway‘s life from 1959 until 1961, I perused more than 4,000 photographs housed within nine volumes belonging to Ordway’s granddaughter Gayle Abrams, whose collection comprises 95 photograph albums. For this thre... READ MORE
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Part XIV: The Social Pyramid, 1951-1958

Social History• March 12, 2012.
Part XIV: The Social Pyramid, 1951-1958 Palm Beach – Around the World –- Ireland – Scotland – Long Island Since Ellen Frazer and Lou Ordway already shared much the same social orbit, both as comfortable within the realm of private clubs as they were having their names mentioned in New York newspaper columns, you might think marriage wou... READ MORE
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Part XIII: A Whirlwind Romance

Social History• February 15, 2012.
Part XIII: A Whirlwind Romance and A Walk Down the Aisle January 1950-March 1951: Medway Plantation, Palm Beach, Paris, Hanover, Normandy, St. Tropez, Dublin, & Chestnut Hill Ellen Glendinning Frazer and Lucius P. Ordway traveled together from South Carolina to the South of France, from Palm Beach to the beaches at Normandy, amid unspoiled l... READ MORE

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