“She was not the usual rich lady. She cared about issues and cared about people.” — Vernon Jordan, Civil Rights Activist, as told to as told to Meryl Gordon, author of “Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend.”
“Through their prolific collecting and selfless philanthropic endeavors, both Bunny and Paul Mellon cemented themselves as titans of both the art and horticultural worlds.” — Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Mapping Cultural Philanthropy.
"Paul Mellon of Virginia is the subtlest philanthropist. The public scarcely knows him -- though he's dispensed $611,466,000 of the money that was left him." -- Paul Richard, Paul Mellon's Art of Giving, The Washington Post, April 7, 1992.
In 1926, Rachel "Bunny" Lambert, age 16, took a long train ride from the family home in Princeton, New Jersey to the one-horse village of The Plains in northern Virginia. From there she hopped on an awaiting farm truck for the scenic, but bumpy, ten-mile ride to Foxcroft, a new girls preparatory school north of Middleburg. The small town held only about 300 people, but it stood in the heart of a spread of Piedmont land west of Washington that would become more and more famous as horse and hunt country.
Map: Author, Rand McNally Road Atlas, 2010
This was the start of an extraordinary life, one that would span more than a century and touch many lives and places. Benefitting from wealth, but shunning the limelight and making her own mark, Bunny Mellon (1910-2014) would become a gardener, horticulturist, decorator, art collector, philanthropist, and a caring citizen who lived just south of Upperville.
Inspired by the book, “Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend” by Meryl Gordon, we provide an annotated map of where she lived and associated places in this part of northern Virginia.
Our sources include “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise, A Life of Bunny Mellon” by Mac Griswold; "Reflections in a Silver Spoon, A Memoir" by Paul Mellon; “The Hunt Country of America” by Kitty Slate; “The Horse in Virginia” by Julie E. Campbell and “All Out of Step,” a memoir by Bunny’s father Gerard B. Lambert.
Our debt is also deep to the Oak Spring Foundation’s annual open house tour.
We will say that Alexandria is only mentioned briefly in the two biographies and Gerard's memoir, so we looked deeper on that aspect of her family.
Alexandria
Bunny, who grew up in St. Louis and Princeton, did not live in Alexandria. However, some of her family roots on her father’s side were planted there. Benjamin H. Lambert Sr. (1802-1873), her great grandfather and his family, lived at 404 Duke Street (acquired in 1853).
The lovely brick house was completed by Elisha Janney around 1809. Richard Bland Lee (1761-1827), a northern Virginia legislator who later lived at Sully (near Dulles Airport) and a brother of Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, lived there in 1811-1812. The HABS report lavishes praise on it, noting its “monumental scale, Georgian heritage, and gauged arches of the windows.” The house swung open its doors a number of times in the spring during the Virginia Historic Garden Week Tour.
Photo: 404 Duke Street, Author
Robert S. Barrett (1877-1959) and his family lived at 404 Duke Street, as seen in the 1940 census. His mother was Dr. Kate Waller Barrett (1859-1925), one of Alexandria’s most distinguished citizens. She lived at 408 Duke Street, as did Doctor Elisha Cullen Dick, one of the physicians standing beside George Washington when he took his last breath at Mount Vernon.
Image: Alexandria Gazette, May 19, 1834.
In 1830, Benjamin H. Lambert partnered with Lewis McKenzie and established a shipping and commission company. In his memoir (All Out of Step, 1956), Gerard B. Lambert, Bunny's father, and grandson of Benjamin writes:
"Over the mantel in our house in Princeton hangs a large oil painting of one of his fleet of ships, the George Washington. It carries at the masthead the house flag of Lambert and Mackensie."
McKenzie (1810-1895) was one of the most distinguished Alexandrians of the nineteenth century. As Smith and Miller (“A Seaport Saga”) note, he was “the moving power in the building of the Alexandria, Loudoun, & Hampshire RR (later the Washington and Old Dominion).” He also served as first President of the First National Bank, acting mayor during the Civil War (sided with the Union), and ran for the US House of Representatives twice.
The partnership of McKenzie and Lambert lasted until 1853. Typically, these type of firms in the seaport brought high levels of income to their owners.
Benjamin Lambert’s business success marked the start of a great run by the family, one that would lead to wealth and philanthropy. Benjamin served on the board of the Alexandria Gas Light Company in 1850. Others beside him were stalwarts such as John B. Daingerfield, William G. Cazenove, and George H. Smoot. In the election of December 1848, Benjamin served as Commissioner for Ward One. In 1868, he served as a Director for the Bank of Old Dominion in the city. Others on the board were the above three, plus Cassius F. Lee and J.J. Wheat. This put him in the inner circles of the seaport.
One of Bunny’s granduncles was Benjamin H. Lambert (1844-1908). His obituary in the Washington Evening Star noted he engaged in business with his father, and at one time, represented the city's First Ward. He had lived at 314 Duke Street. The Basilica of Saint Mary website notes this is the Father Rankin House. Records show the house was there in the 1790s.
Bunny’s grandfather, Jordan Wheat Lambert (1852-1889), was born and lived for a while in Alexandria. He attended Randolph-Macon College in Ashland (north of Richmond) with a major in chemistry. Lambert invented Listerine and organized and served as President of the Lambert Pharmacal Company in St. Louis. This was the start of great wealth for the family.
Image: Jordan Wheat Lambert, Randolph-Macon website.
Bunny never knew her grandfather, but perhaps she had some correspondence or met his siblings - Laura Lambert Crymes (1842-1924), Charles Petrie Lambert (1846-1920) or Ernest D. Lambert (1848-1915). Laura and Ernest lay to rest at the Washington Street United Methodist Church Cemetery in Alexandria.
The Lambert family plot is at the Washington Street United Methodist Church Cemetery in Alexandria. Bunny’s great grandfather lies there along with a number of her granduncles and grandaunts, and a total of 13 Lamberts. Emblematic of their wealth and prestige, an iron fence encloses it.
Bunny’s father, Gerard Lambert (1886-1967), was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He served as President of the Listerine Pharmacal Company and expertly marketed the product. He later served as President of the Gillette Razor Company. The family’s pharmacy company became Warner-Lambert.
Image: Gerard Lambert and daughter, Bunny, Oak Spring Gallery.
Gordon notes that Gerard and his five siblings had to be resilient, as their father Jordan died at age 38 and their mother at 36. Their uncle John Winn (on the side of Bunny’s grandmother, Elizabeth Liscome Winn Lambert, 1853-1889, who was born in Richmond) and wife Clara moved from Virginia to St. Louis to take care of the orphaned children.
It’s hard to know how much Bunny knew about her father’s siblings. The three oldest — Albert, Marion, and Jordan Jr. — worked for Lambert Pharmacal in St. Louis. Lambert Field in St. Louis is named after Albert. He helped fund Charles Lindbergh’s pioneering transatlantic flight in 1927.
The Washington Post did print a nuptial note in 1932, announcing her engagement to Stacy B. Lloyd of Pennsylvania. It reported she was the granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Wheat of Alexandria. But by then they had moved to St. Louis.
It’s also hard to know if Bunny ever saw 404 Duke Street. Gordon does note that when her daughter Eliza was transferred to the INOVA Rehabilitation Center south of Alexandria, Bunny visited daily. Bunny also consulted for River Farm, south of Alexandria.
Foxtrot Boarding School
In 1916, Bunny Mellon began what would be a total of three years studying at Foxtrot. The school was only its third year. Her parents had wanted her to go to a school in or near Princeton, but she lobbied to come here. The main reason was her growing love of horses.
As far as her trip from Princeton to Foxcroft in 1916, neither author covers it other than Gordon pointing out Bunny was met at the train station in The Plains. We can look at what she might have seen. On her train ride from Princeton she would have entered Union Station in Washington, a wonder built in 1908. Bunny likely noticed signs such as “Colored Only,” enforcing Jim Crow laws. Crossing over the river into Virginia, she might have seen the old Abingdon plantation house, where George Washington had visited his step-son Jackie Parke Custis, wife Eleanor and their four children. Crossing over Four Mile Run, Bunny might have seen freight being transferred at the new Potomac Yards and smoke belching from factories such as
Image: In Alexandria's Union Station Waiting Area, Photo, Author.
When the Southern Railway train stopped in Alexandria, she would have seen Alexandria’s Union Station. It, too, was modern, built in 1905. Seems very likely she gazed eastward to see the city in its “river to rails” appearance. Perhaps she saw streetcars running along King Street, that were part of the Washington-Alexandria-Mount Vernon Railway. Steamers puffed smoke on the Potomac River. Once a thriving seaport, Alexandria had become more of a place for manufacturing firms. Bunny would have also seen the beginnings of suburban growth at what became known as the Del Ray neighborhood.
Bunny’s final leg took her from Alexandria to The Plains. The Manassas Gap Railroad had begun as the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, the first to chug into the city in 1851. Southern Railway acquired it in 1896. Pulling out of Alexandria and heading west put Bunny and the passengers in a rural world with stations and quick stops in Wellington, Gainesville, Haymarket, Thoroughfare, Broad Run, and The Plains. After she got off, the train continued to Marshall, Rectortown, Delaplane, Markham, Linden, Happy Creek, and Front Royal. Today’s I-66 runs roughly the same course from Wellington to Front Royal.
In 1916, Bunny began what would be a total of three years studying at Foxtrot. The school was only its third year. Her parents had wanted her to go to a school in or near Princeton, but she lobbied to come here. The main reason was her growing love of horses.
Seems likely Bunny learned about the geography of the area. Loudoun County and Fauquier County share a border that straddles Route 50. For many years, Shenandoah farm products came through Upperville, Middleburg, and Aldie on the Ashby’s Gap Turnpike on their way to the seaport in Alexandria. Aldie was where that turnpike ended and the Little River Turnpike began its run to Alexandria.
These small towns typically had a tavern, blacksmith, wheelwright, and other such places. That era was beginning to fade in 1916 as automobiles were beginning to dot the landscape. Nevertheless, the entire surrounding area remained rural. The nearest town of any size was Leesburg, with about 1,500 residents.
Bunny would have also learned about some of the history of the area.
Here are some high points:
The Civil War came to Middleburg in June, 1863. The Battle Of Middleburg took place from June 17 to June 19, 1863.
Held annually at Grafton Farms, the Upperville Colt & Horse Show is the oldest horse show in the US. Much was owed to Colonel Richard Henry Dulany who started it in 1853 and ran the show until his death in 1906. In 2022, the Upperville Colt & Horse Show Grounds was listed on the National Register for Historic Places.
Three miles to the northeast of Upperville stands Welbourne. Colonel Dulany was born in the family stone farmhouse that evolved into a mansion. It is now a bed and breakfast and is still owned by Dulany descendants. The mansion graces the cover of "Old Plantations and Historic Homes around Middleburg, Virginia" by Audrey Windsor Bergner.
Colonel Dulany also founded the Piedmont Fox Hounds in 1840. Fox hunting had been around a long time, but it is the Piedmont Fox Hounds that is credited as being the oldest hunt club in the US.
A pivotal moment in the history of the sport in the area came in November, 1905 when the Great Hound Match took place at Welbourne and other locales in and near Upperville and Middleburg. Two Masters of Foxhounds from Massachusetts had been bragging on their breeds. Harry Worcester Smith’s Grafton hounds, a smaller and leaner type from Virginia and Kentucky took on the British Middlesex breed touted by Henry Higginson. Evidently no foxes were killed, but the judged decided that Smith’s American hounds performed better overall.
In her book, “The Great Hound Match, Alexander Henry Higginson, Harry Worcester Smith, and the Rise of Virginia Hunt Country,” Martha Wolfe tells us:
“The Match is responsible for the existence, the essence, the mystique and the aura of Virginia’s Hunt Country.”
The Foxcroft school, still a premiere place of learning, was founded in 1914 by Charlotte Haxall Noland. She served as Joint-Master of the Foxhounds for the Middleburg Hunt from 1932 to 1946. Noland served as headmistress of the school until 1955 and included riding and sports as part of the curriculum. Far from any silver spoons, Bunny and her fellow students learned how to be vigorous. They slept in sleeping bags on the porch, went on fox hunts, did chin-ups, and climbed rope.
Image: Charlotte Haxall Nolan. Foxcroft website.
While enrolled here, Bunny befriended Dorothy Kinnicutt, who became Sister Parish, a style and decorating icon in her own right.
“Tally-Ho,” the school’s yearbook, published a piece Bunny wrote about Chartres Cathedral.
Eliza, Bunny’s second child and only daughter, and Cathy Mellon, her step-daughter (Bunny married Paul Mellon in 1948, who had two children), also attended here. Paul and Bunny Mellon would donate money to the school and Bunny designed the school garden.
In 1964, Paul addressed the graduating class. Among the things he said was, "What this country needs is a good five-cent reverie."
Carter Hall
“Carter Hall, A Landscape History,” points out that:
“Between the turn of the 20th century and until the stock market crash of 1929, there was an infusion of energy and wealth into Virginia and many historic homes were acquired and modernized by wealthy people from outside the Commonwealth.”
Image: Gottscho, S. H., photographer. (1932) Gerald B. Lambert, Carter Hall, residence in Millwood, Virginia. Living room, to staircase II. United States Millwood Virginia, 1932. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2018734390/.
One of the newcomers was Bunny’s father Gerard (1886-1967). In 1929, after he learned he was related to the famed Burwell family, who had built and lived at Carter Hall, he bought the mansion and property. His marketing of Listerine made him a wealthy man. In 1917, Lambert had built a stately mansion in Princeton he named Albemarle. In 1927, he purchased a three-masted schooner, Atlantic, from Cornelius Vanderbilt.
There’s a pantheon of these historic homes spread across Clarke, Loudoun, and Fauquier counties and Carter Hall is certainly one of them. Sitting just outside the quaint village of Millwood, Carter Hall has a magnificent setting. The National Register for Historic Places nomination form tells us:
“Few Virginia plantation houses are as complimented by their setting as Carter Hall.”
The late-Georgian style house is a massive two-story structure built of native limestone rubble. Erected in 1792, Carter Hall tells some of the multi-generational story of the Burwell family. Colonel Nathaniel Burwell built not only this home, but also, along with General Daniel Morgan, a large stone mill in Millwood. It stands today as a National Historic Landmark and still an operation mill. Burwell was also known for his love of breeding horses.
Lambert hired New York architect Harrie T. Lindeberg to renovate and modernize the mansion. Lindeberg is the subject of a book, titled “Harrie T. Lindeberg and the American Country House.” He designed Albermarle for Lambert.
Bunny was no doubt keeping a watchful eye on the work and probably asked questions. The stucco was removed to expose the stone. A four-level stone-terraced garden was added. Bunny designed a greenhouse and potting shed.
Around this time, the hard hand of disruption hit Bunny. Ahead of their divorce in 1933, his mother and father were living separate lives. Bunny was cast into the role of the lady of the manor.
And, as Griswold points out:
“Bunny began shaping her lifelong identity as that of a Virginian instead of thinking of herself as a displaced New Yorker living in a big house in New Jersey.”
Perhaps Gerard and Bunny thought it might take a few years before the revamped Carter Hall made the newspapers.
Not at all. In the spring of 1930, she and her father swung open their doors to the public for the Virginia Historic Garden Week. Known as the nation's only statewide house and garden tour, this rite of spring was only in its second year. Bunny would go on to embrace its principles of beauty, sharing, and preservation.
In late May of that year, 300 or so horses came to Carter Hall for the Blue Ridge Hunt Club’s annual horse and colt show. The Richmond Times said it was their largest entry list. The club was organized in 1888.
In 1932, Bunny turned 22. In November she married Stacy Barcroft Lloyd (1908-1994) in Princeton. His father was a banker in Philadelphia and his family traced their roots to a deputy governor under William Penn. His mother’s family tree showed Captain Samuel Morris, who commanded troops under General George Washington in 1774.
Lloyd graduated from Princeton University in 1930. On December 30, 1933, Bunny’s father gave them a holiday ball attended by 1,000 people at Carter Hall. The couple lived in its East House for a while.
In 1948, Gerard sold Carter Hall when Bunny married Paul Mellon. In 1977, Carter Hall became the headquarters for "Project Hope." As an international global health and humanitarian aid organization, they help in five main areas: disasters and health crises; infectious diseases; noncommunicable diseases; maternal, neonatal and child health; and health policy."
The organization sold the property two years ago to Carter Hall Estate LLC. In August, the Washington Business Journal reported that Langdon Greenhalgh, fifth great-grandson of Burwell, hoped to operate an Inn there, but they balked after restrictions were attached to the deal.
Sotheby's International Realty is currently handling a potential auction sale. The value is listed as $7.5M.
Apple Hill
As noted previously, Bunny’s father brought her and the family to Carter Hall in 1929. In 1937, Bunny and Stacy (and one-year-old Stacy, Jr.) began the construction of a home close to Carter Hall. They hired Charles N. Read from Rhode Island to design it in the “Pennsylvania farmhouse” style. Local stone was used. Apple Hill also holds long views to the mountains.
For the grounds, Bunny designed a garden terrace and greenhouse. The house is now considered a fieldstone Colonial Revival and has two stories, nine bedrooms, and stands on a rise above a pond.
Among their friends were David Bruce and Ailsa Mellon, the daughter of Paul Mellon. David served in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1939-1952 and would become Under Secretary of State and a four-time Ambassador. The summary for the book, “The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of Ambassador David K.E. Bruce, 1898-1977,” observes he was “ the last of a kind - a wealthy American, country squire, spymaster and diplomat.”
During World War II, Lloyd served as a Staff Officer with the OSS in Africa, England, and Italy. Bunny had her hands full with their five-year-old son Tuffy and newborn Eliza. Being separated during the war would contribute to Bunny divorcing Stacy in 1948. He and their two children continued to live at Apple Farm.
The home was on the Virginia Historic Garden Week Tour this past April. The Guidebook points out it was built in a country-house style with narrow rooms and low ceilings “to bring the outdoors inside.” Bunny “loved her romantic garden for which she designed heart-shaped brick-lined flower beds.” The springs produce 2,600 gallons of water per minute. In 1980, Project HOPE acquired the home through funding provided by Bunny.
Bunny and Stacy had two children, Stacy III (1936-2017) and Eliza Winn (1942-2008). Stacy III was born in Millwood in 1936. As a Foreign Service Officer, he had assignments in Laos and Washington. Lloyd then opened an antiquarian and travel bookstore in Georgetown called Lloyd Books. He lived in Winchester and passed away in 2017.
Eliza married Henry Dermot Posonby, Viscount Moore in 1968. He became a photographer, with an emphasis on British Royalty. At their wedding, Caroline Kennedy was the flower girl and John F. Kennedy, Jr. was a page. They divorced in 1972 and had no children. Eliza did not remarry.
Tragedy struck in May, 2000 when a truck hit Eliza in Manhattan. A quadriplegic and unable to speak, she spent the remaining eight years at Oak Spring Farm, which her mother and step father Paul Mellon had built in Upperville.
In 1949, Stacy Lloyd remarried to Alice Babcock of Rhode Island. They moved into Apple Hill.
Middleburg
Still a small place like Bunny experienced when she arrived in 1926, Middleburg (population, 834) is just a speck in the orbit of the Greater Washington area. Yet there were enough stories here that spawned Vicky Moon's 2001 book, “The Middleburg Mystique, A Peek Inside the Gates of Middleburg, Virginia.”
There’s no question Bunny would have visited the small town when she was studying at Foxcroft. It surely was part of her first impressions of the area when the farm truck passed through it in 1926. Still standing on the corner of the crossroads is the Red Fox Inn & Tavern. Like many who have lived here through the years, Bunny would, as an adult, meet friends there for a drink and a meal. The National Register for Historic Places form tells us the present building may incorporate fabric from 1728, but it was mostly constructed in 1830. A renovation in the 1940s gave it its present look.
Perhaps Bunny learned that Leven Powell (1737–1810) was a Colonel in the Continental Army, a member of Congress, and founder of the town of Middleburg. In 1787, he donated 50 acres and laid out the first streets. The town was so named as being halfway between the mountainous town of Winchester and the seaport of Alexandria.
Ordinaries (taverns) like the Red Fox Inn would have comforted weary travelers using the turnpikes. The street names — Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Pendleton, Marshall - are a history lesson themselves.
Photo: Red Fox Inn, Author.
On a visit to nearby Aldie, she might learned the Little River Turnpike had started there and that George Washington and others traveled along what is still called the Snickersville Turnpike. The Virginia Department of Transportation wanted to widen the road, but its small winding footprint was maintained and it is now on the National Register for Historic Places.
In the 1930s, while living at Apple Hill, Stacy became the publisher and editor of the Clarke Courier Weekly in Berryville. His love of horses led to him becoming the publisher of the Middleburg Chronicle. In an article in the “Chronicle of the Horse” Alexander Mackay-Smith tells the reader how the publication got started in 1961.
“It was in the autumn of 1937 that Stacy B. Lloyd, Jr., and Gerald Webb (managing editor of a Warrenton paper), both ardent foxhunters, decided that the little town of Middleburg, the center of Virginia horse country, needed a newspaper. So was born the Middleburg Chronicle. A year and a half later, the small town newspaper had in effect become a weekly horse magazine, so the title was changed simply to The Chronicle. Over the years it surpassed the longer established weeklies in circulation. It has thus become increasingly evident that the 13,000 paid subscribers to the two magazines can best be served by including all the features of both in a single publication. Consequently with this issue we become The Chronicle of the Horse.”
The publication continues today as a weekly magazine with a website and headquartered in Middleburg in a building adjacent to the National Sporting Library, the nation’s leading resource on equestrian and outdoor pursuits.
Llangollen
Image: Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Decades before the arrival of the likes of Robert Duvall and Elizabeth Taylor, John Hay “Jock” Whitney brought a dash of Hollywood to the valley of farms. In 1930, he acquired Llangollen, a home and spread of land about three miles to the east of Carter Hall.
The house dates to 1795. The Whitneys were the ones who turned it into what Kitty Slater called “one of the most famed estates in the Hunt Country” (“The Hunt Country of America.”) One website noted it is “one of the largest privately owned places on the Department of the Interior’s National Historical Registry.”
Like Paul Mellon, Whitney built one of the premier horse stables in the US. His wife Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Altemus was herself a rider.
Whitney added the stables and other additions. Like a number of other mansions dotting the area, this new infusion of money paid for a rehabilitation — and then some. Aerial photos reveal the spread of buildings and land to be more like a royal getaway.
Jock Whitney went on to become a Hollywood movie producer, US Ambassador to the UK, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art.
As Kathy Orton points out, Llangollen became the center of the area’s social and equestrian scene. Guests included Bing Crosby and Doris Duke. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard met at one of his parties.
On November 17, 1931, an estimated 20,000 spectators poured into this part of Loudoun County to watch a steeplechase event at Llangollen.
The Washington Evening Star headline read:
“Aristocratic Days in Old Dominion Revived by Races.”
Attendees include “society, horse lovers and country folk from every part of Virginia and many Northern states.” Notables were the Secretary of the Navy and Mrs. Adams and Major and Mrs. George S. Patton. “Word of Honor” from Lexington, Kentucky won the three-miler. The Piedmont Fox Hounds held a traditional breakfast and a meeting. The Whitneys hosted a dance.
Papers such as the Boston Herald and the Houston Chronicle covered the event. The date line of Upperville, Va helped put it on the map.
In 1940, Jock and Liz divorced. Liz stayed at Llangollen and kept the horses running in fine fashion. She became good friends with Bunny. Guests included Bing Crosby and Doris Duke.
Llangollen is listed on the National Register for Historic Places. Its 54 pages is a tour-de-force. Recent owners have turned the estate into the home of Virginia International Polo Club. Farming continues with breeding polo ponies.
Berryville
Berryville is not within the close orbit of Middleburg and Upperville, but Stacy Lloyd brings it into our picture. In 1934, after Stacy and Bunny were married and living in Carter Hall, he bought The Clarke Courier. The paper had gotten its start in Berryville in 1869. Riswold writes that Stacy wrote columns on local, national, and international politics.
In 1950, Stacy Lloyd remarried to Alice Woodward Babcock (1927-1980). In 1981, the widowed Stacy moved back to Virginia and settled in Berryville.
It was there he rekindled his love affair with horses and loved riding in carriages. With his third wife Virginia “Vidy” Boyed, they established Long Pond Farm where they raised Welsh Cobs and a small herd of Charalois cattle. Vidy also loved horses and carriage driving.
Tragedy struck in early December, 1994. Stacy was killed almost instantly when a horse he’d been training to drive crashed through a fence on his property. He was laid to rest in Winchester. Vidy passed in 2007.
Rokeby
In March 1931, Andrew Mellon, one of the wealthiest men in the country, purchased Rokeby, a 400-acre farm about two miles south of Upperville. He served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. The National Park Service estimates his worth in 1930 was between $300 and $400 million ($7B today). In 1936, he established, funded, and donated paintings to the new National Gallery of Art. The total sum of money was $71M ($1.5B equivalent today). Mellon insisted the museum not be named after him.
Research by Michael Gaige (“Rokeby: A Landscape Biography,” Oak Spring Garden Foundation) found that the full story of the acquisition may never be known, but it is likely that Andrew Mellon put the property in Paul’s name. Paul owned it, but as Gordon notes, Andrew Mellon was buying it for Nora (1878-1973), his former wife and mother of Paul and Ailsa. She loved riding and fox hunting and kept a stable of fox hounds at Rokeby Farm.
Their daughter Ailsa Mellon (1901-1969) and husband David Bruce (1898-1977), lived in Washington. Ailsa would keep the society writers busy and went on to establish the Avalon Foundation in 1940. When she passed away, she was the wealthiest woman in the US. Her philanthropy included the Mellon Foundation, established in 1969 by her and Paul through the consolidation of the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation. They named the new foundation in honor of their father, Andrew W. Mellon.
In the early 1930s, Paul began to join his mother for weekends. Not content with following in the path of his father, he was looking for direction. Thus began his love affair with the area.
In 1933, Paul met Mary Conover Brown in New York. She was a “smart and striking Vassar graduate” and worked at an art gallery in New York.
Two years later they married. Until the Brick House was completed in 1941, they lived in the Fletcher log cabin whose site is Oak Spring. On the Rokeby side, Paul continued to build up and expand the farm, including raising cattle. He enjoyed fox hunting and became a renowned breeder and racer of champion racehorses. When the Queen of England and Prince Philip visited Washington in 1955, they visited Rokeby.
As "HorseProperties" points out, Mellon went on to turn Rokeby into one of America’s most successful horse properties. The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame writes:
“This 4,000-acre farm is acknowledged to be one of the most magnificent farms and stables in the world. Prior to 1992, Rokeby Stables was home to 90 to 100 Thoroughbreds and was one of the major forces in horse racing for over 60 years.”
Mellon bred and raised a number of champion racehorses here, including Sea Hero, winner of the Kentucky Derby, The Derby, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Mellon is the only breeder to do so. Mill Reef, winner of 12 of 14 races between 1970-1972, was another feather in his cap.
Photo: Author
Note: I did not visit the Rokeby side during our visit to Oak Spring. This photo of the statue for Mill Reef is on the Oak Spring side.
Paradoxically, Rokeby nor Oak Spring is not on the National Register of Historic Places. The history of the land and the current inventory of buildings of Rokeby takes some searching. “Rokeby: A Landscape Biography,” Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Michael Gaige, April, 2019) comes in like the calvary and wonderfully tells the stories.
Like a lot of land in this area, this parcel was first owned by Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax and then the Carter family. Edward Carter (1788-1845), great grandson of Robert King Carter (1663-1732) and his wife Fanny lived here until 1825. The Carters owned enslaved humans.
Nathaniel Loughbough (1772-1852) acquired the 400 acres in 1825. He was a protégée of Alexander Hamilton and served as Comptroller of the Treasury under President Adams. The Nathaniel Loughborough House (built 1801-1806) sits next to the famed Old Stone House in Georgetown on M Street.
Loughborough raised horses. One was a stallion (1827) named Rokeby that won a number of races in Loudoun County.
The Loughbough’s owned the property until 1873. A number of people would own the land before Mellon. One was Henry T. Oxnard. He raised winning horses there.
Admiral Cary Grayson (1877-1938), along with Samuel Ross, acquired the property in 1927. Born near Culpeper, Grayson had a distinguished career, serving as White House physician for President Woodrow Wilson, Chairman of the Red Cross, and Chairman of the inaugural committee for FDR in 1933 and 1937. Grayson owned or bred racing winners. The Grayson family still owns the nearby Blue Ridge Farm.
Gaige’s research includes an inventory of the property. There are 22 structures. The Union Army burned wooden structures in 1864, but two brick buildings survived. They are the Brick Barn/Schoolhouse (pre-1860?) and the Brick Meat House (pre-1860?).
The others date from 1904 to 1957 and include the Nora Mellon House built in the late 1940s, and the attractive Whitehaven House, the oldest house built early 1940s. H. Page Cross (1910-1975) designed it and some others. His list of works include the Music Building and Schoolhouse at Foxcroft, the Oak Farm residence, Trinity Episcopal Church and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington.
Others are stone houses, houses modified from barns, barns, a greenhouse, a silo and a granary. The property remains under the stewardship of the Oak Spring Foundation. Mellon put the land in a permanent conservation program administered at the time by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.
The Brick House Mansion
Paul and Mary Mellon had been living at the old Fletcher log cabin. In 1940, they hired William Adams Delano to design a house that would arise a short distance to the south (now Oak Spring). Paul wanted an homage to the esteemed Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis and that is what he got. He had learned about and seen the Georgian beauty in 1940 when he attended St. Paul’s College in the capital city. Paul and Mary named their new home the “Brick House.”
Image: Display Board, Oak Spring Foundation.
Paul Mellon and Mary corresponded with Carl Jung (1875-1961), the famed Swiss psychoanalyst. Mary established the Bollingen Foundation, which published a series of books in 1943 that translated Jung’s writings in English and disseminated works on art, philosophy, religion. She was first editor and first president of Bollingen Foundation until her sudden death, at age 42, in 1946.
In 1948, Bunny divorced Stacy and married Paul Mellon. Griswold points out there was a metaphorical change for Bunny. She had lived in Carter Hall and then Apple Hill, with occasional visits to Middleburg. All those were north of Route Fifty. Now she would be moving two miles south of the town to Paul’s Brick House home. The new family consisted of each of their two children.
In 1955, Bunny and Paul would move into Oak Spring, their new home near the brick house. Paul had moved the Fletcher log cabin to Rokeby in 1947. They would use the Brick House to store their ever growing collection of paintings. Griswold writes: "The Brick House was transformed into a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled art gallery." Bunny and Paul would later donate their extensive collection to the National Gallery of Art, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond.
In his memoir, Mellon points out the second floor held a large library of color plate books published between 1770-1850. On the third floor he maintained an art reference library and "all the manuscripts and printed books from John Locke's Library still remaining in the possession of the Earl of Lovelace." He later donated these to the Bodleian Libary in Oxford.
In June, 1961, the Brick Home was where Bunny threw a debutante party for her daughter Eliza. The Washington Post called the all-night ball “one of the most glamorous debutante parties ever given in the Washington area.”
The 700 invited guests was more than the population of Middleburg and it must have seemed like half of Washington was there. The guests included First Lady Jacqui Kennedy, Attorney General and Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy, the British Ambassador, Arthur Schlesinger, Special Assistant to the President, Assistant Secretary of Defense, and the Mellon’s friends from across the country.
One could also say this was a coming out party for Bunny. Griswold details the party. Lavish only begins to describe it. The Post was able to take a photo from a helicopter, which shows an array of tents outside the mansion.
Oak Spring, House and Gardens
While the Brick House was certainly visually impressive with its Georgian beauty and architecturally an ode to the Hammond-Harwood House (a National Historic Landmark) in Annapolis, Bunny was not satisfied with the dwelling and its “stuffy traditional style” and noisy acoustics.
In 1954, Paul and Bunny commissioned New York architect H. Page Cross to design their new home. Gaige tells the story. The location was about 2000 feet to the north of the Brick House where a log cabin home had stood. A photo from 1890 at the OSGF website shows a one and a half story dwelling. It belonged to the farmer Robert Fletcher. The family lived there in the late eighteenth century and built it from chestnut. To make room for the new home, the dwelling was moved across the street to Rokeby Farm.
Photo: Author
Oak Spring was built on the site of Little Oak Spring. Bunny created a different look and feel than the other homes in the area. In Elysian magazine, Lisa Rubenson writes:
The main house and outbuildings which share a whitewashed stone cottage design and, while elegant, give little indication of the wealth of those who once lived here. With its gallery white walls and Mrs. Mellon’s signature, painted wood floors by artist Paul Leonard, the house has multiple sets of French doors that open onto the gardens––as if to say you’ll find the real home and life of Bunny Mellon outside.
A visitor in 1970 (Pat Ryan, Sports Illustrated, March 16, 1970) captured its essence by writing the house has “a serenity and peace, and subdued harmony.”
The spread of low-slung, white-washed buildings includes the main residence, a guest house, a guest cottage, a basket house, gardens, an exquisite alle of crabapple trees, and a formal greenhouse. Bunny took all the knowledge she had gained and created a lovely landscape. Her collection of books, art, texts, and manuscripts was so vast it needed a building itself. With funding from Paul, a library was built in 1981 and expanded in 1997.
Photo: Author
The marriage of Paul Mellon and Bunny Lambert Lloyd was the start of a remarkable marriage involving wealth, philanthropy, and their life and involvement in the community.
As Vanity Fair pointed out:
“Few invitations were as coveted as those to Oak Spring Farms…. Bunny was widely venerated as the epitome of good taste and the true queen of green.”
And:
"Paul and Bunny continued to work together closely in Virginia. In their different ways - she with design, he with horses, they were creating the ultimate private American pastoral."
In November 1985, royalty returned to Oak Spring when Prince Charles and Princess Diana visit.
The establishment of the Gerard B. Lambert foundation was instrumental in the later development of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, dedicated to spreading Bunny’s philosophies about the importance of plants to all of us.
Visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip
Here’s a great trivia question. In October 1957, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip came to Washington for a four-day state visit. Their stops included dinner at the White House with President and Mrs. Eiswnhower, a reception at the British embassy, and visits to the National Cathedral and Gallery of Art.
Where outside Washington did they go on the fourth and final day?
Answer: Oak Spring.
Edward T. Folliard of The Washington Post wrote the entourage was a convoy of 11 cars and a bus escorted by 16 motorcycle policemen. Their first stop was the Middleburg Training Track. Paul had build it the year before. Chuck Kuhn, a Purcellville businessman acquired it several years ago, placed it in easement, and hopes to revamp the barns, track, and facilities.
The Queen looked over 18 horses in 40 minutes. They were then whisked over to Oak Spring and spent 55 minutes with “Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.”
The day before the visit, Muriel Bowen of the Post provided a preview. She pointed out that Bunny was the only one to entertain the royal couple privately during the four day visit. She described the Mellon’s home as:
"a very cozy sort of place — soft cushioned settees, warm color schemes, and lots of flowers arranged in brass-girthed mahogany wine coolers. It is an unpretentious house, mostly one story with several luxurious touches."
Gordon fills in the lost details:
After a small private tea, the Queen enjoyed seeing Paul Mellon’s impressive stables, horses, and training track. Then it was over to Bunny’s garden which Gordon described as a “riot of color: orange and yellow dahlias, pink-and-blue Michaelmas daisies, and other fall blooms.” Paul’s son Stacy and daughter Eliza and Paul’s daughter Cathey and her husband John Warner (Assistant prosecutor in the office of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia) were part of the gathering, as well as Charlotte Noland, headmistress of Foxcroft.
Glen Ora
Another famous lady who liked horses and country settings and the privacy they gave was Jackie Bouvier Kennedy (1929-1994). She came to horse and hunt country even before she got married to the young Senator from Massachusetts in 1953. After graduating from George Washington University, she landed a job as photographer for the Washington-Times Herald.
Gordon tells us Bunny and Jackie often saw each other on weekends at Glen Ora. The distance between their two secluded homes was just six miles. The mansion, located about a mile south of Middleburg, was built around 1815. The Kennedy’s made it their weekend retreat between 1961 and 1963.
Like some other homes in the area, Glen Ora has more history than folks realize. It traces its history to 1815 when Colonel Lloyd Noland (1790-1875) built the core of the stone farmhouse. A descendant by marriage, Ellen Noble MacKenzie (1861-1926), lived here in the first part of the twentieth century. Her cousin was Charlotte Haxall Noland (1883-1969), who as previously mentioned, opened Foxcroft in 1914?
In 1910, Charlotte Noland had opened a summer camp for girls in Burrland, her childhood home. The Middleburg Hunt met there. Nina Carter Tabb described it as a lovely country place. Eleonora Sears of Boston had horses there in the 1950s. Sadly, it was burned down in 1961 by Eleo Sears, who did so to reduce her property taxes.
In 1912, and much like Bunny did in 1926, a 17-year-old Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) came south for the horse riding and refinement training. At Burrland, she met the tall and handsome 17-year-old Lloyd Noland Tabb (1894-1960). At Glen Ora, the Tabb estate, they spent time together. Biographer Greg King writes that Tabb was Wallis’s first real crush. History, of course, best remembers her marriage to Prince Edward and his abdicated the throne to his brother.
Jacqui and Bunny had met in 1958. JFK was 41 years old and had been re-elected to a second term. In January, 1959, he would announce his intention to run for US President.
Meryl Gordon picks up the story. Adele Astaire Douglass, the sister of Fred Astaire and the wife of Kingman Douglass, assistant director of the CIA, was living close by. Douglass introduced the two that year by bringing Jacqui to Oak Spring to a tea.
Gordon writes:
Jackie took it all in - the relaxed style, the magnificent art, and the stale candles in the antique jars.
Bunny later recalled what Jacqui said the next morning when she called Mellon — “I loved your house, but I don’t like mine.”
A close, lifetime friendship was spawned. In 1962, at the request of President Kennedy. Mellon re-designed the White House Rose Garden, followed by the East Garden in 1965.
The Kennedys were frequent visitors to the Mellon’s lap of luxury home at Cape Cod. On that most tragic of days in November, 1963, Bunny helped comfort the family. The following January, Jacqui nursed her soul at the Mellon’s private place in Antigua.
In 1989, Jackie wrote a note to Bunny that said: “Ever since I’ve known you (33 years this spring), you have meant as much to me as any person in my life.”
Oak Spring Library
In 1978, Bunny Mellon was 68 years old. She could have rested on her laurels, but there was still work to be done. She had amassed over 16,000 botanical and gardening books, illustrations and items.
Image: Oak Spring Garden Foundation Handout
Funded by her husband Paul, she built her own library of Oak Spring. She hired Dita Amory, who would go on to become Curator in Charge at the Met. She began her distinguished career as Bunny’s Librarian (1978-1982).
For designer of the library building, Bunny tabbed Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004). His resume at the time included, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
As Griswold points out, Amor told her that Bunny was “integral to the design process and should be credited with much of the library as we know it.”
Paula Deitz ("Of Gardens: Selected Essays") observes:
"Settled into a hillside, beyond an orchard, is the new whitewashed fieldstone library with the pitched shed roof."
The Oak Spring Foundation describes it as a “simple, whitewashed stone building with large rectangular windows.”
The library today holds the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, a research organization. One can visit a Google Arts & Culture website to see 6 online exhibits.
Oak Spring Gallery
Bunny and Paul certainly cherished their privacy but they also cared enough to share. In 2011, when she was 100 years old, Bunny built what it called the Oak Spring Gallery. During annual public tours, one can see the mini-museum she created. On display are photographs, items, artwork, and memorabilia. Particularly insightful are the ads and info on the Listerine marketing campaign.
Image: Oak Spring Gallery.
State Highway Markers
In 2019, a pair of Virginia State Highway Markers were erected between Middleburg and Upperville. The first touches on Paul Mellon. It acknowledges his remarkable philanthropy and the donations of art by him and Bunny to the National Gallery of Art and the VMFA, his breeder success and donation of land for the creation of Sky Meadows State Park.
Photo: Author
The second one tells the reader he established Rokeby Stables in 1931 and points out his accomplishments as a breeder. Not mentioned is the fact he is only one of five "Exemplars of Racing," awarded by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
The state also erected one (2018) for his wife Mary in Upperville. It makes note of her interest in the humanities, establishing the Bollingen Series of books in 1943, serving as the series’ first editor, and the first president of the Bollingen Foundation.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Paul and Bunny donated to the National Gallery of Art more than a thousand paintings and sculptures. Lesser known is their giving to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The VMFA was founded in Richmond in 1936. It has one of largest spaces for art and is the only art museum in the United States open 365 days a year with free general admission.
Paul Mellon not only donated to the VMFA, he served as a Trustee for for 44 years. Bunny was also a lifetime supporter. In addition to their donations of works of art, they funded the West Wing in 1985.
The VMFA website writes that:
"The Paul and Rachel Mellon Collection is a world-class ensemble of European artworks that is as richly varied as it is comprehensive in focus including European paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts."
Also:
“Through their historic gifts to the museum, Mr. and Mrs. Mellon transformed VMFA into a center for the display, study, and appreciation of the arts, especially of France.”
Bunny donated 140 bespoke jewelry and decorative objects by Jean Schlumberger, a close friend. Gordon writes they are "impossibly refined works that portray infinitely small and precious aspects of the natural world."
The collection spreads across the second and third floors. The second floor highlights include paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau and Vincent van Gogh.
The third floor features Mellon’s spirited collection of British, European and American Sporting art focusing on equestrian subjects with masterpieces of the genre by George Stubbs, Sir Francis Grant, John Frederick Herring, Benjamin Marshall, George Morland and Edgar Degas.
The West Wing addition was recognized in an article in The Washington Post ("Richmond: A City on the Move, Sophisticated Lady of the New South"). The piece by Donald P. Baker touched on the city’s revitalization.
"Speaking of museums, no trip to Richmond this winter is complete without a stop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Its new West Wing has catapulted the museum to world-class status."
Sky Meadows State Park
About four miles west of Upperville lies Sky Meadows State Park. Visitors wind their way up this part of the Blue Ridge Mountains for views of the valley below. Hiking, logging, camping, picnicking, astronomy and history programs are all available across its 1,860 acres.
Photo: Author
Were it not for Paul Mellon, this natural area might have lost its pristine beauty. He talks about saving it in his memoir, "Life in a Silver Spoon." A developer wanted to put in luxury houses with a country club and a shopping center.
In 1975 he donated the 1,132 acres to Virginia for the creation of the Park, which opened in 1983. In 1991, Mellon donated an additional 728.
Upperville Trinity Episcopal Church
The extent of the philanthropy of Paul and Bunny Mellon is probably not well known by most Americans. Paul was one of the foremost givers of his time. Bunny’s estate sale produced $216M which funded the Gerard Lambert Foundation.
In addition to the arts, Mellon built and endowed museums and gave lands such as that for Sky Meadows State Park. He created foundations and helped preserve and refurbish beloved civic places. He served as president and chief executive of the National Gallery of Art from 1963 to 1979. With Bunny, he gave almost 1,000 works to the NGA. He also gave $6M to the Virginia Museum in Richmond.
One of his biggest impacts in and around Uppervile was with the Trinity Episcopal Church. Bunny and Paul were members. By the late 1940s, the church building, which had been built in 1895, had fallen into poor condition. As noted by the National Register for Historic Places form for Upperville, Paul funded the construction of a new, grand church, parish, and rectory. Bunny spearheaded the design — a 12th and 13th century French country church. The designer was H. Page Cross in “close collaboration” with Bunny. It was built in native sandstone. Griswold writes that he became their go-to architect for all major domestic projects.
Photo: Author
The first service in the new church was held in 1960.
When Paul passed away in 1999, he was laid to rest at the church cemetery. At his eulogy, the church pews were filled. His son Paul spoke. There was a reception at Oak Spring. His mother Nora McMullen Mellon had been laid to rest at the cemetery in 1973.
Bunny drew her last breath in 2014. Once again, people came from far and wide to pay their respects. She was laid to rest at the Trinity Church Cemetery alongside Paul.
Conclusion
Bunny Mellon was known for saying, "Nothing should be noticed." One could also say her legacy, as well as Paul's, is not widely noticed. But it is a great one and we should not only notice it, we should also appreciate it. In that regard, we hope the above helps.
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