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(February 26, 1849 - May 16, 1938 Edward Townsend Stotesbury was an American financier, industrialist, and society figure whose immense wealth and legendary estates epitomized the extravagance of the Gilded Age. He was born in Philadelphia on February 26, 1849, into a middle-class Quaker family and was educated at Friends' Central School. At seventeen he entered Drexel & Company as a clerk and quickly distinguished himself in the banking world. Rising through the ranks, he became a partner of the firm and later a senior partner of Drexel, Morgan & Company, working in close collaboration with J. P. Morgan. Morgan himself declared that Stotesbury "knew more about the banking business than any man in America." For decades he was one of the most powerful figures in finance, guiding the firm through vast mergers, industrial investments, and the consolidation of American railroads and corporations. Stotesbury married Frances Berman Butcher in the 1870s. Their first daughter, Helen Lewis Stotesbury, died in infancy in 1874. Frances died in childbirth on November 7, 1881, leaving him a widower with two young daughters. He did not remarry until more than thirty years later. Eva Roberts Cromwell Stotesbury On January 18, 1912, he wed Eva Roberts Cromwell, the widowed mother of Oliver Eaton Cromwell Jr., diplomat James H. R. Cromwell, and Louise Cromwell Brooks. Through this marriage he became stepfather to one of the most prominent families in American society. With Eva, he began a period of extraordinary building and display. Together they redecorated his Philadelphia townhouses and then commissioned three palatial estates that became symbols of their wealth and taste. Whitemarsh hall The most celebrated was  Whitemarsh Hall , outside Philadelphia, designed by Horace Trumbauer and completed between 1916 and 1921. Often called the "Versailles of America," the Georgian Revival mansion contained 147 rooms, 45 bathrooms, a theater, a barber shop, billiards room, nine elevators, and some of the finest collections of tapestries, porcelains, rugs, and paintings in the country. It cost over $8 million to build and furnish and required a staff of seventy, though it was only used for half the year. Architect Addison Mizner’s El Mirasol was built in 1919 and destroyed in 1959 In Palm Beach, they built  El Mirasol , a villa of vast scale, where they entertained hundreds of guests at a time. The 42-acre estate was entered off North County Road, which ran through the entire property. The eastern part was for the residence on the ocean and across the road to the west for gardens and pavilions. Another sprawling fantasy villa, it was always being expanded according to the Stotesburys’ whims. It also was the scene of magical parties and galas. The Stotesburys had El Mirasol as their winter residence Wingwood House In Bar Harbor they commissioned  Wingwood House , completed in 1927, another monumental summer residence. By 1927 Stotesbury's fortune was estimated at $100,000,000, making him one of the wealthiest men in America. But the Depression and his own prodigious spending drained his resources. Between 1933 and his death he withdrew over $55,000,000 from his Morgan accounts. At the time of his death in 1938, his estate was valued at only $4,000,000. Much of his fortune had been consumed by the enormous expense of maintaining his three palaces. Edward T. Stotesbury died at his home, Whitemarsh Hall, in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 1938, at the age of eighty-nine. He was buried in The Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia. His name remains associated with the grandeur and decline of the Gilded Age, a symbol of both the power of American finance and the transience of its fortunes. Whitemarsh hall was demolished in 1980. Below you will find a gallery on Whitemarsh Hall

(March 27, 1900 - September 14, 1985) Inventor, Socialite. Lydia O'Leary was born in Massachusetts into a large Irish-American family headed by Henry and Hannah O'Leary. From birth she bore a port-wine stain, a deep raspberry-colored birthmark that covered much of the left side of her face. What began as a limitation eventually became the catalyst for one of the most influential cosmetic inventions of the twentieth century. After attending high school she enrolled at Fitchburg Normal School for Teachers, graduating in 1921. She worked briefly as a teacher before moving to New York City, where she hoped to find opportunity in retail. Instead she was turned away by department-store interviewers who deemed her appearance "unsuitable" for public-facing work. In New York she found back-room work painting placards. It was here that she conceived the idea of a cosmetic preparation that could conceal her own birthmark as effectively as pigment could cover a painted flaw. She experimented with bases and colors until she produced a product that provided coverage yet moved flexibly with the skin. Lydia O'Leary without Covermark Her initial patent application was rejected, but she appealed, and in a dramatic demonstration before the examiners removed her makeup to reveal the birthmark they had not noticed. She then reapplied the product, proving its effectiveness beyond argument. In 1932 she was awarded U.S. Patent No. 1,877,952 for her "dermal cover preparation," which became the foundation of the Covermark brand. Lydia O'Leary with Covermark Through her company she introduced the world to corrective makeup, a category that bridged beauty and medicine. Dermatologists began recommending her products for patients with birthmarks, burns, vitiligo, and scars. During and after World War II she worked with plastic surgeons and dermatologists to help rehabilitate wounded soldiers, showing how pigment could restore confidence while physical healing continued. On June 14, 1949 she was interviewed on the national talk show We, the People about her pioneering work as a cosmetics entrepreneur. Her products became widely used, and by the latter half of the century many other companies had followed her lead. By the 1980s Covermark was marketing camouflage makeup to men and even to children who had never used cosmetics before, a reflection of how far her concept had spread. In 1945 she married James Reeves, who with his brother Daniel had built a successful grocery chain before selling to Safeway in 1941. The marriage ended with his death in 1957, but O'Leary continued to lead Covermark and was active in New York society. In 1954 Salvador Dalí painted her full-length portrait, later sold at Christie's and remembered by family as once displayed in the foyer of her Park Avenue home. She lived for many years at 740 Park Avenue, one of Manhattan's most prestigious addresses. In her later years O'Leary suffered a stroke that left her in fragile health, though she remained a respected figure in the world she had transformed. She died in 1985, leaving behind a company that endured through successors and international licensees and a legacy that redefined the purpose of cosmetics. Remembered as a pioneer, she transformed her own adversity into an invention that gave countless others the means to face the world with renewed confidence. Lydia was laid to rest in the O'Leary family plot in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

(February 5, 1897 – July 10, 1983) Socialite, fashion icon, philanthropist. The daughter of horse breeder and trainer Robert Strader and of Birdie Schockency Strader , was born in Louisville, Kentucky, Her parents were divorced in 1902 and she and her brother were then reared, in an atmosphere of chaos and sadness, by their paternal grandmother. Mona was beautiful even as a child and developed into a stunning woman. Mona as a child One of her father's clients, Henry J. Schlesinger (1879 – 1955), was 18 years older than she. His family was said to be the wealthiest in Wisconsin. He purchased Fairland Farm in Lexington in 1916 where her father bred and trained horses. On 24 January 1917, Mona married Henry Schlesinger. Her wedding gift from the groom was "a magnificent rope of pearls." After a honeymoon trip north, the young couple moved to Milwaukee where the Schlesinger family owned an iron and coke company. They took a home there and kept Fairland Farm for annual visits. The next year, they had a son, Robert, who would cause his mother much heartache as an adult. Henry Schlesinger While living in Milwaukee Mona met the very handsome James Irving Bush (1883 – 1961) of Racine, a stellar college athlete who was described as "the handsomest man in America." When his wife died in 1920, his relationship with Mona deepened and she divorced Schlesinger. Mona gave her husband custody of their son in exchange for a trust fund guaranteeing her between $30,000 and $50,000 per year, and she retook her maiden name. Mona moved to New York City soon followed by Bush who was in December of 1920 named Vice President of the Equitable Trust Company. In October of 1921 she married him at New York City's Central Presbyterian Church. He and Mona honeymooned in Havana then moved into their home at 300 Park Avenue. That marriage, too, was unhappy and it was said that her husband was an alcoholic. Mona divorced him in Paris 25 July 1925 (in 1931 Bush would marry Virginia Van Sant Alvord and in 1938 he married Ethel Post Dieterich). James Irving Bush Mona returned to New York City where in 1926 she opened a dress shop with a close friend, Laura Merriam Curtis, daughter of former Minnesota Governor William R. Merriam. Laura's fiancé had been Harrison Williams , supposedly the wealthiest man in America with a fortune of $600 million. Williams left his modest bicycle business in Ohio in 1903 and moved to New York City as part of a tire manufacturing venture with his brother-in-law. His first wife, Katherine Gordon Breed of Pittsburgh, whom he married in 1900, died in 1915. In 1906 he created a gas and electric company that eventually owned many public utilities in the United States and by 1909 he was included in the Social Register. In 1923 he financed a zoological expedition to the Galapagos Islands where a volcano was named in his honor. Three years later, along with Vincent Astor and Marshall Field, he financed William Beebe's expedition to the Sargasso Sea. On 2 July 1926, at Williams' apartment on Madison Avenue, Mona Strader Schlesinger Bush married Harrison Williams. She was 29 and he was 53. In 1924 Williams had purchased the Krupp-built Vanadis, the largest yacht afloat, originally built for New York financier C. K. G. Billings (who once gave a white-tie dinner party where each guest was seated on horseback and attended by a personal liveried footman). He renamed it the Warrior and he and Mona frequently sailed around the world entertaining lavishly. It was eventually sold to Barbara Hutton in 1939 and is now a floating hotel in Stockholm. One of her acquisitions during the cruise was a 98.6-carat deep blue Sri Lankan sapphire, It is known today as the Bismarck Sapphire Necklace . Harrison Williams Williams had for years leased J. P. Morgan's estate at Glen Cove, but in 1926 he and Mona purchased Oak Point, a beautiful estate on Long Island, and commissioned popular architects Delano and Aldrich to design for them a palatial mansion with a fifty feet by twenty-five feet drawing room. Separately there was a sports pavilion with a tennis court and a swimming pool that hydraulically converted to a dance floor. It all added up to what photographer and designer Cecil Beaton called, "a sumptuous country house." In 1928 they also acquired 1130 Fifth Avenue, a beautiful home built for diplomat Willard Straight and his wife, a daughter of multi-millionaire William C. Whitney, then purchased by Elbert Gary, president of U. S. Steel. There, Mona had an all-white drawing room designed by Syrie Maugham graced by a Sorine portrait of Mona above the mantel and a stunning view of Central Park. There was also an apartment in Paris and a home in Palm Beach with 600 feet of ocean frontage, redone top-to-bottom in white by Syrie Maugham. Mona became a constant attraction in the fashion magazines of the day. In 1936 she acquired a villa, Il Fortino, on the Isle of Capri with a stunning view of the Bay of Naples. Attached to the ocean by a private underground passage, Il Fortino boasted unequaled gardens nourished each day by a boatload of fresh water from the mainland. As one social observer wrote at the time, "The only reason the Harrison Williamses don't live like princes is that princes can't afford to live like the Harrison Williamses." Having survived the stock market crash and the succeeding Depression, the Williams were forced to make financial concessions. They sold their yacht in 1939, then sold both their Long Island estate (it was demolished in 1950) and their Palm Beach home. By 1942, they were occupying only two floors of their Fifth Avenue mansion and placed their eight cars in storage. They remained friendly with a pro-German set during the War and were suspected of pro-Nazi sentiments. Harrison Williams quietly worked to restore his fortune and, having accumulated $100 million, he died at Bayville, New York, on 10 November 1953 at the age of 80. He left $10 million to his sister, Zella, who outlived him by only six weeks. The remaining $90 million was left to Mona. In 1955 her son, Robert Schlesinger (who was described in contemporary news accounts as a "playboy"), fell in love with actress Linda Christian. Schlesinger began sending Linda very expensive jewelry eventually exceeding $132,500 in value. When his $100,000 check to Van Cleef & Arpels bounced, the jeweler sued Linda seeking return of the gifts. Mona's son was then indicted on eight counts of using his mother's name and reputation to swindle three prominent businessmen in an elaborate oil scheme. Schlesinger had even pretended in a telephone conversation to be his mother's official financial advisor as the noose began tightening around his neck. In the end, Robert Schlesinger didn't get the money or the girl. Linda Christian married British actor Edmund Purdom. Count Eddie von Bismarck On 7 January 1955, Mona Williams married in a private civil ceremony at the municipal court in Edgewater, New Jersey, Count Eddie von Bismarck (they would later have a religious ceremony in Rome on 14 February 1956). She was 57 and the groom was 51. At the time, he was thought to be suffering from terminal colon cancer. The count, formerly an interior decorator (his work included the Embassy Club of the Hotel Ambassador in New York City), began dealing privately in antiques. Mona must have been aware that he was homosexual, but they enjoyed a fifteen-year companionable marriage that worked well for both of them. In 1956 the von Bismarcks bought a home in a fashionable section of Paris and had it luxuriously decorated by Stephan Boudin who would later help Jackie Kennedy at the White House. They alternated between winters in Paris and spring and summers at Capri and both converted to Catholicism. For whatever its purposes, their marriage worked well until Count Eddie von Bismarck's death at Geneva on 16 October 1970. Mona and Umberto di Martini Perhaps Mona was not designed for life alone, for on 6 November 1971, she married in Geneva her late husband's doctor, Umberto di Martini. She was 74 and he was 60. Though he was multilingual (Mona spoke only English) Mona's friends were not pleased at her most recent husband. Through her old friend, Italy's exiled King Umberto II, Mona purchased a title for him and he was created Count Umberto di Martini on 10 January 1973. Even in their elegant French home Martini served simple pasta dishes with inexpensive wines. He dismissed her long-time employees and was alleged to keep her medicated. On 30 June 1979, Mona's last husband was killed when the sports car he was driving careened off a bridge near Naples and landed in the river below. Inevitably Mona's friends referred to the accident as "Martini on the rocks." His will made it evident that he had planned to outlive her and inherit her fortune. Having told her that he was opening a clinic, he had already pocketed $3 million in a Swiss bank account and made bequests to an embarrassing number of relatives of whom Mona was unaware. She quickly dropped his name and resumed calling herself "Countess Bismarck." Mona's old friend Cecil Beaton visited her at Capri and was shocked to find that all traces of her famous beauty had left her. "She is now suddenly a wreck. Her hair, once white and crisp and a foil to her aquamarine eyes, is now a little dried frizz, and she has painted a grotesque mask on the remains of what was once such a noble-hewn face, the lips enlarged like a clown, the eyebrows penciled with thick black grease paint, the flesh down to the pale lashes coated with turquoise… Oh, my heart broke for her." Mona spent her last years putting her affairs in order and making arrangements for various paintings to be disbursed to institutions of her choosing. On 10 July 1983, she died at her house in Paris. Of the $90 million she had inherited from Williams, approximately $25 million remained. She gave one million dollars to her wayward son and the balance, including the proceeds from the sale of Il Fortino as well as her famous jewels, established the Mona Bismarck Foundation still headquartered in her Paris home, the premier showcase for American art & culture in Paris. Mona 's body was returned to America, she was buried between her third and fourth husbands in Addition 1, Lot 3 of Locust Valley Cemetery , Locust Valley, New York.

(February 1, 1900 - December 18, 1993) Marion Barbara “Joe” Carstairs, the speedboat champion and eccentric heiress, often said she was “never a little girl.” Born on February 1, 1900, in London, she was the first child of American heiress, Frances Evelyn Bostwick. Frances Evelyn Bostwick Joe was the Grand daughter of Jabez Bostwick , a founding partner of Standard Oil. Her legal father was C aptain Albert Carstairs of the Royal Irish Rifles—though even Joe doubted his paternity, as he re-enlisted in the army just before her birth and quickly divorced her mother. Joe’s childhood was chaotic. Her mother struggled with addiction and cycled through lovers and husbands, the most memorable to Joe being Count Roger de Périgny . He treated Joe more like a friend than a stepdaughter, introducing her to speed, thrill, and racecars. By 16, she was behind the wheel of one of his modified racers. The marriage didn’t last, but her love of adrenaline did. Determined to escape her upbringing, Joe persuaded her grandmother, Nelly Bostwick whom she idolized to let her join the American Red Cross during World War I. Stationed in Paris, she drove ambulances and forged a new identity, spending her free time among artists and bohemians, including Dolly Wilde, niece of Oscar Wilde, who became Joe’s first great love. It was the start of a long and prolific romantic life. By her death, Joe had a photo album of 120 lovers, among them Marlene Dietrich , Greta Garbo, and Tallulah Bankhead . Joe behind the wheel Joe & Lord Tod Joe Carstairs When word of her relationships reached Evelyn, Joe was summoned home and threatened with disinheritance unless she married a man. In characteristic defiance, Joe wed a French aristocrat rumored to be her mother’s lover, secured her dowry, and parted ways with him immediately after the reception. With her inheritance, Joe pursued independence. She worked odd jobs, including running a chicken farm and a Bugatti showroom, before opening X-Garage, an all-women chauffeur service staffed by former ambulance drivers. The business thrived, attracting high-profile clients. Around this time, she fell in love with Ruth Baldwin , Catherine Ruth Baldwin a woman she reportedly loved above all others. For Christmas 1925, Ruth gave Joe a leather Steiff doll she named Lord Tod Wadley. Joe became inseparable from the doll, who would remain her constant companion for life, impeccably dressed in bespoke Savile Row suits and Italian shoes. Joe’s passion soon turned to speedboats. Joe Carstairs With her grandmother’s fortune, she commissioned a series of hydroplanes, beginning with Gwen , which famously flipped during testing and was rechristened Newg —“Gwen” spelled backward. In 1925, she earned the title “the fastest woman on water” after racing on the Thames. She went on to set records and rack up victories, ultimately competing for the prestigious Harmsworth Trophy in a custom-built black boat, Estelle II . Despite setbacks, crashes, and financial losses, Joe was undaunted. By 1930, she had set an American water-speed record, though she retired from racing soon after, joking, “You’d better get a good look at me, because I am not coming over again.” Whale Cay Facing tax troubles in the U.S. and Britain, Joe purchased Whale Cay, a Bahamian island. Enchanted by its beauty, she transformed it into her private kingdom, building roads, plantations, a lighthouse, a church, and homes for the island’s residents—provided they followed her strict rules. Joe on Whale Cay To her loyal subjects, Joe was generous; to those who crossed her, she was ruthless, banishing offenders. Whale Cay became legendary: Joe often donned a military uniform and false mustache to preside over her domain and thrilled visiting dignitaries, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Once, she staged a mock attack on her home to amuse guests. Another visitor recalled being greeted at gunpoint by the “short, stock-built dame” with “dull menace in her lovely orbs.” More of Joe At Whale Cay, 1. Aerial View. 2, Joe in the library. 3, Joe with the Duke & Duchess of Windsor. 4, Joe in the trophy room. 5 Joe With a bow & arrow. 6, Joe Relaxing by a palm tree smoking. When Whale Cay lost its charm, Joe moved to Miami and later Naples, Florida. She died in 1993 at age 93, with Lord Tod by her side. True to her wishes, the doll was cremated and buried with her and Ruth in Oakland Cemetery, Sag Harbor, New York.