Vincent Astor
Helen Astor
INTIMATE MEMORIES OF FERNCLIFF B Y D A V I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A I RECENTLY ACQUIRED a wonderful new book called, Our Time at Foxhollow Farm: A Hudson Valley Family Remembered by David Byars. This remarkable book is made up entirely of photographs taken by Tracy Dows, the man who built the farm at the beginning of the 20th century. In his serious avocation, Dows recorded with his camera not only his beautiful property but those who lived and visited there—including Thomas Wolfe, who wrote his Look Homeward, Angel while staying as a guest there. Dows also documented his neighbors’ estates, including Springwood (and its family, the Roosevelts) as well as Ferncliff: the Astor family’s property that functioned as the destination for Astor scions right up through the last of them, Vincent Astor. 106 QUEST
Vincent Astor and Helen Dinsmore Huntington married on April 30, 1914, at Hopeland House, the Staatsburg, New York, estate of her mother and father, overlooking the Hudson River. The bride was 21 and the groom, whom she had known all her life, would be 23 on his birthday on November 15. The New York Times reported that the wedding of Huntington and “the richest young American” was held in the “utmost simplicity and informality.” The guests included only immediate relatives and a few intimate friends, numbering about 50 (with 1,800 wedding announcements to be mailed the next day). Among the guests were Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Dows of Foxhollow Farm. Dows photographed the wedding of his friends.