The True Story of Jackie & Bunny's Friendship, Randall Hagadorn / Courtesy of Gerard B. Lambert III, Mark Shaw Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Personal Papers John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images, Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth's Relationship, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Little did she suspect that the money would later allegedly be used to fund Edwards increasingly tawdry exploits with his mistress, the Daily Beast said. Mellon's family and her longtime personal attorney said she died of natural causes at her beloved 4,000-acre Oak Spring Farms in Virginia's horse country, where she Her first book, Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! Jackie Kennedy and Bunny Mellon, whose friendship is explored in Mac Griswolds new book. Old stone walls surround the sun-dappled rolling fields, which feature two enormous greenhouses and a football-field-size cutting garden with branches of fruit trees entwined in a not-seen-in-nature pattern. Huffman, who introduced Mellon to Edwards, said the former presidential candidate reminded her of John Kennedy. Copyright 2022 by Mac Griswold. [10] In a 1969 New York Times article with the Mellons, she proclaimed that "nothing should be noticed. And what a past it was. The estate formerly belonged to Mellons grandsonThomas Lloyd, who made the decision to sell the home. She goes over daily to inquire about construction, a woman caught between present and past. The Kennedys were aghast at her unwillingness to cultivate her myth as JFKs widow and even more upset that she would marry a Greek shipping magnate, Bunny told me. Prosecutors have charged that she gave $725,000 to former presidential candidate John Edwards in 2007 and 2008, which he used to conceal his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter and the existence of their child. Hers is a regime of no tolerance for the mediocre. She had little patience for those she considered superficial or boring and chose her friends carefully. In May 2000, Bunny's daughter from her first marriage, Eliza Lloyd, was crossing the street in Manhattan when she was hit by a truck, suffering a severe brain injury. Lloyd reiterates that John Edwards remains in his grandmother's good graces. MANHATTAN Listerine heiress and philanthropist Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon has preferred to shun the media spotlight since long before her financial largesse became (The Kennedy biographer Sally Bedell Smith quotes Jackie as saying to Ted Kennedys wife, Joan, All Kennedy men are like that . According to Crocker, Lloyd was thrilled the buyers were interested in preserving the home as it is. Gordon, a veteran journalist, is the author ofMrs. As society bandleader Peter Duchin says, "Bunny is a person with wonderful taste. Together, the couple collected and donated more than a thousand works of art, mostly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings, to the National Gallery of Art and established the Yale Center for British Art. "I may not be here a year from now," she tells me. Through it all, she remains an enthusiastic defender of the former North Carolina senator. When she was around 5 years old, her father let her have a little garden at home, planting the seed for her lifelong love of horticulture, he said. He was wise, he was clear, he was a very good person. July 25, 2011, 10:10 AM. In turn, after 1979, when Jackie bought Red Gate Farm on over three hundred acres on Marthas Vineyard, Bunny cleaned up and edited the straggling old farm-scape without overmanaging it and guided Jackie to the well-known architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, who designed a plain, cedar-shingled Cape Cod house. [7] Her parents divorced in 1933, and both subsequently remarried. Pei, Audrey Hepburn, Richard Diebenkorn, Katharine Graham. Her appetite for prestige, although ever discreet, only increased with her second marriage, to Mellon, in 1948. Between all buildings are eight separate fireplaces. From Tuxedo Park to Virginia to the White House, Griswold escorts us through Mellons life as we meet icons of culture, fashion, and politics: Queen Elizabeth and Jackie Kennedy, Givenchy and Balenciaga, JFK and I.M. The life she's led was all about that kind of thing. [15][16], Although she had no formal training, Mellon read widely in horticulture and made contributions to several landmark gardens. She laughs, saying, "Oh, you're bad. It's sad that he didn't. 20 (Yellow Expanse), completed in 1955 was considered one of the largest Rothko works in private hands. Mellon eventually gave Edwards more than $6 million, Young said. UPPERVILLE, Va. Rachel Bunny Mellon, a wealthy arts and fashion patron, friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and political benefactor who funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to former presidential candidate John Edwards that was used to hide his mistress, died Monday. As far as we know, their intention is to keep it as the historic property it is and has always been, Crocker told the Cape Cod Times. Jackie took it all inthe relaxed style, the magnificent art, and the stale candies in the antique jarsas she told Bunny in a phone call the next day. . Settling in Virginia, they had a circle that included Paul Mellon, the wealthy son of Herbert Hoover's Treasury secretary. 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Although charming, its hardly a match for the other treasures on those walls, but it was painted by Jackie and was therefore another precious reminder of their times together. JFK had just published Profiles in Courage, a volume of studies of senatorial political bravery that had won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize and would help him in his run for the presidency.They met in 1958 when Adele Astaire Douglass, an old friend of Bunny and Pauls and then a Virginia neighbor, brought her guest Jackie to Oak Spring for tea not long after the birth of her daughter, Caroline. Ill Build a Stairway to Paradise spans the full 103 years of Bunny Mellons life. Lloyd, who was questioned by the grand jury about whether she was coerced, says with a laugh, "You can't tell my grandmother what to do. Like Bunny Mellons daughter, I spent much of my life estranged from my mother. Instead, they were subtly made to complete a special sense of place. But there was more to the story: her gardens were an escape. 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[37], "Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, Banking Heiress And Jacqueline Kennedy Friend, Dies At 103", "Rachel Mellon, Heiress Known for Garden Designs, Is Dead at 103", "Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, arts patron and confidante of Jackie Kennedy, dies at 103", "Edwards Case Casts Spotlight on a Long Reclusive Donor", "The House in the Virginia Hunt Country That Is Home to the Paul Mellons", "The Private World of a Great Gardener: Rachel Lambert Mellon", "How Bunny Mellon Re-invented the White House Rose Garden", "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy: A Reminiscence", "President Kennedy's Garden: Rachel Lambert Mellon's Redesign of the White House Rose Garden", "The Money Behind John Edwards: Heiress Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, Age 100", "Mellon Estate in Antigua Goes on the Market for $14.5 Million", "Bunny Mellon's $250 Million Rothkos Sold in Private Sale", "Property from the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon: Masterworks", "Sotheby's to auction Paul and Bunny Mellon estate", "Liaison Says Heiress Rued Edwards Donations", "Donor's family testifies in Edwards probe", "John Edwards Meets Privately with Bunny Mellon, Potential Witness in Cover Up Case", "Arts patron, heiress Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon dead", "At Bunny Mellon's funeral, music from Bette Midler and a John Edwards appearance", Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, Inc. website, Wine & Country Life Magazine, "Discover Bunny Mellon's Oak Spring Garden", Wine & Country Life Magazine, "The Allee, Greenhouse and Topiaries at Oak Spring Farm", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rachel_Lambert_Mellon&oldid=1122910202, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Horticulturalist, art collector, philanthropist. She wanted visitors to her own gardens and the gardens she designed for others to feel transported to another world. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. He pleaded not guilty and is preparing for trial this fall. Bunny Mellon is aristocratic American history personified, a woman who has entertained two generations of British royalty (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1957 and, three decades later, Charles and Di), lent her jet and accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral, gardened in clothes designed by Givenchy, and searched the world for art treasures with an open checkbook and an astute eye. ", Another friend was Bryan Huffman, a 47-year-old North Carolina decorator who got to know Mellon after visiting a church she helped design and underwrite. Mellon believed a ladys name should only appear in the newspaper three times: for her debut, her marriage and her obituary, Huffman said. Jackie August 9, 1979. [25] Proceeds from the sales benefited the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, a charitable entity established by Mellon in memory of her father. We've received your submission. . They divorced in 1948. She next began to work on the White House's East Garden, but her work was interrupted by Kennedy's assassination. Ill Build a Stairway to Paradise spans the full 103 years of [15], Described as a resilient centenarian, a bout with cancer[35] and ongoing macular degeneration nonetheless slowed her activity. Forger, then at the white- shoe law firm of Milbank, Tweed, eventually worked exclusively for Bunny, who set up an elegant office for him and his staff on West 57th Street in New York City. While Mellon is leaving bequests to her family, the bulk of her estate will go to a foundation, financing a library and school for arborists. . At debutante balls, fundraisers, and art openings, Ill Build a Stairway to Paradise shows how Mellon became a tastemaker. Thats the story. This story has been shared 107,512 times. When Mellon became aware of the use of her funds for this purpose, she reportedly came to regret the donations, but maintained that Edwards "would have been a great president. Mac Griswold's new book I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise offers rare insight into one of history's most compelling pairings. She's going to do what she wants, and that's the way it's going to be.". "They were on the same wavelength," says one of Isabell's friends. The guest house comes with two separate bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen and a laundry room. She minded her own life and she felt deeply . "I had a serious operation a little while ago, and ever since then I've been very, very weak," Mellon says. I never wore it again. Trescher mentioned how surprised hed been at first to find that Mrs. Even as a child, Bunny had depicted her surroundings in sketches and paintings. West, chief usher at the White House during the Kennedy administration, watched Jackie at play with her children on the South Lawn and observed that she was so happy, so abandoned, so like a little girl who had never grown up. Billy Baldwin, albeit a shameless gusher about clients he loved, accurately described the same quality in Bunny when he wrote that one of the incredibly rare qualities of this incredibly rare woman is her ability to empathize with anothers enthusiasmsat least with enthusiasms like his own. Only two years before Jackie won her settlement, Paul Mellon, for the first time and thanks to Forger, had settled an annual $500,000 on Bunny, allegedly for charity, meaning that she no longer had to ask her husband for every cent of his money she spent. The 35-year-old Lloyd, a Washington investment adviser, adds, "As I explained to the jury, imagine a very handsome man who is well liked and respected, and there are two women vying for his affections.". she told a friend after the visit from the feds, Daily Beast reported. Cristofaro Munari, attrib. He said Mellon wrote in her letter, from now on, all haircuts, etc. and the Environmental Movement, is required reading at a number of universities. Her rarefied style sometimes reached a point where the real people in her life, such as her children, seemed to become doll-like figures for her to mold and shape. "It was just terrible because I trusted him, and we're in sort of a hole because of that, and it hasn't been returned," admits Mellon, who is in danger of losing another $6 million in investments made by Starr that are now underwater. Bunnys eye for space and proportion and what could be made of them was matched by Jackies discernment about people and events and how best to employ and frame them. Mellon lived a closely guarded life dominated by the arts, fashion, horses, rare books and extraordinary gardens. Every choice of a color was eloquent. With other estates on Antigua, Cape Cod, and Nantucket (the two Paris apartments and the New York townhouse have been recently sold), Mellon is experiencing that WASP nightmareliving on principal. In somewhat of a taste of what was to come, Mellon was visited by the FBI as part of a federal grand jury probe into Edwards' handling of campaign funds, and was reportedly thrilled by the experience. MANHATTAN Listerine heiress and philanthropist Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon has preferred to shun the media spotlight since long before her financial largesse became tangled up in the John Edwards mistress scandal. Sometimes Bunny felt very alone in her effort to maintain this balance. Her friend Bette Midler performed her hit song The Rose. Through it all, she never sought publicity. [10][24] The painting measured 10 by 15 feet. Copyright 2009-2018, New York Public Radio. Their particular combination of money (Bunnys) and fame (Jackies) made them formidable. The estate, known as Scallop Path, includes three separate structures, including the main property, the guest house and a chimney house. But so great a talent could not remain forever hidden and neither will yours. Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon 29, one of Foxcrofts oldest and most illustrious alumnae, died Monday (March 17) at her home in Fauquier County, VA. She When in 1968 Eliza married Viscount Henry Dermot Ponsonby Moore, better known as the photographer Derry Moore, Bunny would draft Jackies children, Caroline and John, then 11 and eight, as flower girl and page boy (in knee breeches, British court style for little boys). Her father did not believe that a young woman of her generation was worth sending to college; she would spend eternity proving him wrong. Situated on over 7 acres, it is also known as one of Cape Cods original homes. Then her daughter was fatally hit in a car accident, and she threw herself even deeper into her career. Rendered a paraplegic and unable to speak, Eliza was transported to her mother's farm for round-the-clock care, surviving for eight years. When Jackie left her straw hat on Nantucket after one of their lunches, Bunny sent the plane straight back from Cape Cod to fetch it. Mellon sent checks to Huffman inside boxes of chocolate, and Huffman would direct them to the campaign, Young wrote. I know the coats history, so much larger than onewomans, and I can give it a proper send-off. Style included a great deal more than the cut of clothing or a period of interior decoration. During World War II, Lloyd and Mellon roomed together in London, where both worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. After his death in 1975, it was probably no accident that Jackie turned to Bunnys lawyer, Alexander Forger, to secure $200 million, far more than Onassis had These properties were sold in the years preceding her death. Letitia Baldrige, Jackie's White House social secretary, recalls, "They were very close. Trescherwith Bunny in her special role as collaborator/directorhad orchestrated Caroline Kennedys wedding in 1985. After prosecutors learned that Edwards had visited Mellon on May 26even as his lawyers were conducting unsuccessful plea-bargain negotiations prior to the indictmenthe was banned from contacting his benefactor. [17] In France, Mellon created a landscape design for the home of Hubert de Givenchy and assisted with a restoration of the potager du Roi in Versailles. We talked for hourson nothing and never gossipped [sic]. According to the indictment, Huffman signed over the checks to Young. That was the best part. Jackie Onassis, 19 years her junior, died in 1994; Paul Mellon died five years later after a lingering illness. In going through her papers in the months after her death, I found that she had wrapped many important keepsakes, such as gifts from her Grandpa Lowe, in white paper and tied them up with a blue ribbon, using the two colors as signals to show how precious the things were to her.