MILLIONAIRES' PALACES

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 12 (Supplement)

MILLIONAIRES' PALACES

K RECENT cablegram from Honolulu stated the fact and left it at that—that a new home had been built there for Doris Duke Cromwell, whose father is a multi-millionaire, at a cost of 500,000 dollars. It includes a private yacht harbour with artificial breakwaters, a glistening lava swimming pool, with an elevator rising to a diving platform, a patio lined with tree bark on which rare orchids are growing, a disappearing plate-glass wall, 12 feet high, a phonograph room with air-conditioned vaults for records, a bathroom of white marble inlaid with jade and semi-precious •stones, a floor of oak squares, taken from a 10th century chateau in France, and a walk paved with ancient granite blocks. King of Pocantico It has always been the custom of American multi-millionaires to spend money lavishly in building luxurious homes. The late John D. Rockefeller, who enjoyed the reputation of being the richest man in the world, lived on an estate at Pocantico Hills, near New York, overlooking the Hudson River, which was said to be worth £10,000,000. The estate covered 5000 acres, and therefore provided the multi-millionaire with privacy and seclusion in the midst of a thickly-populated locality. More than 75 houses were built on the estate, and 1000 persons were permanently employed there. The owner lived in a house situated on the top of a hill, and hie son and his married grandchildren lived in other houses in the vicinity. One of the chief features of the place is a children's playhouse that cost £200,000 to build and contains elaborate mechanical toys. There is. a bowling green, swimming pool, gymnasium, tennis court and golf course. Seventy miles of paved roads are laid out through the estate, to harmonise with (the landscape. There are many lakes and little streams running through it. One of the lakes is enclosed with walls of Japanese stone, and is surrounded with Japanese Ginko trees and shrubs and plants from Japan. There are numerous orchards and vegetable gardens to supply the needs of those who live on the estate. The gates are always guarded to keep out intruders, and the grounds are always patrolled. The owner maintained his own fire brigade and police force on the estate, a« well as a large number of gardeners.

In building up this estate, Mr. Rockefeller pursued the methods he had employed in building up the great business of the Standard Oil Company. He extended the original area gradually by buying up blocks of land as opportunity offered. Most of the surrounding land was built on, but he wan always willing to pay a reasonable price for a house to get the land. Hfe bought up land on botheides of the railway line that served the people of Hairy town, and then paid the railway company to make a deviation to get the line outside his estates. A .Roman Catholic school for boys stood in a park of 300 acres which Mr. Rockefeller wanted to add to his estate. He paid the church authorities £100,000

for - the v land, and gave them £200,00® with.wiich to build a larger.college elsewhere. He bought up land on both sides of a public road that ran through his estate, and then petitioned to have the road closed. There was opposition on the part of the people whom the road served, but he bought them off and had the road closed.

In California, William Randolph Hearst, newspaper multi-millionaire, purchased a ranch, built himself a palatial home and surrounded it with villas to accommodate invited guests. This palatial mansion is 60 miles from the nearest railway. Guests are met at the railway station by a car, driven by a liveried chauffeur, and a man-servant,

who looks after tlieir luggage. Mr. Hearst's house is situated on the crest of a hill, and is called La Cuesta Encantada —The Enchanted Crest.

"When you arrive at the millionaire's palace after the long drive through picturesque country, you are received by the housekeeper, who allots you a room in the palace itself, or one of the villas that surround the main building," wrote Clarence Winchester, an Englishman, who was Mr. Hearst's guest a few ye arc ago. "If there are not many guests you may'be given a whole villa to yourself. There is a law about these villas—and about the bedrooms. No liquor must b£ ' taken into them. The first thing that strikes you on arrival is the remarkable main palace, all white and gold, glistening in the sun, with towers from which bells can be rung, 2000 feet above sea level. The drawing room in this palace cost £1,000,000 to furnish with objects of art and the almost priceless tapestries of which Hearst is so fond. In one of the bedrooms is a bed that Richelieu slept in. In the library are manuscripts and rare editions that the British Museum would give a lot to own.

"When luncheoil or dinner is served you pass from the drawing room to the refectory, where a long table seating 50 people runs down the centre of the room. It ie like lunching or dining in a great hall, beneath a ceiling brought specially from Spain, and surrounded by Spanish tapestries that take your breath away. New gueste are seated near Hearst so

that they can talk with him easily. The longer you stay, the further down the table you go. The ranch is yours while you are staying there. You can swim in the black indoor pool inlaid with gold; you can swim in the outdoor pool; you can ride water-cycles on them; you can play tennis, billiards, ride—anything you like. At night after dinner you can sit out on one of the many terraces, looking down at the twinkling lights on the Pacific shore, and watching the aerial lighthouse as it sweeps the private Hearst aerodrome, which is equipped with all modern aeronautical devices for the use of the Hearst family and guest*. Young George Hearst flies his own 'plane. It was he who took Bernard Shaw into the air. Nearly always you will find picture people from Hollywood staying there. If they have no work to do they seem to stay as long as they like. They are as free as the air to do as they wish. There are horses for them, and a fleet of automobiles—everything. But no automobile may exceed a speed of abeut 10 miles an hour, as wild animals roam the ranch at will. Hearst imports the strangest animals from all over the world, and lets them loose on large areas of the ranch. There's plenty of room as you can ride for a week over his possessions without covering the same ground twice. Reckless Extravagance Few American millionaires have spent more money on their homes than did Whitaker Wright, an English financier and company promoter, who flourished 40 years ago. In 1896 he bought for £250,000 Lea Park, a large estate near Godalming, Surrey, and he spent more than £1,000,000 in ornamenting the grounds in accordance with his extravagant taste. "Placid silvery sheets of water, dotted with gleaming white statuary, graced the far-stretching grounds, with the mansion perched on a hill in the foreground, and approached by a long succession of terraces," wrote Mr. S. T. Felstead, in his life of Sir Richard Muir. "Hills, terraces and lakes were all made by hand under Wright's direction. If all* his ambitious schemes had been put into, being they would have taken 12 years to complete. With & wave of a hand he ordered the removal of an existing lake; with a nod of the head requested a hill to be taken away and put in another place. Under the surface of a large artificial lake he built a conservatory with a glass roof so that in the summer time he could bask under the lake and keep cool. The people who visited him at Lea Park underwent all manner of amazing experiences. Entering one of the boats on the big lake the visitor passed through a chasm and eventually arrived in a fairy-like cavern. Steps hewn out of the rock led to hidden galleries, where the amazed visitor suddenly discovered gorgeous Oriental decorations and rare statuary.

"Wright could never resist buying marble fountains. He had one carved out of a solid block of marble weighing 60 tone, so heavy indeed that no railway could carry it, and eventually it had to be dragged to Lea Park by traction engines. Italian sculptors by the dozen were brought to England to make fountains for him. Inside the house was a private theatre wfi&h cost £15,000.

There were stables for 50 horses, the ceiling of which had been moulded in relief scenes of the chase. Around this marvellous estate he built a wall 14 miles in length." Seven years after buying Lea Park Whitaker Wright stood in the dock at the Old Bailey to answer charges of fraud in connection with the balance sheets of companies he had floated. He owed hi* first successful big deals in the whirlpool of financial gambling in London to Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie in the days when enormously rich yields were being obtained from these goldfields. He had made several millions of pounds out of operations with the shares of the rich Lake View and Ivanhoe mines, and then floated several companies to buy goldmines and other projierties for the purpose of floating them into companies with inflated capital subscribed by the public. The capital of these parent companies was also used for speculations on the London Stock Exchange, and when the goldmining boom in West Australia collapsed, Whitaker Wright and his companies were ruined. He kept afloat for a time by manipulating the balance sheets of his companies. It was his practice to transfer from one company to another money and securities to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds whenever a balance-sheet had to be issued.

At the conclusion of his trial at the Old Bailey he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. On leaving the dock he was allowed to go to a room adjoining the. Court, where Sir Oeorge Lewis, his solicitor, and two friends accompanied him. They talked for half an hour, discussing the possibility of an appeal, anil also what should be done with Wright's personal property. Wright obtained permission from the police officers who were guarding the room to go to the lavatory, and when he came back a minute later he seated himself by the fire. He got up and walked unsteadily towards the window. His companions believed he was suffering from a nervous collapse, as a result of the long strain of the trial. When he fell in a heap on the floor a doctor was summoned, but he could do nothing to relieve a dying man. While in the lavatory Wright had swallowed a tabloid containing cyanide of potassium. When his dead body was searched another tabloid was found, and also a loaded revolver.