Stanford White Obituary (1945 - 2022) - Legacy Remembers Its all about texture., When it came to the interiors, Stanford was a compulsive purchaser whose appetite for beauty respected no borders, Samuel writes. Yawning underneath the Gilded Age veneer was a canyon of debts. Sometimes during the day he would sit at a drawing board near the piano and copy out his music for hours with a tiny quill pen and India ink as we tried not to run and jiggle the floor. . But other shocks were revealed. He couldnt afford to restore it to what it had been, so his solution was to truncate what was left of the columns and use them as high pedestals for large urns. Dr. Sanford F. White, MD | Las Vegas, NV | Family Medicine Doctor | US He loved houses, and he kept doing houses all his life, says Samuel White, Stanfords great-grandson and an author and architect in his own right. This was originally a farmhouse with no architectural ambitions, Samuel says. there was a double-swing half-door; it was Whites habit to start on a dead run for that door, slide for the last few feet to check his momentum and bang the door open. Our Christmas presents were hand selected art books. He didnt get there until the wee hours of the morning, however, and decided not to wake her. In June 1880 . I feel she chose to focus exclusively on the unhealthy elements of the family.''. Stanford White : Letters to His Family : Including a Selection of She passed out to find herself naked in bed next to a naked Stanford White. To put it simply, my grandfather's grandfather on my father's side. Stanford White - Wikipedia Robert White (sculptor) - Wikipedia Another sister, Suzannah Lessard, is a writer (The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family and, from 1975 to 1995, a staff writer for The New Yorker) who paints on the side. ''We have a large family, not all of whom are inured to publicity,'' Ms. White said. It remains to be seen what paths in the arts the sixth generation will follow. Her sister Hester Lessard painted for many years before becoming a lawyer and law professor in British Columbia. In order to catch up with his debts, he began to speculate wildlylooking for the big killing that would pull him out of the hole. Here I am on the stairs, a pretty little girl with curly hair, wearing a pretty little dress, watching my dad shovelling coal, and I am happy in the femininity of me and the masculinity of him. And then Stanford arrived. Although he married 22-year-old Bessie Springs Smith when he was 33-years-old, he famously had an "affair" with 16-year-old Evelyn Nesbit when he was in his 40s. A first hand look into the lives of the elite through a few of the rare surviving letters. ; James and Ellen White were the co-founders of the Seventh day Adventist Church in the 1840's.; Stanford White was a well-known American architect, sensationally murdered in 1906.; Harry Dexter White was an economist and Treasury official who was the prime mover behind the 1944 . ''Ironically,'' Mr. White said, ''the doctors that did the autopsy said Stanford wouldn't have lived much longer anyway.''. It is a family tradition still to travel with a sketchbook, whether one would identify oneself as an artist or not; and, as Stanford White's accumulated treasures are passed down, they end up in rooms in which they are comfortable, in good company. My cousin Benjy and I conspired in this pretense, spurting out of the front hall onto the wooden piazza and then onto the lawnI can remember the springy feeling of running and of the grass underfoot. I saw them, in a sense, for the first time. They all inspire me, older and younger designer/non designer. It was opposite Johnnys field, next to an ancient oak, that I decided to site my house. Although the houses were absorbed into a hotel now the Lotte Palace in the late 1970s (becoming a restaurant, meeting rooms, a bookstore and offices), their landmarked interiors have been preserved. Then Trudi arrived, and when we told her what we had been discussing she said, Oh yes, that had happened to her, too, but it was nothing. Exclusive: How HBO Almost Lost Succession, At the 'White Lotus' Premiere with Beatrice Grann. H. Van Buren Magonigle, a draftsman in the office in those early years, wrote: He had a field, as an electrician would say, and his radiated energy was terrific. . His daily commute took over four hours of that day, but he played bridge between his home in St. James and Jamaica, and translated Dante between there and Penn Station. . Enfield author reconstructs a Gilded Age masterpiece The drive cut through a rise here, which was wooded on the northern side; on the other side there was a swaying, gently descending pasture. The strength of this perception disrupted a spell. It was unspeakable treachery that she had taken a part in the film. He was a grandson of the architect Stanford White . I stood right next to his head, so his face was at my eye level, and I noticed the warmth of him in his brown tweed jacket. There was the Renaissance fireplace that you could walk into, with Atlas holding up the mantel. It ought to be only aesthetic. (This statue had been commissioned for the courtyard of the Boston Public Libraryone of the firms great successesbut a scandalized public had forced it to be withdrawn.) Before she died, in 1944, Helen had it disassembled and stored in crates. My father found it difficult to go to movies, because of soundtracks, or to shops where Muzak played. During the period when Stanford became involved with Evelyn Nesbit, for example, he appears to have been fighting off a breach-of-promise suit by the young actress who had introduced Evelyn to him in the first place. In the sixties, my grandmother had divided up the Place among her children, and this pasture was part of Johnnys share; we called it Johnnys field. Those disclosures are Ms. Lessard's allegations that her father, a music professor and composer whom she calls Frank Rousseau in the book, molested her and her five sisters throughout her childhood. May 2, 2018 - By Tracie White. You had to guess what and which he meant. The ceiling was low. . The papers identified Thaws wife as the former Evelyn Nesbit, whom Stanford White had put on the stage when she was in her teens; and even discounting for sensationalism, it became evident that Stanford had loved if not a thousand, perhaps a hundred girls. Stanford married Unknown. I was lucky enough to interview Genevieve White Carter, one of the talented descendants of the iconic architect Stanford White. Quite ordinary sounds hurt thema radio on the beach, for example, or a truck rattling on the road, or we children getting raucous. Along with working on projects they have a line of wallpaper which includes their Tumbleweed collection inspired by the tumbleweeds that blow across the west. ''I've always felt her to be a good writer. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Although most of what I discovered about Stanfords life was, in some fundamental way, unsurprising to meit was as if the essence of that story had been there on the Place all alongone thing that did surprise me utterly was the conditions of improvidence, of reckless overextension, under which Box Hill came into being. We recalled how we were told that Dad had walked in his sleep as a child: the idea wasperhaps from our motherthat he walked in his sleep in the Red Cottage, too. He changed when he sat at the piano. There had been no major construction on the Place for three generations; even repairs were habitually made not with new materials but with whatever happened to be lying around. . Saint-Gaudens and Stanford habitually addressed each other in letters as Darling or Doubly beloved, and signed off with K.M.A., meaning Kiss My AssSaint-Gaudens would sometimes spell it outand he once wrote to Stan, Im your man to dine, drink, Fuck, bugger or such, metaphorically speaking. But Stanfords private world was so fraught with lewd excess that such distinctions lose meaning; in this atmosphere of untrammelled indulgence the question of whether Stanford was bisexual seems irrelevant. I was trying to determine exactly the right site for a house. Some of his Long Island creations endure, including the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, site of the U.S. Open this year, and structures in St. James, Roslyn and Huntington. A testament to a true architectural legend. Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 - February 22, 1947), son of Pittsburgh coal and railroad baron William Thaw, brother of South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club member Benjamin Thaw. In the library, Stanford tied the elements together with a datum a continuous line 18 inches below the ceiling. . The tumbleweed repeated is an actual tumbleweed from the HC Cattle Company belonging to Cy's family ranch. He left immediately to go to his mother at Box Hill. slam his hand down on one of themor perhaps two or three of them if they were close togethersay Do that! and tear off again. Thus there was hardly a spot on the Place in which Stanford was not implicitly present. We have both been pleasantly surprised at how well we enjoy working together. She seeks to explore the meaning for his descendants of this man's violent end and his voracious appetite for . Stanford White's investments in art and antiques, destined for eager clients were by far more successful than his speculation in the stock market. Even before it had been moved onto the foundation, but when it was too late to stop, I sensed that the intrusion of my house was causing tension in the complicated balance of edgy relationships that life on the Place had become. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. White, 52, the defining architect of .css-gegin5{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#9a0500;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-gegin5:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}the Gilded Age, the man who helped design Madison Square Garden itself, was sitting at one of the best tables that the rooftop theatre afforded, listening to the song I Could Love a Million Girls, when millionaire playboy Harry K. Thaw walked up to Whites table. The 1906 Celebrity Murder That Shocked the World - A&E Yet there is support for the book. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition to numerous civic, institutional, and religious buildings. . Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Allerton, IsaacSeparatist, 34. The Enduring Legacy of Gilded Age ArchitectureNow on HBO (From left) Rebecca Skloot, Jeri Lacks-Whye and Alfred Carter Jr. discuss the legacy of Henrietta Lacks at an April 19 event at Stanford. This was supposed to be a joke, and my grandmother always told it that way. For Stanford, every surface was an opportunity, and few opportunities were neglected, his great-grandson writes. . In it Ms. Lessardgives an account of a girl raised at a family homestead in St. James under the shadow of an ignoble ancestor and under the secrecy of incest, insanity and alcoholism. '', His wife, Gehanne, agreed, saying: ''Some of Suzannah's declarations are accurate, and some untrue. Youd need a computer to create it today.. New York: Dial Press, 1996. I calculated that my grandfather would have been thirty-one at the time. Important Projects The architectural firm McKim, Mead, & White designed relaxed summer homes, many in the Shingle Style, and grand public buildings in the more ornate Renaissance Revival and Beaux Arts styles. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. By the turn of the century, Stanford was in deep financial trouble, but he continued to expand Box Hill: he added the barns and the stables, the icehouse, the pump house, and planned a fancy pergola for the Box Garden. You can seealmost feelthe artist in Stanford in photographs of him as a young man, standing with his legs apart in a studio, for example, his hair sticking up, all of him charged with a kind of straight-up energy; he is dressed plainly, in a rough suit and sturdy shoes. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Family members who saw the program said they were satisfied by her performance during the program but were bitterly disappointed by the treatment of the same subject in her book, and that the family had received quite a few reactions. The source of the dread was the very geniality of the architecture: its delicacy, its glow, its seductiveness. In keeping with this aesthetic, my husband and I decided to move an old house to the Place rather than build a new one. What she found, however, was a mechanical progression of sexual compulsion that gradually destroyed her liking for Stanford and, with it, her will to continue. It is not a history that the family agrees on. The building was commissioned in the 1880s by railroad magnate Henry Villard and completed in 1884 (with the help of McKim, Mead & Whites chief designer, Joseph Wells). I felt connected to my sistersa true familial connectedness. White was indefatigable, socializing whenever possible not just because he richly enjoyed the citys entertainments, but he made contacts for McKim, Mead & White. Stanford White (1853-1906) | Familypedia | Fandom Looking back though, I was always thinking of space, fabrics and furniture placement. One house not open to the public is Stanfords own weekend residence, Box Hill, in Saint James, on the north shore of Long Island. The piano room had a wavy wooden floor that pitched down, and the plaster walls were wavy, too. Nordiska Kompaniet dining chairs, 1950, offered by MY MODERN. His creations can be found outside New York City. Her parents, Daisy and Winthrop Chanler, were social lions and knew all the choicest people (Henry James, Bernard Berenson, Edith Wharton, and even Theodore Roosevelt), and Laura knew Stanford before she knew my grandfather, Larry White. Yet that sense of impending drama was forever unsatisfied, because there was always the intimation in the family that when my grandfather finally told his mother what had happened she took the news in a resigned way, and that my grandfather himself was not utterly surprised by what had happened either. By the late eighties, Stanford was also regularly going out on the town for sexual adventurehe went to dives to watch sex as well as to have sex himself later, accompanied by his bohemian cronies or by rich friends he had met as clients. He married Bessie Springs Smith (1862-1950) 7 February 1884 in New York City, New York, United States. Carter Design Consultations is a branch of the company that will expand in the next year. Stanford White Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2 A good example is his approach to the design of the libraries at the various clubs he builtlike New York's Metropolitan Club, which was founded in 1891 by J.P . I felt privileged in my outrage. Peter White said Ms. Lessard had sent copies of the book to every family member. Stanford White (1853-1906) of Long Island Many people are familiar with what happened to Stanford White (husband of Bessie Smith of the Bull Smith line), the gilded architect of the gilded age, who made buildings to take your breath away and who was shot to death by an enraged husband. ''Johnny didn't shoot one of their horses. Violent and paranoid almost since birth (his mother claimed his problems had started in the womb), Harry spent . There was a cloistered part of our life in the Red Cottage that didnt show up on our mental blueprint of the house. One of the ironies of Stanford White is that the man whose life was raked over in an ugly and sordid trial had devoted decades to celebrating what was most beautiful in architecture and artand to celebrating New York City, the city he adored. A son and daughter, Jerome Buttrick and Mary Buttrick Burnham are architects, practicing in Oakland, California, and New York City. All of our lives changed drastically within the year. I don't envy Suzannah her current position.''. I remember an atmosphere of unruliness: us barefoot in our long dresses, and the problem of combing all of our hair. ''And in fact it was not. Her son, Paul Jay is an artist working in many mediums-music, performance, writing, design, photography and sculptor-whose assemblage of beach flotsam is in this exhibit. The passage describes elaborate stag parties and, of course, the well-known sculpture of Diana, said to be modeled after Miss Nesbit. It was the right place for Stanford, who moved in both worlds. Stanford White (1853-1906) was the stylistic energy behind the celebrated architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. Challenged, he would get out a sketchbook and do thumbnails of all that he had walked by so quickly. Ms. Lessard describes the eight Chanler siblings who were orphaned when the oldest was 13. His constant sliding back and forth through that door wore a trough through the wooden flooring that had to be repaired all the time. For more information, see www.nancybilyeau.com. White basked in the spotlight of public acclaim. It seems that the same split format with which I kept my actual family experience separate from my picture of family life pertained to Stanfords architecture as well: I could easily know something and yet absolutely not know it at the same time. Mr. Aldrich said that among the inaccuracies was that Ms. Lessard called William Blackhouse Astor William Waldorf Astor when the two men were three generations apart. She was a friend of my grandfather, a neighbor, and a lady, and she had loved my great-grandmother. Stanford White, (born November 9, 1853, New York, New York, U.S.died June 25, 1906, New York), American architect who was the most imaginative partner in the influential architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White. Although his buildings once dotted the New York City landscape, few remain, and those are often in poor condition. Jake Warga. My great Aunt Cynthia Jay put together an art show called the "Lively Eye" that included descendants of Stanford White. On the far side of the Rond Point there was a Propylona glorIous tall structure of white wooden columns, placed in a shallow curve, supporting a terra-cotta cast of a Greek frieze. I am still in touch with many of the designers that I worked with there and celebrate in their successes, as well as all of Communes successes. Hanging on one of the anaglypta-covered walls is a 19th-century American eagle mirror, restored several years ago for an exhibition in Newport. We joke that we are constantly on the "This land is your land, this land is my land" tour and would love to work in any and all of the states. The abundance of gold leaf in this room makes it feel very special, Samuel says. We started on a June morning in downtown Manhattan, on the narrow streets where Chinatown and Little Italy intermingle. If it hadnt been in storage, it would probably have been cut up when they installed air-conditioning., These chairs combine tradition and modernity in a single elegant package, and they look extremely comfortable as well., If ever a chair said, Take a seat, this is it., I like the high-low quality of this table vernacular form with very stylish legs., I have always liked this classic pattern. Flanking the mirror are several faience plates. ''I didn't really understand the point of the Chanler story in a book supposedly about Stanford White,'' one relative said. Birth of Richard Mansfield White. At the time of the discovery of the fragments, I had recently married and moved with my husband to Lower Fifth Avenue, drawn to the neighborhood by an uncannily familiar feeling, yet only subliminally aware that Stanfords architecture was all around methat he had designed Washington Square Arch, with the layout of the park beyond it, and Judson Memorial Church, which stood overlooking the south side of the park with its Italianate tower of loggias. Coincidentally that was the site of White's slaying. In a country still abiding by Victorian standards, debauchery was supposed to be carefully hidden. Among his growing expenses were the costs of his girls: he did things like pay their dental bills (he would try to perfect his girls as if they were works of art), and he once put Evelyn Nesbit and her mother up in a hotel for more than a year. New York, United States. The Place was largely the work of my great-grandfather Stanford White; and that he was a famous neoclassical architect, notorious for being murdered in scandalous circumstances, was a part of. When Stanford White was murdered on June 25, 1906, the story made newspaper headlines around the world. The next time I visited my mother, we went through a scrappy patch of woods behind her house and entered a winding footpath that threaded its way between ancient rhododendrons. News of Long Ago - "Stanford White's Burial In St. James" On Grand Street, we came upon the monumental neoclassical faade of the Bowery Savings Bank, which was designed by Stanford in 1892. The Red Cottage was a nineteenth-century farmhouse that had been built by a carpenter moving right along. I associated him with the felicity of his spots. Charles McKim was busy with institutional projects, Samuel says, and William Mead wasnt interested in residential work. As I watched Pamela walk toward me across the mosaic floor, the richness of the ochre marble had a depth of sadness that I hadnt seen before. He said the animal 'looked depressed' and wanted to be put out of its misery.''. There was nothing my sisters and I might do that could compare in importance with that gift and the fulfillment of its promise. Mario Bellini Cab lounge chair, 1970s, offered by Villa Vintage etc. His son Christian, with the genes of four grandparents in the arts, has made his name as a painter of the Long Island landscapes he knows so well. At this point we each have over a decade of knowledge or paint colors, fabrics and materials that are great and can apply them. Mr. Rousseau, who was married to Stanford White's granddaughter Mary and who lives in the adjoining Three Village area, would not comment on the book. One of Montauk's iconic "Seven Sisters" is back on the market at a new, lower price. Peter White said. The moon was balanced on a rotating ball, so that Diana would respond as a weathervaneand she did, even when the breeze was no more than the lightest puff of air. Debra Schmidt Bach, curator of decorative arts and special exhibitions at the New-York Historical Society, tells Town & Country, The artistry, size, ornament and structures of [Whites] buildings embody the energy and optimism that many felt the Gilded Age held for the United States. In other words, he was the perfect man for his era. Within the mute, somatic realm where the explosion took place, I intuitively understood that with that explosion, whatever it was (and it was something, it was not nothing), a long, slow shattering was initiated, which had extended outward through the years, fracturing both the little things in my lifea household task, a wish to read a book from start to finishand the large. Alas, once she was up there, both men thought she was too big for the tower, and soin a gesture of the obsessive perfectionism that characterized Stanford throughout his lifethey had her taken down. Again, I knew this, but I had forgotten it: it was information I had pushed aside, as if to protect myself from the continual encroachment of family associations. There were also steep debts to jewellers and florists. But when I was a little girl the Propylon blew down in a hurricane, and I could feel my grandfathers distress as he fussed over how to make the Rond Point whole again. Stanford White joins Salas O'Brien - Salas O'Brien The Place was largely the work of my great-grandfather Stanford White; and that he was a famous neoclassical architect, notorious for being murdered in scandalous circumstances, was a part of the environment, too. What is the next chapter for Carter Design?We have been enjoying doing consultations where we put together specifications and inspiration images for projects and let others carry them out. He was laid out in the parlor at Box Hill, a room of angels and ornaments, red velvet and gilt. Stanford White was the son of the essayist, critic, and Shakespearean scholar Richard Grant White. Repeated freezing and thawing Box Hill had no heating system until 1938 caused the paint on the anaglypta to develop a crackle finish. There was also a theatre that could seat twelve hundred; a concert hall; and the Roof Garden, a partly outdoor restaurant surrounded by a colonnade and equipped with a stage for light entertainmentall beneath a tower that soared three hundred and forty-one feet above it. This feeling of soundness in the past was comforting to me as a girl, and far more than fiscally: it translated into a sense of being borne up by a reliable foundation. There are curtains in our house that were meant for a client but the shade of blue was slightly off (it was for us too and we dyed them pink for our girls room). My maiden name was White. Many of his designs endure: at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, All Souls Episcopal Church in Stony Brook, the Nathan Hale memorial in Huntington and houses in St. James, including his own. . My house was not completed until two years after we had started. ''For one thing, I simply don't think he had the time to prey on hundreds of young girls, and besides, I don't doubt that in his way he loved Evelyn. We sat tentatively, and a little awkwardly, around Madeleinewe had no precedent for talking together in a serious wayas she told us that shed been seeing a psychoanalyst in France, and that she had told her shed been sexually fondled by our father at night when she was a child. The car was driven by a chauffeur, but Stanford was in the front seat, leaning forward as if to make the car go faster. '', ''Suzannah is talented,'' Claire White said. The architect/designer/artist genes are very strong in the White Family as well as the attraction to others in the arts. Early Life. How The Murder Of Stanford White Became The Trial Of The Century In combination with this charm in the Bowery Savings Bank, there was also the power of the neoclassical tradition, in which every aspect of the interiorthe sure proportions, the sensuous, well-chosen marble, the pilasters, the columnswas working toward the effect of the whole, an effect of strength and authority. Random acts of kindness, senseless acts of beauty. My father said that he never heard in actual life what he heard in his head. It was a stag event that took place in a friends studio, at which nearly nude young women served the winea blonde for the white and a brunette for the redand one jumped naked, or clad in gauze (the accounts differ), out of a pie, accompanied by canaries. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Suzannah interpreted the White family as she thinks she saw it. Later, when my mother said, Johnny threatened me with a gun, nobody paid any attention, as if the words were somehow unable to cut the air. It made me want to flee, but instead I pursued the dread, and it led me to an inchoate sense of another reality, encompassing the cloistered experiences of the Red Cottage.
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