Grey Gardens

 The 14-room Grey Gardens home was designed by architect Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe in 1897 for F. Stanhope Phillips and his wife, newspaper heiress Margaret Bagg Phillips. Amid construction delays, Mr. Phillips died unexpectedly, leaving his large estate to his wife.

Mr. Phillips’s surviving brother challenged her control over the estate, claiming she used undue influence on her late husband to obtain it. Despite these claims, the court ruled in her favor, leading her to build the home in the early 1900s. But by 1913, she had sold it to the president of a coal company, Mr. Robert C. Hill and his wife Anna.

At the time, the home stood on four acres of oceanfront land. Anna Gilman Hill imported concrete walls from Spain to enclose the garden. She designed the garden with assistance from her landscape architect, Ruth Dean.

Phelan and Edith Beale bought the home in the 1920s. After Phelan left his wife in 1934, the home fell into ruin. The garden reverted back to untamed nature and the glorious walls and garden structures were almost entirely hidden by sprawling overgrowth. The residence fell into disrepair almost as quickly as the garden. In 1971, the town of East Hampton ordered a raid on Grey Gardens, which many considered uninhabitable, and argued that it was a safety hazard.

In 1972, the squalid living conditions of the Beale women were exposed to national and international media. The women faced certain eviction by the town of East Hampton if they did not clean up their home and comply with local building codes. Lee Radizwell and Jackie Onassis pitched in to make needed repairs. Renovations included setting up proper plumbing and heat in a couple of the rooms upstairs, painting over old wallpaper, and bringing the house up to code to pass an inspection. Even though Grey Gardens passed its inspection, the conditions were bleak.

After Big Edie died in 1977, Little Edie was forced to put Grey Gardens on the market. Edie refused to sell the home to anyone that did not promise to restore the mansion to its former glory.  Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, and his wife, the writer Sally Quinn, made that promise and bought Grey Gardens from Little Edie in 1979.

The home was fully restored, the gorgeous gardens were brought back to life, and a swimming pool was added.  The Quinns sold the home for over $15 million to Liz Quinn in 2017.

 

Sources:

“The House.” Greygardensonline.com, https://greygardensonline.com/the-house

Mendelsohn, Hadley. “How This Oceanfront Oasis Became the Most Infamous Mansion in the Hamptons.” House Beautiful, 18 Oct. 2022, https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a40785498/grey-gardens-house