Byron Foy, Hunter Marston, and Tommy Dixon. In 1924 Foy married Thelma Chrysler, daughter of Walter Chrysler; he became president of Chrysler’s DeSoto division.L to R.: Mrs. Spaulding from Chicago seen working on her back hand at The Arizona Biltmore.; Rippie Frazer and friends take the high dive at the Biltmore pool.In 1931 Chicago chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. took over the Arizona Biltmore, adding a pool and bathing facility. Wrigley died as construction began on the Robert T. Evans-designed complex; his brother Paul Wrigley then took over the hotel operation. Evans was a graduate of Chicago’s Armour Institute.The Arizona Biltmore’s 1931 Wright-inspired bathing pavilion. The Evans designed addition followed much the same design as the hotel’s original buildings designed by Albert Chase McArthur.
January 1936 Montecito
Miramar Hotel, Montecito. Ellen Frazer stayed at the historic oceanfront Miramar which today is facing a clouded redevelopment future. She toured several of the area’s prominent gardens.The drama of a Montecito garden.Mrs. Edward RobertsMontecito gardens maintain their scale with the surrounding hills.Mrs. Oakley Thorne.Mrs. Thorne’s house.
The Oakley Thorne gardens.A woman of a certain era amidst a field of cacti.
February 1936 Arizona Inn, Tucson
L to R.: Eleanor Lineaweaver with camera.; Hunter Marston.Mission San Xavier, Tucson.
February 1936 Castle Hot Springs, Arizona
Clara Thompson, Kitty Dixon, and Tommy Thompson are welcomed by owner Walter Rounsevel. The Castle Hot Springs Hotel was a popular winter oasis during the 1920s and 1930s by Midwest and East Coast socials wanting to combine the health benefits of dips in the volcanic geothermal pools with the pleasures of the dustless desert air. Located among remote hills an hour northwest of Phoenix, in December 1976 a fire devastated the hotel and much of the complex; a landmark hostelry once favored by presidents is today a ghost town.The Castle Hot Springs badminton court stands at the ready.President Theodore Roosevelt and President Kennedy visited the resort that during World War II was adapted to treat injured returning war veterans.One of several volcanic spring ponds.The ever fashionable Hunter Marston shows his camera to Walter Rounseval.
Hacienda De La Osa Sasabe, Arizona
Composed of buildings believed to be among Arizona’s oldest adobe buildings the Hacienda de la Osa was another popular winter retreat for the Chicago-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh set. At the time Ellen and her friends visited it was owned by Dick Jenkins. In 1921 Navajo historian Louisa Wetherill transformed the working ranch into a guest facility, naming it Hacienda de la Osa, “House of the She-Bear.”Winter, 1936. Top: Lunch on the Hacienda’s patio. Above: Out in the corral.Pictured above: Bob Taylor, Lallie Lloyd, and Tom Lineaweaver, who were joined by Adelaide Paul, Bill Paul, and Peggy Hibbard. Today it is known as the Ranch De La Osa Guest Ranch, “one of the last great Spanish haciendas still standing in the United States,”
November 1936 Hindenburg
This photograph appears along with the Hindenburg images but was not captioned, although that is Tom Evans on the far left and Ellen Frazer on the far right. I remain uncertain whether Ellen and her entourage were among the 75 invited guests, including Standard Oil president W. S. Farish, who took an exhibition flight in October 1936 though that is the date these images among others appear in her scrapbook. The Hindenburg exploded in May 1937.
PALM BEACH February 1937
From their Venetian balcony at Casa dei Leoni, Mary Glendinning and her daughter-in-law Kitty Glendinning watch the kids’ sailboat race in the Everglades Club basin behind their house.Afar, a view of Cabbage Island before the Phipps family developed it into Everglades Island.Concha Marina. Isabel Dodge Sloane’s pool.
April 1937 Luncheon at the Wolcott Blairs
At the backgammon board: Bob Huntington, Wolcott Blair, Roddie Wanamaker, and Mr. Taylor.Gertrude “Gertie” Sanford Legendre. Never quite as celebrated as her brother, polo player Laddie Sanford, or his wife Mary Duncan Sanford, Gertie Sanford had married a fellow explorer, Sidney Legendre.Sidney Legendre was a prominent explorer from New Orleans. He and Gertrude Sanford married after an expedition to Abyssinia. His sister Catherine married Charles Biddle; his brother Morris married Nancy Newbold whose father Fleming Newbold was president of the Washington Star newspaper.
April 1937 A night class in photography
Ellen Frazer took a class in photography.
April 1937 Du Pont house party, Newton Square, Pennsylvania
Drexel Biddle, Kay Denckla and her daughter Paula, and Matthew Baird.Drexel Biddle.Kay Denckla.
May 1937
Virginia Gold Cup Races
John Schiff.
July 1937 Dark Harbor/Isleboro, Maine. Yachting with the Legendres.
L to R.: Ruth Pruyn Field. Following her divorce from Ogden Phipps, in 1936 Ruth Pruyn married Marshall Field III, becoming the third Mrs. Marshall Field III. Her ex-husband then married Lillian Bostwick McKim.; Catherine Legendre Biddle. Sidney and Morris Legendre’s sister was married to Charles J. Biddle.L to R.: Landine Legendre aboard her Maine island cruiser.; Mrs. Marshall Field III.
September 1937 Mary Warburton’s mysterious death
The mysterious death of Mary Warburton.
November 1937 Medway Plantation, South Carolina
The 17th-century plantation house is set on 7,000 Low Country acres.“Our hosts.” Sidney Legendre, Gertrude Sanford Legendre, and Morris Legendre.Trowbridge “Tro” Elliman. During the early 1930s Mr. Elliman took over the family’s New York real estate company begun by his father Douglas Elliman.A morning hunt. “You can’t imagine how long it took us to get this far.”A hunt lunch served on the field china. “A feast.”Rod Tower, Gertie Legendre, and Tro Elliman.
ON LONG ISLAND, 1935-1938
June, 1935 Fishers Island-New London Boat Race Amory and Dolly Carhart’s Luncheon at Fishers Island
Hunter Marston, Grover Loening, Dolly Carhart, and Ed Johnston.Mathilde Johnston and Kitty Hand.Josephine Rea and Grover Loening. In 1941 Josephine Rea married Warren Leslie.Josephine Rea and Grover Loening. In 1941 Josephine Rea married Warren Leslie.
1 July – 6 July 1937 At High Pool, Deering and Polly Howe’s house in Brooksville, Long Island.
4 July 1937 Joan Whitney Payson’s “Come-As-A-Picture Party”
Buzzy Scheftel and Ellen Glendinning Frazer. A prominent NYC developer, Scheftel was a grandson of Isidor Straus.The morning after breakfast at the Howes. Hariette “Marni” Harding, Mr. “LaTouche,” Polly Howe, Morris Legendre, and Charlie Harding. Charles Lewis Harding was a Massachusetts textile manufacturer. The Hardings’ Palm Beach house named Chiora was the site for numerous social functions. Their son, Henry Harding, became one of the town’s prominent post-WWII architects.Polly Brooks Howe. In 1941 Howe obtained a Reno divorce from International Harvester heir Deering Howe.
5 July 1937, 4 pm Lunch at Tom and Edith Bancroft’s house
Edith Woodward Bancroft. Mrs. Bancroft’s mother Elsie Woodward was one of the socially-famous Cryder triplets, Ethel, Edith, and Elsie. Bancroft’s younger brother Billy was killed during the mid-1950s when his wife mistook him for a prowler and shot him, making for years of speculation, if not best-selling books.Thomas Bancroft.
December 1937 Gardner’s Island, Winston Guest’s pheasant hunt weekend
Ellen Frazer and Gertie Legendre on their way to Gardner’s Island. “Really cold.”Molly and Michael Phipps.Ellen Frazer and Winston Guest.
4 July-9 July 1938 A stay at High Pool with Deering and Polly Howe
Lunch with Edith and Tom Bancroft
L to R.: Edith Logan Dilworth.; Tom Bancroft.Edith Bancroft and Polly Howe.Landon Greenway and Pat Kellerher.
July 1938 Lunch at David and Ailsa Mellon Bruce’s house
Nino Lo Savio and Ailsa Mellon Bruce.The same month David Bruce (above, left) and Ailsa Mellon (above, right) divorced in 1945, he married Evangeline Bell. Bruce had been named one of the executors to his father-in-law Andrew Mellon’s will when Mellon died in 1937 at the Bruces’ 200-acre Syosset estate.Polly Howe and Tommy Hitchcock. In 1944 Tommy Hitchcock died in a plane crash. cPolly Howe and Tommy Hitchcock. In 1944 Tommy Hitchcock died in a plane crash.At the luncheon table. Seated left: David Bruce, Polly Howe, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, waiter, Morris Legendre, Tommy Hitchcock, standing.Tommy Hitchcock and Morris Legendre.Ailsa Mellon Bruce and Martha Slater.
September 1938 Duneside, Gin Lane, Southampton
Rodman Wanamaker II and his nephew George S. Patterson III at the Patterson family’s Gin Lane house in Southampton. In August, Wanamaker and Bea Patterson were married at St. Andrews Dune Church.L to R.: Beatrice Patterson Wanamaker’s father, George S. Patterson Sr. at Duneside, the family’s Gin Lane Southampton house.; Bea Patterson’s mother, Mrs. George S. Patterson.Melissa Yuille Bingham, Mrs. Payne Bingham, at Duneside.
