The Millford staircase from
the second floor landing. The circular trompe l'oeil painted
floor is by Robert Jackson.
Confessions of a
"House-aholic"
What would it be like to sit down for dinner with Richard Hampton
Jenrette, the investment guru who helped found Donaldson, Lufkin
& Jenrette in 1960? To have a drink with the inspired
collector of Neo-classical houses, who restored and furnished
each one to period? To rub elbows with the man who rubbed elbows
with the Prince of Wales? Delightful, in a word.
is Jenrette's engaging and utterly disarming account of his rise
on Wall Street and his simultaneous descent into the arguably mad
world of collecting. Hunting for old houses became an obsession
for Jenrette, who more than once staked his fortune on a needy
old structure. Not to worry, the man with the golden portfolio
seems to have turned every shaky investment into a profit. The
story ends happily, as retold here with warmth and candor.
"There's no place like home, the older the better," writes
Jenrette, who, after discovering American decorative arts of the
Federal and Classical periods, never swayed from his convictions.
He now owns six historic properties, most of them dating to the
early Nineteenth Century. He owned and restored eight other old
houses and rebuilt an antebellum hotel, and through his work with
the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic Hudson
Valley, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Diplomatic
Reception Rooms, has been involved with scores more.
Common to all serious collectors is the willingness to make
sacrifices and accept risks to build a monumental assemblage.
Jenrette's collection, which consists of houses and their
contents, is perhaps unique in its dimensions. He owns thousands
of antiques, many of New York origin, almost all Neo-classical in
style. Among the assortment is furniture by Duncan Phyfe,
paintings by Rembrandt Peale and Ralph Earl, and even four George
Washington mantel clocks by the French firm DuBac. The White
House and Winterthur each have only one.
Edgewater, on the Hudson River.
Jenrette, a North Carolina native, began collecting antiques 42
years ago. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he set
up his first apartment in New York with help from his roommate's
mother, Southern grande dame Martha Best Yorke. She urged him
towards English antiques. His first acquisition was a burled
walnut chest-on-chest.
Soon thereafter he bought an apartment at 455 East 57th Street
and had it decorated by Otto Zenke, North Carolina's leading
designer. The decorator's distinctive style combined with his
ability to transform an interior overnight, talents he
demonstrated in more than one Jenrette abode, earned him the
nickname "Instant Otto."
After visiting the Skidmore Owings Merrill-designed quarters of
the European investment banker Baron Leon Lambert, Jenrette
briefly flirted with the idea of commissioning a Modernist
weekend home. Fate intervened in the form of Gore Vidal's
magnificent riverside manse, Edgewater, just 90 miles north of
Manhattan. Jenrette purchased Edgewater from Vidal in 1969 and it
was here that he wrote and a previous book, his memoirs, The
Contrarian Manager.
A year earlier, Jenrette had acquired a stunning Greek Revival
mansion overlooking the harbor in Charleston, S.C. The Robert
William Roper House cost Jenrette $100,000 in 1968. It seemed
like a steal to the jaded New Yorker, though flabbergasted locals
assured him that the price was unprecedented.
In between buying his Hudson Valley and Charleston houses,
Jenrette decided he needed a more suitable residence in
Manhattan. In 1969, he acquired a Greek Revival townhouse at 27
East 11th Street. Frustrated when he couldn't gain occupancy of
the entire building - tenants on two floors were enjoying their
rent-control prerogatives and refused to budge - he sold the
property to acquire another, the former Cass Canfield home at 150
East 38th Street.
"One architectural 'last hurrah' awaited me before the onset of
tight financial times in the mid-1970s temporarily stopped my
'house-aholic' ways," writes Jenrette. Unable "to resist at least
making a pass at what was arguably the finest townhouse in
Manhattan," Jenrette acquired One Sutton Place North, a
Neo-Georgian brick edifice designed by Mott Schmidt in the 1920s
for Mrs William K. Vanderbilt. Next door was its even larger
Neo-Georgian mate, built for Ann Morgan, daughter of banker J.P.
Morgan.
One Sutton Place North cost Jenrette $450,000 in 1972. When the
bear market set in on Wall Street, he sold the property two years
later to Mrs H.J. Heinz. Though Jenrette doubled his money, he
regrets that he was unable to keep his beloved pile, today valued
at between $12 and $15 million.
As Wall Street's gloom lifted in the late 1970s, Jenrette began
looking for another Neo-classical property in New York. He
purchased 37 Charlton Street, a townhouse in lower Manhattan, for
$250,000 in 1979, reselling it for $2 million nine years later.
In 1984, the Equitable Life Assurance Society purchased Donaldson
Lufkin & Jenrette for $440 million. "For the first time in my
life, I had considerable cash in the bank," writes Jenrette, who,
like a true collector, regarded his windfall as opportunity to do
more collecting.
His next purchase was Ayr Mount, an 1814 brick estate on 52 acres
near Raleigh, N.C. He paid $450,000, investing another $1 million
in its restoration. "It is, without a doubt, the single most
professional restoration job I've ever done, even down to the
discovery of the original colors," he writes.
Even before work was completed on Ayr Mount, Jenrette had
purchased Cane Garden, an old sugar cane plantation on 200 acres
in St Croix. The tab, including restoration expenses, was $4.5
million.
After toying with the idea of retiring to the Carolinas "to teach
or write or drink bourbon," Jenrette stayed in New York to become
chairman of The Equitable. In 1987, he moved back uptown, selling
37 Charlton Street for $2 million, "a large gain over my $250,000
cost." He reinvested $4 million in a brick town house on East
93rd Street. "I now find this house, built for George F. Baker,
to be my favorite residence of the many residences I have had in
New York City over the past 42 years," the collector writes. With
The Equitable restored to sound health after the 1987 recession,
Jenrette "rewarded" himself with Millford Plantation in South
Carolina, "probably the most extraordinary of all my houses."
Initially a collector of English furniture and accessories,
Jenrette's tastes became more eclectic after California designer
Anthony Hail worked on several of his residences. He was
converted to American furniture by Fred J. Johnston, the late
Kingston, N.Y. dealer who operated an antiques shop near
Edgewater. "Why don't you try one American piece of the same
period? You'll find the scale is just right for the house,"
Johnston had urged.
Advice also came from members of what Jenrette calls the "Empire
Mafia," a group of friends that included the Atlanta-born
architect Edward Vason Jones; former skating champion and
collector Dick Button; and Berry Tracy, the late Metropolitan
Museum of Art curator who did much to popularize Nineteenth
Century decor. Jenrette notes that, in addition to Johnston, he
bought from Bernard & S. Dean Levy, Israel Sack Inc., from
private collections, and at auction.
The double parlors at 37 Charlton Street, New York City,
architecturally unchanged since the house was built in 1826.
Like many collectors of classical furniture, Jenrette recoils at
the untouched surfaces so loved by some Eighteenth Century
furniture purists. He writes, "In recent years some revisionists
among the ranks of professional conservators have argued that Ed
Jones and Tracy sometimes over restored things. Having heard
these arguments, I still believe that American Empire
furniture...simply does not look attractive if things are left
discolored and dark...Jones and Tracy brought back the glitter
that restored Federal and Empire furniture to popularity."
So, what does one man do with six houses? Will the Jenrette
properties become the next SPNEA? Possibly so. "Following the
purchase of Millford, I began to think that one day I might
contribute all my historic houses to a foundation that would
preserve them for posterity and open them to the public. To this
end, I established Classical American Homes Preservation
Trust...," he writes. The collector's first donation was Ayr
Mount, the Hillsborough, N.C. property about 30 miles from his
birthplace. The house is today open for public tours under the
auspices of Preservation North Carolina.
The carriage house adjacent to his Manhattan home, the George F.
Baker House, will "make an ideal headquarters for all my
preservation activities, which stretch from New York to the
Caribbean." Jenrette envisions that one day all, or most, of his
houses will be operated as historic house museums, "if that seems
feasible."
is a wonderful read, the autobiography of a collector and
business legend who genuinely has something to say. The story
rings true because it is true. As Jenrette insists, "I did write
this book all by myself (by hand, as Maria will attest.) If you
don't like the writing, I'm sure you will love the beautiful
photography by John Hall and the creative direction for the book
provided by Paul Waner." Not to worry. The book, like the houses
and the man himself, could hardly be more polished.
by Richard Hampton Jenrette. Foreword by HRH The Prince of
Wales. Principal photography by John M. Hall. Wyrick &
Company, Charleston, S.C., 2000, pp. 223, $60 hardcover.
