Today, we are running a Diary that I wrote ten years ago about Alice Mason on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Alice’s life is a novel in itself; fascinating and compelling. She was a ground-breaker in her business. Today’s piece serves as an in memoriam of Alice who passed away last Friday at two months over 100. Tomorrow, I will write about the Alice I had the honor and pleasure of knowing.
Tuesday. October 29, 2013. I went down to La Grenouille to lunch to celebrate the birthday of Alice Mason who turned 90 on Saturday. She shares her birthday with our mutual friend the late Judy Green, and also with Hillary Clinton whom I first met (or rather, was introduced to) at Alice’s apartment at a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton’s New York Senate race.
Alice is a real New York legend. One of the privileges of being her friend for a New York-curious fellow like me, is that she has a steel trap memory of her experiences and her business. Within it is a chronicle of the corridors of power in the last half of the 20th century in New York.
She started out in the business, just by chance, in the 1950s, finding rental apartments for actors — like movie stars, like Marilyn Monroe, for example. In those days — as it had been since Colonial times — actors were not considered desirable tenants. Even stars. Landlords were afraid these people might draw unsavory types to their door, as well as unwelcome fans.
Alice’s first big break in the residential sales came from a friend: Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. Vanderbilt was a glamorous figure in America, a famous socialite, who owned a racing stable, dated movie stars (and had three wives) and lived the life of a “gentleman,” that is leisure.
Alice and he became pals. He was twelve years her senior and amused by her self-assuredness and certainty in life, and often asked her advice about relationships his own life. He called her “Fluff” (she called him “Alfred”). She liked him very much but she was amazed that such a sophisticated man had such little knowledge of the ordinary nature of things. No Common Sense were her words for it. Vanderbilt was the last generation of “gentlemen,” a man with a valet who did all those things for him that shielded him from the “ordinary” in his “privileged” way of life.
Those last days in Society as it was then regarded in New York, was a generally exclusive crowd who belonged to the same clubs, country clubs, visited the same resorts and were in the Social Register. When they wanted to get out among the hoi polloi, and meet people, they mingled with Café Society where they mixed with people of talent and/or notoriety, or actors (like Marilyn Monroe), in nightclubs like The Stork Club or El Morocco or cocktail parties.
Alice knew, naturally, that she had a good client with Vanderbilt because he could afford the best. What she didn’t know at the outset was that there were a lot of high-end residential buildings in New York that wouldn’t take him — because, as it was explained to her: Vanderbilts were “1880s” and these buildings only took “1620s.” In other words, Vanderbilts were still considered nouveau seventy-five years after the Commodore (Afred’s great-great-grandfather) died as the richest man in the world.
In the 1950s, real estate brokers who catered to the upper income and asset bracket used only the Social Register as their phone books. If you weren’t in it, they didn’t need to know your number.
So our young and self-assured Alice was quite surprised — shocked really — to learn that Alfred Vanderbilt wasn’t good enough for certain buildings because his ancestors hadn’t arrived on this continent early enough. She was even more surprised when she told her friend Vanderbilt about it and he responded, unfazed: “oh yes, we’re only 1880s.”
Nevertheless, the experience motivated the young woman who was naturally ambitious, intelligent, curious, and sharp, to do something about it. In time, she came to know every building within her purview — who lived where, who didn’t, who wouldn’t or couldn’t, or shouldn’t. She came to know the boards of the buildings, and their individuals, and what and whom they would and would not accept.
She had a naturally sharp political acumen that was perhaps her greatest asset in conducting her life. She learned that “accept” could change its meaning if she could change someone’s mind. She made it her business to meet people and to learn about what and whom they would or would not accept. She found by appealing to a more liberal minded board member, for example, she could even change the “rule” of acceptance in an “important” building. This knowledge that she gained eventually changed the rules in high-end Manhattan co-ops, forever.
She was not one to suffer fools gladly, but she understood what would and would not work. Earlier in her career as a broker, she had a client, a very wealthy Jewish businessman from an outer borough, who wanted to live in Manhattan and at one of the better buildings on Park or Fifth Avenue that were often not friendly toward Jews or other ethnicities, for that matter.
The man was quite full of himself and was “rough around the edges.” But he was a smart businessman and had a nice family. Alice liked his wife. He told Alice exactly what he wanted. He wanted “class” and he was ready to pay for it.
The first thing she told him on meeting was that he’d have to move his bank account to Manhattan. Why? He wanted to know. Because if you don’t have a bank account in Manhattan, none of these people on the boards will want you in their building, was her reply. This annoyed him. Secondly, she told him: get rid of your accent! The man was dumfounded and enraged that Alice would object to his native-born Noo-Yawkese. Again, he wanted to know: Why?! Because these people who you want for neighbors don’t want to listen to your Bronx accent in the elevator.
There was nothing he could say. The man’s wife — who had also wanted to move to Manhattan — later told Alice that she was so happy Alice had laid down the facts for her husband: “He would have killed me if I told him that.”
Grudgingly Mr. Big (and he was very wealthy) took Alice’s advice and eventually Alice found him and his family a large apartment on Park Avenue where they were respected tenants to the end of the man’s life. Everybody got what they wanted. Mission accomplished.
Alice’s credo was: always take care of your client so that they will never feel embarrassed and always feel comfortable in their new home. Alice played by the rules, and played them too. In the end she always appealed to the sensibilities of one’s neighbors.
She was a perfect New Yorker: she pursued her ambitions and retained a deep curiosity about people and their work which made her very informed. Over the years she cultivated friendships and business relationships in the corridors of power politically, in finance and in media. By the 1970s, she became famous in New York for her monthly dinner parties. Sixty people, black-tie, at home, sit-down, in her dining room, living room and library.
An invitation from Alice Mason meant you’d made it — or at least you were going to be around a lot of other people had made it. Stimulating conversation at table with these people was the pay-off for guests. She planned her seating to appeal to their interests, so the rooms were active and lively. A table of eight at Alice’s was tight because that way people were forced to talk to each other.
In the mid-1970s, she met Jimmy Carter who was planning to run for President. She liked him and wanted to help. She called on her guest list to whom she knew he would appeal. She raised $1.5 million, the largest amount raised at that point in history by one individual.
After he won the Presidency, Carter, in thanking Alice for her help, asked how he could return the kindness. She told him she’d like to be invited to a White House dinner sometime, and that she’d like him to work for Human Rights around the world.
She was invited for the White House several times, and in the years following President Carter’s Administration, she gave an annual dinner in New York for him and his wife Rosalynn.
When Bill Clinton was starting his run in the early 1992 he went to her seeking support. When he won the nomination, she hosted a private dinner at her apartment for fifteen couples, with Clinton and Al Gore as the guests of honor; raising another $1.5 million.
Alice’s perspicacity and business acumen — what she called “Common Sense” — was highly valued by some of the most influential and powerful men in New York. During her long career, she was often consulted because she had an uncanny understanding of the human condition, and the ability to express her opinions (and advice) about it in clear, basic words. Her inquirers could be assured of her value by the frankness and honesty of her words.
I first met her about twenty years ago through our friend Judy Green. Alice and I later became friends, and over the years I have had the pleasure of being a guest at some of her dinners. I have always been impressed by her “certainty of purpose” in managing and conducting her life both personally and in business, as well as her insights into people and situations.
She told me the other day that she’d decided when she was forty to make a list of what she wanted and didn’t want in her life. She listed things, situations, relationships and people. The objective was to simplify and eliminate those things and people that were difficult so that she could make the most of — and enjoy — those things that were most important to her.
Perhaps the most important, aside from her professional life, was her daughter. Alice has been married two or three times. Her attitude toward marriage was that she never wanted it for long.
One of her marriages was to a Frenchman with the last name of Richard (reeshard) (who spoke six languages) whom she admired for his intellect. The union produced the daughter, Dominique. The marriage didn’t last but both parents happily shared the upbringing of their child. This arrangement worked perfectly for them and their adored daughter who had the full attention and devotion of both. M. Richard died only a couple of years ago.
Dominique, who now lives in Chicago with her son Luke, was at the lunch at Grenouille, as were Alice’s friends Kathy Sloane, Charlie Scheips, and the great model Carmen. Carmen who is eight years younger, and Alice have been friends since they first met in the 1950s.
Alice retired from the real estate business a few years ago, closing her office. The move at the time, seemed natural. Her once intense interest which brought her great success had lessened to the point where she preferred relying on others to drive business. After almost a half century at it, and with great achievement, she decided she preferred having the time to herself.
She was always a woman who liked her solitary time and is never bored. Now she looks after her good health and keeps track of what it going on in the world out there, particularly the politics, which is her great passion. The world in which she launched herself professionally had changed radically. The Social Register is a relic of a distant past, and the Society that it kept track of is non-existent, as are many of its methods of exclusivity, even for actors.
