“Cathedral américaine de Paris” (ca. 1900) by Jean Béraud (1849-1935)
Larz and Isabel Anderson loved visiting Paris and often spent a few weeks at a time there on their way to and from other destinations. When they were in Paris, they attended services at what is known popularly as the American Cathedral in Paris.
The American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, as it is known officially today, is the Episcopalian church in Paris where Larz was baptized in 1866, where he attended Sunday school in the 1870s, and where he attended services with his godmother, Mrs. Evans, in the 1890s and early 1900s (Mrs. Evans died in 1914). When Larz was baptized in 1866, the Church of the Holy Trinity was located on the rue Bayard. It was that church building that Larz visited as a child and where he attended Sunday school. In visits to Paris during his adult life, Larz attended church services in the new church built in 1886 on avenue George V (then called the avenue d’Alma). In 1922, the church became a cathedral. In addition to serving as a parish church for Americans in Paris, it is the seat of the bishop in charge of Episcopal Churches in Europe.
On a visit to Paris in 1932, Larz fondly recalled the time spent in his youth and young adulthood at Holy Trinity:
“So I walked down to the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity where I used to go as a boy to Sunday school, and went in to see the pew where we used to sit, and the pew of my Godmother Evans, where I.A. [Isabel] and I had sat one day and in the pew rack had found a book with my name in it that had been there for years.”
The cathedral is a magnificent example of Gothic Revival architecture in the heart of Paris. Béraud’s magnificent painting captures all the elegance and style of the American community in Paris at the turn of the last century.
It’s not hard to understand why Larz so loved being an American in Paris!
The spire of the American Cathedral in Paris, seen from
the rue Marbeuf, the street where Larz Anderson was
born on August 15, 1866.
Illustrations “Cathedral américaine de Paris” (ca. 1900) by Jean Béraud (1849-1935). Musée Carnavalet, Paris
“Open the Door of Your Heart”
from Isabel Anderson’s operetta Marina (1932)
Words and music by Grace Warner Gulesian
Performed by Antoine Palloc (Paris, France)
[Sheet music for “Open the Door of Your Heart” is linked below.]
Open the door of your heart dear, For love stands waiting outside. Pray leave the portals ajar dear, Love will come in and abide. Love will come back to the home nest. Love will be love as of old. Open your heart and let love rest. Love that will never grow old. Ah! Ah! Waiting a kind word from you. Ah! Ah! Love will forever be true. Deep in your eyes Love is reading Hope that will never depart. Though you delay, Love finds a way,
My copy of Presidents and Pies, by Isabel Anderson (1920)
While I was writing my biography of Larz and Isabel Anderson, I discovered hundreds of “rabbit holes” that, had I decided to go down into, could have added years to the time it took to write it. (Rabbit holes have been described by one New Yorker writer as something that we pursue “to the point of distraction—usually by accident, and usually to a degree that the subject in question might not seem to merit.”) But these rabbit hole stories continue to intrigue me, and now that the book has been published, I’ve had more time to go back and explore some of them.
One of my favorite rabbit holes comes from my own copy of Presidents and Pies, which includes both an inscription (“For Mrs. Post with best wishes, Isabel Anderson”) and a bookplate (Annie Edgerly Thayer):
It was easy to identify Annie Edgerly Thayer (1870-1957; more on Mrs. Thayer below), but “Mrs. Post” was a bit more elusive. Post is hardly an uncommon name in the history of American elites. I eventually found Mrs. Post in the first place I should have looked: the index to Isabel’s compilation of her husband’s papers, Letters and Journals of a Diplomat. I was thus able to identify Mrs. Anne Maxwell Post (1866-1942); trace the course of her life; and find a connection between the two women who had owned the same book.
Mrs. Post was born Anne Maxwell Pultz in New York City in 1866, and grew up in a house at 529 Madison Avenue that the family continued to occupy at least into the 1910s. The family travelled to England in 1886 when Anne was 20 years old and returned to the U.S. in 1888. She eventually returned to England, where she married Major James Clarence Post (1844-1896; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) in London on April 21, 1892. Major Post was Military Attaché to the United States Legation at London from July 3, 1889 to December 23, 1893. Larz Anderson was Second Secretary of the American Legation in London starting in August 1891, and this is without doubt how the Andersons and the Posts came to know each other. Mystery solved!
Major J.C. Post, probably at the time of his posting to London
The Posts’ marriage was to be tragically short. Major Post died less than four years after their marriage, on January 6, 1896. Their son, Clarence Ely Post, was only a week old at the time of his father’s death. As if that was not enough of a loss for the young widow and mother, Clarence died three years later in July 1899, in Narragansett Pier, R.I., while Mrs. Post was vacationing at the seaside town.
After the death of her husband and son, Mrs. Post continued to live at 529 Madison Avenue with her parents and brother, John Leggett Pultz (1877-1939), with whom she travelled abroad for two years beginning around 1902.
In 1920, the year that Presidents and Pies was published, Mrs. Post was still living with her mother Helen in New York City, though they had moved from Madison Avenue to 23 East 65th Street, a few blocks away. Her occupation was listed in that year’s census as “Objects of Art/Own Account,” suggesting that she may have had some connection to the art world.
By the early 1930s, Mrs. Post had left New York, perhaps because the stock market crash in 1929 had wiped out whatever assets she and her mother had. She moved to Boston, where she lived with two other women in an apartment at 78 Charles Street, near the Boston Public Garden. Rent was $105 a month; her co-tenants, a school librarian and a manager at the telephone company. Though there is no documentation, it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Post and Isabel Anderson would not have kept in touch during these years in Boston. Mrs. Post did not have anything approaching a life of luxury: she worked in an insurance office at 100 Milk Street to supplement her husband’s small military pension (which had been granted to her by Congress in 1914). She stopped working in 1941 at the age of 75, and died a year later. She is buried with her husband and son in West Point Cemetery.
Mrs. Thayer’s Library
Mrs. Post’s copy of Presidents and Pies eventually ended up in the library of Mrs. Thayer’s home, Thayercrest, in Farmington, NH, located, like Isabel’s New Hampshire retreat, at the southern end of the Granite State. Built in 1915, Thayercrest’s house and grounds have been preserved in what was essentially their original condition.
So, how did Mrs. Post’s copy of Isabel’s book end up in Mrs. Thayer’s library? We’ll never know for certain, but Mrs. Post and Mrs. Thayer were, like Isabel, both members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mrs. Thayer’s Revolutionary War ancestor was from Massachusetts, and it seems extremely likely that the three women would have met at DAR events in the Bay State.
And how did this copy end up in my library? In 2014, Thayercrest was put on the market by Mrs. Thayer’s descendants. The furnishings and contents of the house most likely had to be weeded through so that the house could be staged for sale. Old books are always the first to go when a house is on the market.
I purchased my copy of Presidents and Pies in 2014 from a used bookseller in Maine. Thayercrest is 20 miles from the Maine state line.
«« ♦ »»
Mrs. Isabel Anderson, 1920, the year she gave a copy of her book to Mrs. Post
There were hundreds if not thousands of similarly complex and interesting friendships in Larz and Isabel Anderson’s lives. What’s remarkable about her friendship with Anne Maxwell Post was that even before Isabel gave her the book, Mrs. Post was already living in straightened circumstances. A New York socialite once listed in that city’s Social Register finished out her life living with two other working women on the edge of Boston’s Public Garden, but this surely meant nothing to Isabel. She continued to express her friendship for Mrs. Post by the gift of a book, and likely many other small kindnesses, and once again showed us her humanity and gave us yet another reason to never forget her.
My copy of Presidents and Pies, by Isabel Anderson (1920)
While I was writing my biography of Larz and Isabel Anderson, I discovered hundreds of “rabbit holes” that, had I decided to go down into, could have added years to the time it took to write it. (Rabbit holes have been described by one New Yorker writer as something that we pursue “to the point of distraction—usually by accident, and usually to a degree that the subject in question might not seem to merit.”) But these rabbit hole stories continue to intrigue me, and now that the book has been published, I’ve had more time to go back and explore some of them.
One of my favorite rabbit holes comes from my own copy of Presidents and Pies, which includes both an inscription (“For Mrs. Post with best wishes, Isabel Anderson”) and a bookplate (Annie Edgerly Thayer):
It was easy to identify Annie Edgerly Thayer (1870-1957; more on Mrs. Thayer below), but “Mrs. Post” was a bit more elusive. Post is hardly an uncommon name in the history of American elites. I eventually found Mrs. Post in the first place I should have looked: the index to Isabel’s compilation of her husband’s papers, Letters and Journals of a Diplomat. I was thus able to identify Mrs. Anne Maxwell Post (1866-1942); trace the course of her life; and find a connection between the two women who had owned the same book.
Mrs. Post was born Anne Maxwell Pultz in New York City in 1866, and grew up in a house at 529 Madison Avenue that the family continued to occupy at least into the 1910s. The family travelled to England in 1886 when Anne was 20 years old and returned to the U.S. in 1888. She eventually returned to England, where she married Major James Clarence Post (1844-1896; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) in London on April 21, 1892. Major Post was Military Attaché to the United States Legation at London from July 3, 1889 to December 23, 1893. Larz Anderson was Second Secretary of the American Legation in London starting in August 1891, and this is without doubt how the Andersons and the Posts came to know each other. Mystery solved!
Major J.C. Post, probably at the time of his posting to London
The Posts’ marriage was to be tragically short. Major Post died less than four years after their marriage, on January 6, 1896. Their son, Clarence Ely Post, was only a week old at the time of his father’s death. As if that was not enough of a loss for the young widow and mother, Clarence died three years later in July 1899, in Narragansett Pier, R.I., while Mrs. Post was vacationing at the seaside town.
After the death of her husband and son, Mrs. Post continued to live at 529 Madison Avenue with her parents and brother, John Leggett Pultz (1877-1939), with whom she travelled abroad for two years beginning around 1902.
In 1920, the year that Presidents and Pies was published, Mrs. Post was still living with her mother Helen in New York City, though they had moved from Madison Avenue to 23 East 65th Street, a few blocks away. Her occupation was listed in that year’s census as “Objects of Art/Own Account,” suggesting that she may have had some connection to the art world.
By the early 1930s, Mrs. Post had left New York, perhaps because the stock market crash in 1929 had wiped out whatever assets she and her mother had. She moved to Boston, where she lived with two other women in an apartment at 78 Charles Street, near the Boston Public Garden. Rent was $105 a month; her co-tenants, a school librarian and a manager at the telephone company. Though there is no documentation, it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Post and Isabel Anderson would not have kept in touch during these years in Boston. Mrs. Post did not have anything approaching a life of luxury: she worked in an insurance office at 100 Milk Street to supplement her husband’s small military pension (which had been granted to her by Congress in 1914). She stopped working in 1941 at the age of 75, and died a year later. She is buried with her husband and son in West Point Cemetery.
Mrs. Thayer’s Library
Mrs. Post’s copy of Presidents and Pies eventually ended up in the library of Mrs. Thayer’s home, Thayercrest, in Farmington, NH, located, like Isabel’s New Hampshire retreat, at the southern end of the Granite State. Built in 1915, Thayercrest’s house and grounds have been preserved in what was essentially their original condition.
So, how did Mrs. Post’s copy of Isabel’s book end up in Mrs. Thayer’s library? We’ll never know for certain, but Mrs. Post and Mrs. Thayer were, like Isabel, both members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mrs. Thayer’s Revolutionary War ancestor was from Massachusetts, and it seems extremely likely that the three women would have met at DAR events in the Bay State.
And how did this copy end up in my library? In 2014, Thayercrest was put on the market by Mrs. Thayer’s descendants. The furnishings and contents of the house most likely had to be weeded through so that the house could be staged for sale. Old books are always the first to go when a house is on the market.
I purchased my copy of Presidents and Pies in 2014 from a used bookseller in Maine. Thayercrest is 20 miles from the Maine state line.
«« ♦ »»
Mrs. Isabel Anderson, 1920, the year she gave a copy of her book to Mrs. Post
There were hundreds if not thousands of similarly complex and interesting friendships in Larz and Isabel Anderson’s lives. What’s remarkable about her friendship with Anne Maxwell Post was that even before Isabel gave her the book, Mrs. Post was already living in straightened circumstances. A New York socialite once listed in that city’s Social Register finished out her life living with two other working women on the edge of Boston’s Public Garden, but this surely meant nothing to Isabel. She continued to express her friendship for Mrs. Post by the gift of a book, and likely many other small kindnesses, and once again showed us her humanity and gave us yet another reason to never forget her.
Larz Anderson was a collector of many things, including several dozen fine old motor cars – from an 1899 Winton Phaeton that he named ‘Pioneer’ (motto: It Will Go!) to a 1926 Lincoln Seven Limousine, ‘The Emancipator’ (motto: Son Courage Fait sa Force/His Courage is his Might). Larz was, however, as avid a collector of horse-drawn carriages as he was of horseless carriages. The attic of the Andersons’ Gilded Age carriage house, built by one of Isabel’s cousins in 1887-88, is packed full of not just Larz’s carriages, but spare parts and wheels for them, and even a Japanese jinrikisha (人力車) that he acquired in Japan for his collection.
On a visit to Cuba, the Andersons took a memorable carriage ride to visit the caves at Bellamar. Isabel described the journey in her book Presidents and Pies (1920):
“The carriages — called volantes, a sort of clumsy chaise with enormous wheels and shafts fourteen feet long — were exceedingly comfortable. They were drawn by two horses hitched tandem with a postilion sitting on the second one. I recall a particularly pleasant ride to Ballamar, a beautiful cave with galleries running for a distance of nearly three miles, and great pillared halls and endless narrow passages with wonderful crystals.”
Photos: At the Larz Anderson Automobile Museum, Brookline by Skip Moskey
Ambassador and Mrs. Larz Anderson, 1924, by Philip de László. The Andersons were among Washington’s most glamorous couples. Everything about them was glamorous: their homes, their clothing, their art, and their style. (Photo by Skip Moskey.)
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I reviewed the relationship between the architectural form and intended social function of Washington, DC’s Anderson House, which from 1905 until around 1930 was the winter party palace of Larz and Isabel Anderson. It was a house that was planned, first, to make sure that all who saw or visited it understood that its owners were powerful people of good taste; and second, to entertain select individuals drawn from Washington’s elite society at teas, dinners, cocktail parties, and musical performance. The house was designed to move guests through an ever-changing interior “landscape” of spaces, rooms, views, and experiences that enhanced the social and gastronomic elements of an evening dinner party or late-night musicale. Now, Part 2 of this series on “The Genius of Anderson House” shows how that relationship between form and function played out at one particularly glamorous dinner party that the Andersons gave on Friday, May 30, 1917.
A Dinner Party for Italian Royalty
His Royal Highness The Prince of Udine was to be the guest of honor at this evening’s dinner party. A cousin of Italy’s reigning monarch, King Victor Emmanuel III, the prince was one of the most important visitors to the nation’s capital during the 1917 social season. World War I was raging in Europe and the presence of an Italian royal at the Andersons’ dinner table had both political and social import. Twenty years earlier Larz Anderson had served as first secretary at the American Embassy in Rome. He would have been very pleased indeed if any of his guests speculated idly among themselves that he was in some way involved in the conduct of the war – in a behind-the-scenes kind of way, of course.
By 7:45 p.m., more than two-dozen servants stood ready to attend to the needs of the thirty very select guests who had been invited to what was without doubt the most important event of Washington’s winter social season that year, in the loveliest of Washington’s great houses. The guests would begin arriving as if on cue at 8:00 p.m., and the servants were tasked with getting the guests up to the second floor of the mansion as efficiently as possible. The hosts, the celebrity guests, and cocktails were waiting above!
The entry way in the forecourt of Anderson House. Guests arriving here were protected from winter winds, overhead precipitation, and the eyes of the general public. (Photo by Skip Moskey.)
One by one, elegant horse-drawn carriages pulled up to the mansion’s front door, situated in an elegant forecourt that provided protection from prying eyes on the sidewalk. As the guests alighted from their carriages, footmen helped them to the front door, where they were greeted by the Andersons’ butler. Larz and Isabel may have been host and hostess for this evening, but the Butler was in charge!
The ground floor of Anderson House as designed by the firm of Little & Browne of Boston (1905). The Andersons later made some structural changes to the original plan. (Drawing by Harry I. Martin III, AIA. Copyright (c) 2015-2016 by Stephen T. Moskey. All rights reserved.)
As guests arrived, they were ushered through the mansion’s broad paneled door into the Entrance Hall. There, they came face-to-face with a giant statue of the Buddha that was flanked by bronze Japanese temple lanterns. If you did not know anything about the Andersons before this moment, you now at least knew they had exotic “Oriental” interests and tastes.
The front vestibule of Anderson House in 1910. The entry hall was intended to immediately convey to visitors that the Andersons were collectors with exotic tastes. (Source: France Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House)
The guests did not linger long in the entry way. They were immediately whisked away to the right through a room called The Choir Stall Room, with old Italian church paneling installed around the walls. But the choir stalls were not the highlight of the room. The visitors’ eyes were drawn from the dark sombre walnut panels below to the bright, colorful ceiling above, decorated with dozens of medallions, coats of arms, emblems, and cartouches. I always think of this as Larz’s “bragging room,” where he could show off the couple’s academic degrees, memberships in academic and patriotic organizations, awards, and decorations. Though the meaning of these medallions and cartouches might be a bit vague for modern visitors, in 1917 their significance would have been immediately apparent to anyone from Washington’s elite social class.
Part of the ceiling and frieze of the Choir Stall Room of Anderson House, where Larz made sure visitors knew he was an important and highly-decorated man. (Photo by Bruce Guthrie. Used with permission.)
Once they passed through the Choir Stall Room, guests arrived in the Grand Staircase Hall, where maids would help the ladies with their coats, and footmen would help the gentlemen with their hats and walking sticks. The arched doorway in the far left corner led to a ladies lounge, and the one on the right, to a gentleman’s lounge one level below, under the grand hall. Once they were ready, guests were escorted up the grand staircase, to begin the evening’s festivities.
The Grand Staircase Hall, Anderson House, 1910. (Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House)
As guests ascended the grand stairway, they could contemplate the pomp and circumstance depicted in a billboard-sized painting in the stairway: The Triumph of the Dogaressa of Venice by Spanish artist Jose Villegas y Cordero. It is said that Larz felt that this painting would set the mood for an event that his guests would soon experience on the piano nobile, or “noble floor,” of Anderson House.
The Grand Stairway of Anderson House, designed specifically to display “The Triumph of the Dogaressa” by Spanish artist Jose Villegas y Cordero (1882). (Photo (c) by Bruce Guthrie. Used by permission.)
At the top of the stairs, guests entered a reception area the Andersons sometimes called the Cincinnati Room, a reference to the murals depicting both the founding of the Society of the Cincinnati and the early history of the city of Cincinnati. (The Andersons also sometimes called it the Key Room, as it is now known—a reference to the meander, or Greek key, design of the marble floor.) This was the anteroom to the rest of the piano nobile.
The piano nobile (second floor) of Anderson House, as designed by Little and Browne of Boston (1905). (Drawing by Harry I. Martin III, AIA. Copyright (c) 2015-2016 by Stephen T. Moskey. All rights reserved.)
The Andersons, the prince, and the count and countess greeted each guest as they were announced at the top of the staircase. Introductions and brief polite conversation ensued, but only briefly. There were many guests to be processed through these arrival rituals, and cocktails were waiting!
The Cincinnati Room of Anderson House, the “gateway” to the piano nobile where most of an evening’s socializing and entertaining took place. This panel shows an allegorical representation of the founding of The Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. The two central figures are George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. (Photo (c) by Bruce Guthrie. Used by permission.)
After passing through the Cincinnati Room, guests gathered in two adjoining drawing rooms, one in French style and one in English style. Cocktails and conversation were the order of the evening in these two elegant rooms. Once everyone had arrived, Larz and Isabel and their honored guests joined the others in these rooms. The Andersons were delightful hosts who mingled with their guests and made sure everyone had a cocktail.
The English Drawing Room in Anderson House, 1910. (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House) The fireplace in the French Drawing Room of Anderson House, 2017. (Photo by Skip Moskey.)
Around nine o’clock, after a few rounds of cocktails, guests assembled in order of social precedence that Isabel had carefully spelled out in a “dinner chart” she created for the dinner. Using the chart as his guide, the butler paired each gentleman with a lady for the procession down the long gallery that led to the dining room on the other side of the house. The gallery, filled chockablock with mementos of Anderson travels, gave silent testimony to the magnificence of the hosts’ lives.
The Gallery of Anderson House, 1910. Dinner guests processed down this long hallway, with ample time to view and admire the Andersons’ eclectic collection of European and Asian art and collectibles. (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House) The Gallery as it appeared in 2013, a shadow of its former self. Many pieces of the Andersons’ collections were consigned to auctions more than twenty years ago. The crystal chandeliers are a modern addition. (Photo (C) by Bruce Guthrie. Used by permission.)
The french-walnut-paneled dining room, adorned with priceless Belgian tapestries commissioned by the French King Louis VIII as a gift to the pope’s emissary, Cardinal Barberini, was a cosy and elegant setting for the dinner. Isabel believed in giving “modern” dinner parties with fewer than 15 couples, and often only 10 or 11. (In contrast, dinner parties in the late 19th century, were given for as many as 100 or more people!)
The Dining Room of Anderson House, Washington, DC, during the Andersons’ lifetime (1910). (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Library of Congress)
Unfortunately, there are very few examples of Anderson menus. The guest lists and seating charts were saved, but not a record of what was served.
A rare example of an Anderson House luncheon menu, 1931. Though the menu is written in French, it was essentially a simple meal of sauteed chicken, parslied fried potatoes, salads and vegetables, and chocolate eclairs and fruit for dessert. (Anderson Collection, Society of the Cincinnati)
After dinner, the guests descended the mansion’s famous “floating staircase” into the vast room below that had been designed for entertainment and relaxation. Many more guests had been invited to arrive after dinner to meet the prince and his entourage. Coffee, cigarettes, and cordials added to the late evening’s conviviality. Isabel’s choice of performers and programs at her after-dinner entertainments favored European musical traditions. One evening, Mademoiselle Germaine Arnaud, a French-born British pianist and vocalist, accompanied by the Irish pianist, composer, and conductor Sir Hamilton Harty, sang a selection of pieces by Bach, Chopin, and Saint-Saëns. On another evening, Miss Marie Hall, an internationally acclaimed English violinist, performed a program of Polish, French, and Italian music.
The “floating stairway” that leads from the dining room of Anderson House to the room that the Andersons called the “Saloon.” (Photo by Skip Moskey) The Saloon of Anderson House, shown as the Andersons furnished it: as a large living room for entertaining guests after dinner, with cordials, cigarettes, conversation, and music. 1910. The floating stairway is visible on the left. (Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House)
The next morning, the Washington Post called the Anderson dinner party for the Italian VIPs “a particularly interesting function” because of Larz’s diplomatic past. Larz’s publicist made sure the reporter did not forget other details of his biography. The brief article reminded readers that Larz had married into Boston wealth, had been part of the Taft administration, and had been decorated by the Italian king.
Anderson parties always made good copy.
Cover photo (c) by Bruce M. White. Used with Mr. White’s kind permission.
To learn more about Larz and Isabel Anderson and their fascinating Gilded Age lifestyle, please read Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age by Stephen T. Moskey, available on Amazon Prime and from your local bookseller.
Portions of this blog are excerpted from Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age by Stephen T. Moskey (iUniverse 2016). This blog and its content are Copyright (c) 2016-2018 by Stephen T. Moskey. All rights reserved.
Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931) was a wealthy Washington socialite who was not just a patron of the arts, but also an accomplished artist herself. She did not fit, nor did she want to fit, any stereotype. She once described life in Washington as “small talk and lots to eat, an infinite series of teas and dinner.” When she entertained, she did so her way.
In the winter of 1909, Larz and Isabel went to a late evening theatrical performance at Alice’s home, Studio House, at 2306 Massachusetts Avenue, two blocks from Anderson House. Designed by Waddy B. Wood in what has been called a “whimsical Spanish” style, the 1902 house is on the National Register of Historic Places. Larz, who had a vast knowledge of architecture and decorative arts, considered the house “queer” and “weird.” He wrote:
The house is queer, with low ceilings. It is called Spanish, and had dim lights hung about. We groped around, unable to recognize anyone, and watched people running into mirrors. Musty tapestries hung on the walls. The house I am sure is never dusted and smells as if it were never aired. Incense curled about you, and half-dressed ladies looked down at you from the walls, and weird, indistinct sketches of wild-eyed people peered at you. The tableaux were well done by pretty society girls. They were called song tableaux, and were very artistic and well worth seeing.
Although he didn’t like Alice’s gloomy interior decoration, Larz enjoyed seeing the “pretty society girls.” Studio House is now the Latvian Embassy.
Alice Pike Barney is one of the many Gilded Age celebrities who make appearances in the pages of the first-ever full-length biography of one of that era’s most fabulous couples – Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age by Stephen T. Moskey.
Illustrations Alice Pike Barney Studio House (Embassy of Latvia)(Top) Theater Room, Smithsonian Institution Archives (Neg. no. 92-3532) (Bottom) Exterior View, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (Cat. LOT 12526)
(Left) Woodcarving Detail, Theater Room, Photo by Skip Moskey
In 1877, when Larz Anderson was 11 years old, his parents moved the family from Cincinnati to Paris, where they lived in an apartment at No. 5 rue d’Antin, a block from the Seine river. The beautiful limestone town house (hôtel particulier in French) is still standing, though the address is now No. 5 avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 1870s were years of rapid growth and transformation of the city after the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871. It was an exciting time for an inquisitive boy like Larz to take walks in the city, and his lifelong interest in neoclassical Beaux-Arts architecture and gardens may have been in part inspired by what he saw on those walks.
In Paris, Larz studied with a private tutor. He also found many ways to enjoy the city. He walked to the little pond in the Tuileries Garden to sail his toy boat. Years later he wrote in his journal that during that year in Paris, he “returned to the Champs Élysées again and again to view Punch and Judy at their eternal quarrel.” Les Guignols, as they are known in French, are a traditional form of street entertainment in France and elsewhere. The 1963 movie Charade starting Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant includes a famous scene shot in the same Jardin des Champs-Élysées where Larz attended Punch and Judy shows in the 1870s.
(The YouTube clip is misidentified as Luxembourg Garden in its title. The scene was indeed shot in the Champs-Élysées Garden.)
Illustrations No. 5 avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, Paris Photo Copyright (c) 2013 by Skip Moskey (Digimarc® Guardian for Images)
Les Guignols, scene from Charade (1963) Courtesy of YouTube.com
My copy of Presidents and Pies, by Isabel Anderson (1920)
While I was writing my biography of Larz and Isabel Anderson, I discovered hundreds of “rabbit holes” that, had I decided to go down into, could have added years to the time it took to write it. (Rabbit holes have been described by one New Yorker writer as something that we pursue “to the point of distraction—usually by accident, and usually to a degree that the subject in question might not seem to merit.”) But these rabbit hole stories continue to intrigue me, and now that the book has been published, I’ve had more time to go back and explore some of them.
One of my favorite rabbit holes comes from my own copy of Presidents and Pies, which includes both an inscription (“For Mrs. Post with best wishes, Isabel Anderson”) and a bookplate (Annie Edgerly Thayer):
It was easy to identify Annie Edgerly Thayer (1870-1957; more on Mrs. Thayer below), but “Mrs. Post” was a bit more elusive. Post is hardly an uncommon name in the history of American elites. I eventually found Mrs. Post in the first place I should have looked: the index to Isabel’s compilation of her husband’s papers, Letters and Journals of a Diplomat. I was thus able to identify Mrs. Anne Maxwell Post (1866-1942); trace the course of her life; and find a connection between the two women who had owned the same book.
Mrs. Post was born Anne Maxwell Pultz in New York City in 1866, and grew up in a house at 529 Madison Avenue that the family continued to occupy at least into the 1910s. The family travelled to England in 1886 when Anne was 20 years old and returned to the U.S. in 1888. She eventually returned to England, where she married Major James Clarence Post (1844-1896; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) in London on April 21, 1892. Major Post was Military Attaché to the United States Legation at London from July 3, 1889 to December 23, 1893. Larz Anderson was Second Secretary of the American Legation in London starting in August 1891, and this is without doubt how the Andersons and the Posts came to know each other. Mystery solved!
Major J.C. Post, probably at the time of his posting to London
The Posts’ marriage was to be tragically short. Major Post died less than four years after their marriage, on January 6, 1896. Their son, Clarence Ely Post, was only a week old at the time of his father’s death. As if that was not enough of a loss for the young widow and mother, Clarence died three years later in July 1899, in Narragansett Pier, R.I., while Mrs. Post was vacationing at the seaside town.
After the death of her husband and son, Mrs. Post continued to live at 529 Madison Avenue with her parents and brother, John Leggett Pultz (1877-1939), with whom she travelled abroad for two years beginning around 1902.
In 1920, the year that Presidents and Pies was published, Mrs. Post was still living with her mother Helen in New York City, though they had moved from Madison Avenue to 23 East 65th Street, a few blocks away. Her occupation was listed in that year’s census as “Objects of Art/Own Account,” suggesting that she may have had some connection to the art world.
By the early 1930s, Mrs. Post had left New York, perhaps because the stock market crash in 1929 had wiped out whatever assets she and her mother had. She moved to Boston, where she lived with two other women in an apartment at 78 Charles Street, near the Boston Public Garden. Rent was $105 a month; her co-tenants, a school librarian and a manager at the telephone company. Though there is no documentation, it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Post and Isabel Anderson would not have kept in touch during these years in Boston. Mrs. Post did not have anything approaching a life of luxury: she worked in an insurance office at 100 Milk Street to supplement her husband’s small military pension (which had been granted to her by Congress in 1914). She stopped working in 1941 at the age of 75, and died a year later. She is buried with her husband and son in West Point Cemetery.
Mrs. Thayer’s Library
Mrs. Post’s copy of Presidents and Pies eventually ended up in the library of Mrs. Thayer’s home, Thayercrest, in Farmington, NH, located, like Isabel’s New Hampshire retreat, at the southern end of the Granite State. Built in 1915, Thayercrest’s house and grounds have been preserved in what was essentially their original condition.
So, how did Mrs. Post’s copy of Isabel’s book end up in Mrs. Thayer’s library? We’ll never know for certain, but Mrs. Post and Mrs. Thayer were, like Isabel, both members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mrs. Thayer’s Revolutionary War ancestor was from Massachusetts, and it seems extremely likely that the three women would have met at DAR events in the Bay State.
And how did this copy end up in my library? In 2014, Thayercrest was put on the market by Mrs. Thayer’s descendants. The furnishings and contents of the house most likely had to be weeded through so that the house could be staged for sale. Old books are always the first to go when a house is on the market.
I purchased my copy of Presidents and Pies in 2014 from a used bookseller in Maine. Thayercrest is 20 miles from the Maine state line.
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Mrs. Isabel Anderson, 1920, the year she gave a copy of her book to Mrs. Post
There were hundreds if not thousands of similarly complex and interesting friendships in Larz and Isabel Anderson’s lives. What’s remarkable about her friendship with Anne Maxwell Post was that even before Isabel gave her the book, Mrs. Post was already living in straightened circumstances. A New York socialite once listed in that city’s Social Register finished out her life living with two other working women on the edge of Boston’s Public Garden, but this surely meant nothing to Isabel. She continued to express her friendship for Mrs. Post by the gift of a book, and likely many other small kindnesses, and once again showed us her humanity and gave us yet another reason to never forget her.
One of the Gilded Age’s most celebrated personalities was Isabella Stewart Gardner, known affectionately during her lifetime by friends and strangers alike as “Mrs. Jack.” Isabella and her husband John L. “Jack” Gardner make several appearances in the new biography, Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age. The connections between the Gardner and Anderson families ran deep. Jack was a Harvard classmate of Nicholas “Nick” Longworth Anderson, Larz’s father. In 1865, the Gardners travelled from Boston to Cincinnati to attend Nick’s wedding to Elizabeth Kilgour, Larz’s mother. When the Gardners spent the winter of 1895 in Rome, they were frequents guests of Elizabeth Anderson at her Roman villa.
Larz and Isabel had their own friendship with the Gardners, who had a summer home, “Green Hill,” in Brookline, Massachusetts, near the Anderson estate. The two estates shared many common features, including extensive greenhouses, formal gardens, and collections of Japanese bonsai. In the early 1900s, Mrs. Jack agreed to help with a fundraising event, the “Persian Pageant,” which was to be held on the Anderson estate to benefit a local hospital. Things did not turn out exactly as planned, even though Mrs. Jack made a spectacular entrance wearing all of her famous jewelry. You can read the full story in Larz and Isabel Anderson: Wealth and Celebrity in the Gilded Age (pages 86-87).
Isabella’s famous 1888 portrait by John Singer Sargent is in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It rarely leaves the museum, but in 2015 was exhibited at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in its Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends exhibition – a rare opportunity to see (and photograph) the painting outside of its home on Boston’s Fenway.
Illustration: “Isabella Stewart Gardner,” by John Singer Sargent (1888)
Photograph by Skip Moskey, Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2015.
The entry way in the forecourt of Anderson House. Guests arriving here were protected from winter winds, overhead precipitation, and the eyes of the general public. (Photo by Skip Moskey.)
The front vestibule of Anderson House in 1910. The entry hall was intended to immediately convey to visitors that the Andersons were collectors with exotic tastes. (Source: France Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House)
The Grand Stairway of Anderson House, designed specifically to display “The Triumph of the Dogaressa” by Spanish artist Jose Villegas y Cordero (1882). (Photo (c) by Bruce Guthrie. Used by permission.)
The piano nobile (second floor) of Anderson House, as designed by Little and Browne of Boston (1905). (Drawing by Harry I. Martin III, AIA. Copyright (c) 2015-2016 by Stephen T. Moskey. All rights reserved.)
The English Drawing Room in Anderson House, 1910. (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House) 
The fireplace in the French Drawing Room of Anderson House, 2017. (Photo by Skip Moskey.)
The Gallery of Anderson House, 1910. Dinner guests processed down this long hallway, with ample time to view and admire the Andersons’ eclectic collection of European and Asian art and collectibles. (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House) The Gallery as it appeared in 2013, a shadow of its former self. Many pieces of the Andersons’ collections were consigned to auctions more than twenty years ago. The crystal chandeliers are a modern addition. (Photo (C) by Bruce Guthrie. Used by permission.)
The Dining Room of Anderson House, Washington, DC, during the Andersons’ lifetime (1910). (Source: Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Library of Congress)
A rare example of an Anderson House luncheon menu, 1931. Though the menu is written in French, it was essentially a simple meal of sauteed chicken, parslied fried potatoes, salads and vegetables, and chocolate eclairs and fruit for dessert. (Anderson Collection, Society of the Cincinnati)
The “floating stairway” that leads from the dining room of Anderson House to the room that the Andersons called the “Saloon.” (Photo by Skip Moskey) 
The Saloon of Anderson House, shown as the Andersons furnished it: as a large living room for entertaining guests after dinner, with cordials, cigarettes, conversation, and music. 1910. The floating stairway is visible on the left. (Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Anderson House)
Cover photo (c) by Bruce M. White. Used with Mr. White’s kind permission.