Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu by Les Standiford

Author:Les Standiford [Standiford, Les]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802146458
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2019-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

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SEA CHANGE

Most who knew the Huttons during their Palm Beach heyday would have assumed that any essential conflict between the pair could be traced to their political differences. As the Depression worsened, the deeply charitably inclined Marjorie became more and more convinced that the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised the only way out of misery for the country. Hutton, on the other hand, despised Roosevelt and characterized his policies as socialism in disguise. He himself argued fiercely in support of classical “trickle-down” theories in which governmental encouragement of big business investment would eventually raise all foundering boats. In fact, following the completion of the Hussar V, the 316-foot, four-masted sailing ship he had built in 1932 (it was the largest private sailing yacht in the world), Hutton told friends that with enough such extravagant expenditures by the wealthy, “the nation might yacht its way out of the depression.”

But given the size and scope of their holdings it is doubtful that differences on economic policy alone would have led to such a couple’s dissolution. It seems just as compelling a notion that Ned Hutton, despite his own charm and accomplishments, ultimately felt threatened by a woman as assured and resolute as Marjorie Merriweather Post. As the physically attractive, adroit, and wealthy man he had been from early adulthood, he had never wanted for the attentions of women, and one could argue that any occasional dalliance he may have indulged in constituted no more than the bee’s casual pass across the flower. If that were so, a woman as intelligent and worldly as Marjorie might have managed to overlook such lapses.

However, Marjorie had never been able to forgive her own father for his weaknesses. C. W. Post not only had deserted her mother for another, younger, woman but had, in the end, terminated his own life rather than carry on a battle against illness. It seems entirely possible, then, that what galled Marjorie most regarding Ned’s various infidelities was that she saw them not as “crimes of passion” but rather as pathetic attempts at combat, displays of swordsmanship meant to demonstrate that he was without doubt the man of the Mar-a-Lago house.

In any case, Marjorie forced the issue, just as she had when she realized that the end had come between herself and Edward Close. And since adultery was the sole grounds for divorce in New York state, she persevered until she could prove the fact. The Times reported on August 16, 1935, that the couple had been separated for several months, with Marjorie at that time secluded at their Adirondacks camp. That story also took note of her active role in relief work in Hell’s Kitchen, adding that her efforts had earned her the title of Lady Bountiful in the downtrodden neighborhood.

All of this was reported, ironically enough, just days after publication of the news that Prince Alexis Mdivani, recently divorced from Barbara Hutton, had died in a car crash while driving “at high speed” in an attempt to catch a train in Palomas, Spain.

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