Resort Life, Chapter XXXVIII: January 1970 – December 1970
Palm Beach + Boca Grande + Down East + Brittany + Ireland
By Augustus Mayhew
On New Year’s Day 1970, maestro Leopold Stokowski was visiting Palm Beach. Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin was due for a vacation at The Breakers. Dina Merrill and Cliff Robertson were put up at Mar-a-Lago. Alvin and Lilly Fuller were ensconced in their new Chinese-style house with a ten-tier pagoda by the pool. During the holidays, Carola and Leon Mandel seated thirty-eight for a formal dinner at their South Ocean Boulevard estate where, according to Suzy, guests were served the very same pheasant and quail that their hostess shot and bagged.
For the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the 1970 season would be their final holiday on Palm Beach, a welcoming refuge where they had been coming since 1947 when they stayed at the Everglades Club. Ellen Ordway hosted a dinner for the nomadic nobles at Villa Bel Tramonto before seeing them off at the train station. That summer, during their jaunt abroad, Gertrude Legendre and Ellen lodged at Croxteth in Liverpool where the Earl of Sefton and the Countess Sefton, you remember Foxie, provided comfortable accommodations. Foxie was a lifelong pal of the Duchess of Windsor. Down East, Brooke Astor chartered a yacht for a daytime sail and lunch for George Garrett’s birthday.
Welcome to the 1970s.
Palm Beach
January-March 1970
Wally Findlay Galleries held an exhibition of Jane Pickens Langley’s paintings.
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