TahoeLegend
Pretty much a regular
The US Open returns to Shinnecock Hills this week and has awakened memories of the most sensational murder/love triangle in US history. Every media outlet covering the event has mentioned the clubhouse at Shinnecock was designed by legendary architect Stanford White and raved about how beautiful it is.
A few reporters who know history have gone further and remarked on the irony of the tournament returning to Shinnecock on the 112th anniversary of the greatest scandal and murder trial, with White at the center, the world had ever seen
The players were White, a genius, universally recognized as the most brilliant architect of his day at a time when architects were national heroes. He designed the Washington Square Arch, the clubhouse of every great golf course of the era, the grandest buildings at University of Virginia, and the imposing mansions in Newport. But his masterpiece was Madison Square Garden, where he included a beautiful rooftop restaurant that became the place for the rich and powerful to be seen.
The woman was Evelyn Nesbit, the greatest beauty of the era, so stunning that by the time she was 16 she was the leading magazine cover girl in the country and the star Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl.
Rounding out the love triangle was Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh, heir to a mining/railroad/steel fortune so vast he was frequently called the richest man in the world. His monthly allowance, once he reached high school, was $8,000 a month at a time when the average salary for a working man was $500 a year and a meal at the most expensive New York City restaurant cost $1.50.
Evelyn’s mother was penniless when she brought her daughter to The Big Apple in 1900. She added 2 years to Evelyn’s age in order to cash in on her beauty. By luck, she met White, one the richest and most powerful men in New York. White installed mother and daughter in the penthouse suite of the Waldorf Astoria, which he ordered redone to impress them. He provided financial assistance and at age 47 began an affair with the teenager.
He opened doors for her and Evelyn soon became famous for her beauty. Today, she is remembered as the first super model in history, posing for endless magazine covers, calendars, and ads.
Charles Dana Gibson, the most famous artist of the era was captivated with Evelyn and did a portrait with her hair forming a question mark. Woman: The Eternal Question is considered Gibson’s finest work and it made Evelyn even more famous.
She had numerous lovers among the famous and rich, including matinee idol John Barrymore, but she always available for White. They spent long afternoons in his private hideaway, an opulent, four-level penthouse, called the grandest in New York City, including a red velvet swing in the grand salon. Evelyn would swing clad only in high heels and attempt to break balloons with her toe as a servant on the balcony held them. White and Evelyn would then move to the “room of mirrors,” a love nest with mirrors covering every inch of the walls and ceiling just off the grand salon. The penthouse could be reached only through an unmarked secret entrance in the FAO Schwarz toy store.
As her fame grew, Evelyn became dissatisfied with her status as a mere plaything and began to implore the already-married White to marry her, but White stalled and promised, then, annoyed by the badgering, moved on to others in his stable of women.
Knowing she was not getting any younger, Nesbit finally accepted the proposals of Harry K Thaw, but, life being life, she still occasionally whiled away steamy afternoons in White’s penthouse enjoying the red velvet swing and other pastimes.
Thaw, unstable to begin with, became more demented each day. He was driven to fury by the fact White was one of the most admired men in New York society while he was ignored and viewed as a Pittsburgh hayseed. He became more infuriated when Evelyn confessed she had been White’s mistress.
He finally snapped when he walked into an exclusive restaurant in New York City and was told he would not be admitted. He tried the old, "do you know who I am" ploy, a tactic always guaranteed to fail. While he was fuming, White walked in and the owner and staff immediately fawned over him, saying, "right this way Mr. White, what a pleasure to have you join us."
That night Thaw insisted Nesbit accompany him to the Madison Square Garden rooftop restaurant where White held court nightly at the best table, always held until he arrived. When he saw White, Thaw walked to his table, pulled a pistol and, while the cream of New York society looked on, shot White three times, killing him instantly.
He then held up the gun and announced to the stunned crowd, "I killed him because he ruined my wife."
He was arrested and immediately lawyered up with a legal team that made OJ's look like public defenders. His mother arrived from Pittsburgh, took Evelyn under her wing, and told her, "you are part of the family now, but you must cooperate with Harry's lawyers to help set him free, then you two can resume your married life. You'll never want for anything."
The trial created a media frenzy. They called it the Trial of the Century and plastered it on the front page of every paper in the country. The media knew it was Evelyn who sold the papers and made her the star attraction. She was portrayed as the sultry temptress who drove men wild in bed, then drove them insane when she left them for the next man.
She became the most famous—and most scandalous—woman in the world. The press nicknamed her The Lethal Beauty and found a way to work the red velvet swing into every story.
Both prosecution and defense leaked information to the press corps around the clock, some of it true.
Church groups were outraged and demanded the coverage be stopped. President Teddy Roosevelt decried the papers for printing “the full disgusting particulars” of the proceedings and ordered the Postmaster General to study ways to keep the information from being disseminated through the US Mail.
All it did was help spread word of the trial, and public interest in Evelyn and the scandal exploded all over the world.
The maelstrom became so intense the judge ordered jurors sequestered, the first time in history such a move had been ordered.
Evelyn, by now aware the family would only support her if she helped the defense, gave testimony sympathetic to Thaw. The first trial was declared a mistrial. The second ended with Thaw being judged innocent by reason of insanity and ordered confined to a mental institution.
He marched out of the courtroom without giving Evelyn a glance while his lawyers served her with divorce papers. The concept of community property did not exist at the time and she was left penniless. The scandal ended her career.
Evelyn was 20 years old.
Thaw was granted the special privileges a rich man might expect in the mental facility, but he tired of the confinement and walked out the gate where a limo took him to Canada. The family worked their money magic and he was extradited back to the US where a judge asked him a few questions then ruled him sane and he was released, a free man.
For the next 20 years he kept a staff of detectives on the payroll to follow Evelyn around the clock. He drifted in and out of insane asylums the rest of his life, was jailed at least twice, and died in 1947
An autopsy revealed Stanford White was mortally ill the day he was shot and would have died in a short time from a combination of Bright's Disease, incipient tuberculosis, and severe liver deterioration.
Evelyn made a few low-budget exploitation movies that failed, then drifted into alcohol and morphine addiction and wound up in burlesque, where her act consisted of swinging on a red velvet swing in a skimpy costume.
Her only payday was when Hollywood made her life story, with Joan Collins as Evelyn, in a movie titled The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and paid her $10,000, which was soon gone to buy drugs.
She lived on the edges of society until she died at age 82.
A few reporters who know history have gone further and remarked on the irony of the tournament returning to Shinnecock on the 112th anniversary of the greatest scandal and murder trial, with White at the center, the world had ever seen
The players were White, a genius, universally recognized as the most brilliant architect of his day at a time when architects were national heroes. He designed the Washington Square Arch, the clubhouse of every great golf course of the era, the grandest buildings at University of Virginia, and the imposing mansions in Newport. But his masterpiece was Madison Square Garden, where he included a beautiful rooftop restaurant that became the place for the rich and powerful to be seen.
The woman was Evelyn Nesbit, the greatest beauty of the era, so stunning that by the time she was 16 she was the leading magazine cover girl in the country and the star Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl.
Rounding out the love triangle was Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh, heir to a mining/railroad/steel fortune so vast he was frequently called the richest man in the world. His monthly allowance, once he reached high school, was $8,000 a month at a time when the average salary for a working man was $500 a year and a meal at the most expensive New York City restaurant cost $1.50.
Evelyn’s mother was penniless when she brought her daughter to The Big Apple in 1900. She added 2 years to Evelyn’s age in order to cash in on her beauty. By luck, she met White, one the richest and most powerful men in New York. White installed mother and daughter in the penthouse suite of the Waldorf Astoria, which he ordered redone to impress them. He provided financial assistance and at age 47 began an affair with the teenager.
He opened doors for her and Evelyn soon became famous for her beauty. Today, she is remembered as the first super model in history, posing for endless magazine covers, calendars, and ads.
Charles Dana Gibson, the most famous artist of the era was captivated with Evelyn and did a portrait with her hair forming a question mark. Woman: The Eternal Question is considered Gibson’s finest work and it made Evelyn even more famous.
She had numerous lovers among the famous and rich, including matinee idol John Barrymore, but she always available for White. They spent long afternoons in his private hideaway, an opulent, four-level penthouse, called the grandest in New York City, including a red velvet swing in the grand salon. Evelyn would swing clad only in high heels and attempt to break balloons with her toe as a servant on the balcony held them. White and Evelyn would then move to the “room of mirrors,” a love nest with mirrors covering every inch of the walls and ceiling just off the grand salon. The penthouse could be reached only through an unmarked secret entrance in the FAO Schwarz toy store.
As her fame grew, Evelyn became dissatisfied with her status as a mere plaything and began to implore the already-married White to marry her, but White stalled and promised, then, annoyed by the badgering, moved on to others in his stable of women.
Knowing she was not getting any younger, Nesbit finally accepted the proposals of Harry K Thaw, but, life being life, she still occasionally whiled away steamy afternoons in White’s penthouse enjoying the red velvet swing and other pastimes.
Thaw, unstable to begin with, became more demented each day. He was driven to fury by the fact White was one of the most admired men in New York society while he was ignored and viewed as a Pittsburgh hayseed. He became more infuriated when Evelyn confessed she had been White’s mistress.
He finally snapped when he walked into an exclusive restaurant in New York City and was told he would not be admitted. He tried the old, "do you know who I am" ploy, a tactic always guaranteed to fail. While he was fuming, White walked in and the owner and staff immediately fawned over him, saying, "right this way Mr. White, what a pleasure to have you join us."
That night Thaw insisted Nesbit accompany him to the Madison Square Garden rooftop restaurant where White held court nightly at the best table, always held until he arrived. When he saw White, Thaw walked to his table, pulled a pistol and, while the cream of New York society looked on, shot White three times, killing him instantly.
He then held up the gun and announced to the stunned crowd, "I killed him because he ruined my wife."
He was arrested and immediately lawyered up with a legal team that made OJ's look like public defenders. His mother arrived from Pittsburgh, took Evelyn under her wing, and told her, "you are part of the family now, but you must cooperate with Harry's lawyers to help set him free, then you two can resume your married life. You'll never want for anything."
The trial created a media frenzy. They called it the Trial of the Century and plastered it on the front page of every paper in the country. The media knew it was Evelyn who sold the papers and made her the star attraction. She was portrayed as the sultry temptress who drove men wild in bed, then drove them insane when she left them for the next man.
She became the most famous—and most scandalous—woman in the world. The press nicknamed her The Lethal Beauty and found a way to work the red velvet swing into every story.
Both prosecution and defense leaked information to the press corps around the clock, some of it true.
Church groups were outraged and demanded the coverage be stopped. President Teddy Roosevelt decried the papers for printing “the full disgusting particulars” of the proceedings and ordered the Postmaster General to study ways to keep the information from being disseminated through the US Mail.
All it did was help spread word of the trial, and public interest in Evelyn and the scandal exploded all over the world.
The maelstrom became so intense the judge ordered jurors sequestered, the first time in history such a move had been ordered.
Evelyn, by now aware the family would only support her if she helped the defense, gave testimony sympathetic to Thaw. The first trial was declared a mistrial. The second ended with Thaw being judged innocent by reason of insanity and ordered confined to a mental institution.
He marched out of the courtroom without giving Evelyn a glance while his lawyers served her with divorce papers. The concept of community property did not exist at the time and she was left penniless. The scandal ended her career.
Evelyn was 20 years old.
Thaw was granted the special privileges a rich man might expect in the mental facility, but he tired of the confinement and walked out the gate where a limo took him to Canada. The family worked their money magic and he was extradited back to the US where a judge asked him a few questions then ruled him sane and he was released, a free man.
For the next 20 years he kept a staff of detectives on the payroll to follow Evelyn around the clock. He drifted in and out of insane asylums the rest of his life, was jailed at least twice, and died in 1947
An autopsy revealed Stanford White was mortally ill the day he was shot and would have died in a short time from a combination of Bright's Disease, incipient tuberculosis, and severe liver deterioration.
Evelyn made a few low-budget exploitation movies that failed, then drifted into alcohol and morphine addiction and wound up in burlesque, where her act consisted of swinging on a red velvet swing in a skimpy costume.
Her only payday was when Hollywood made her life story, with Joan Collins as Evelyn, in a movie titled The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and paid her $10,000, which was soon gone to buy drugs.
She lived on the edges of society until she died at age 82.
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