2021-03-11 - New Jersey - Online - Grand Homes & Gardens Distinguished Speakers Series: HARBOR HILL & BEACON TOWERS: LONG ISLAND “GOLD COAST” MANSIONS AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED THEM

HARBOR HILL & BEACON TOWERS: LONG ISLAND “GOLD COAST” MANSIONS AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED THEM

Thursday, March 11, 6:30 p.m

Gary Lawrance, Architectural Historian and Lecturer

Join us on a trip to the “Gold Coast” of 1920’s Long Island to meet Katherine Duer, wife of Silver heir Clarence Mackay and her fabulous over 60 room Harbor Hill mansion once located at Roslyn. Mrs. Mackay not only managed the home when completed, but also oversaw the planning with “Gilded Age”, architect Stanford White and during Harbor Hill’s construction. We will also meet Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. Known as a force to be reckoned with, Alva Erskin Smith first married a Vanderbilt and built one of the most dazzling mansions on New York’s Fifth Avenue, then the equally splendid summer cottage, “Marble House” at Newport, Rhode Island. With her second husband Oliver Hazard Belmont she enlarged his Newport mansion and then a home at East Meadow, Long Island. After his passing Mrs. Belmont built a Castle on the Long Island Sound at Sands Point, Long Island, that many believe was used by Author F. Scott Fitzgerald as the inspiration for the magnificent mansion of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. It was at this house that Mrs. Belmont held suffragist women’s events and reigned over her version of a Scottish Castle. The evening will also provide a brief look at other estates and an aerial tour, circa 1926, to give an idea of the extensiveness of the great estates that were once world-famous as the land of elegance, splendor and lavishness.

About this Event

$25; $18 Friend of Morven; Series: $75; $50 Friend of Morven

We are delighted to build on Morven’s popular Grand Homes & Gardens Distinguished Speakers Series with another stellar lineup for 2021. Join us in armchair travel with “The Woman of the House” as this year’s theme.

The programs will be all-virtual this year. Each specifically tailored to the Morven audience with added surprises with each talk. This year’s illustrated lecture series will again brighten up the winter doldrums with its finale set for the first week of spring.