This much, I knew: Sarah Jane Negley Mellon was an heiress descended from multiple Pittsburgh pioneer families who once owned nearly all of the East End. Andrew Mellon's cuckolding, and his subsequent very public divorce from Nora Yet I firmly believe that history serves as a teaching tool in the present, while also providing a sense of identity. These mansions are beautiful and marvelous and it was a shame that they were torn down. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. As a lifelong Pittsburgher there are many elements of the Mellon saga that I never knew, including Sara Jane's story. Richard B. Mellon Quotes. The rotting remains of a staircase in the winter retreat. homestead of Alexander Negley, where are interred about fifty early Mellon's mansion was at the time the largest in Pittsburgh and was built in 1910. Doubtful. Witness, for example, the obsession of Sarah's son Richard Mellon Scaife with the Clinton family, which went on for decades. The abandoned remains of a river retreat in north Florida that once belonged to the hugely successful US banking magnate and industrialist James R Mellon, The staircase in the abandoned Mellon river retreat. To honour her memory, he built the Larimer Memorial Library (now Larimer Arts Center) and donated it to the city, The introduction of the railroads into North Florida in the 1880s led to an explosion in the winter tourist trade and visitors, such as industrialist James R. Mellon, opted to purchase or erect winter residences rather than be confined to a hotel room, The Mellon family ranked among the wealthiest and most prominent industrialists in the United States by the time of Judge Mellon's death in 1908. A direct line of correlation can be drawn from kid-me peering through windows into a miniature Mellon world in 1969, to adult-me reading articles and biographies about the family. What Remains Behind Did she grow to like, or love, her husband? Eventually even Judge Mellon himself concluded "There's nothing to it" and returned home. Late heiress' anti-immigration efforts live on. His brother, Andrew William Mellon, right, was the US Ambassador to Britain and the US treasury secretary, Matthew Mellon, pictured with his ex-wife British-born Tamara Mellon (left and right). This family dramatically shaped Pittsburgh's economic and civic character, and its influence extended far beyond the city. The four who survived became famous men, two of whom - Andrew W. Mellon - and Richard B. Mellon - attained worldwide fame in banking, business, government, philanthropy and the arts. Thomas Mellon pursued his intended via weekly chaperoned visits at the Negley Mansion over six long months. came to visit, but it was not her home. (I certainly remember the unfortunate eviction of Graffiti and the obsessive muckraking and embarrassing divorces of Dickie Scaife). A fountain stands between the garden and the rest of the park. The wedding, which received national news coverage for its ostentatious display of wealth, took place at the estate of Sarah's father, Richard B. Mellon, brother of . Andrew also built, designed, gifted and endowed the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC to which he donated much of his personal art collection (as would his two children). The Mellon Institute building was dedicated in May 1937 by brothers Andrew W. and Richard B. Mellon. Dimensions. After nearly a decade of marriage, Thomas and Sarah Jane built a new home for their growing family on Negley land adjacent to their existing cottage, with an eventual address of 401 Negley Avenue. The Judge author and descendant James Mellon describes a dark and sturdily decorated Victorian interior. In The Judge, another quote from grandson William described how the Mellon marriage evolvedor rather, how it bobbed placidly in place on the surface for decades: Some personal material related to Sarah Jane does exist for public access. [7] Along with the tennis courts Mellon Park includes a playground, basketball courts, and baseball fields. Along with being a successful bank and industrialist, he was a philanthropist like the rest of the Mellon family and deeply invested in his community. Mellon has been recognized as one of the most important private benefactors of environmental causes, achieving his significant stature quietly and humbly. The Foundation has awarded more than 7,700 grants and program-related investments to more than 1,800 organizations since its founding. society of to-day, Song of Haiti: The Lives of Dr. Larimer and Gwen Mellon, Pittsburgh's Colcom Foundation plays major role in immigration-control debate. This monument marks the center of a burial ground located on the former her own names on this marker. If we know our history, we know who we came from and what was important to them. Howard Heinz and Richard B. Mellon found the Pittsburgh Parks and Playground Fund - today it is known as the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Howard Heinz founds the Pittsburgh Planning Association, which today is known as the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission - the region's MPO. And an exposed steel beam bears the stamp of the Carnegie Steel Company. James was away at college. The other day as I was walking in Highland Park I came across a memorial. R.B. These are priceless artifacts we will never get back, and now we must rely on people like you to educate us on what used to be. That cemetery was closed in 1860 when the site was needed for further urban development. In suburban Philadelphia, art and industry are joined in a residence commissioned in 1901. The church is located along the Allegheny River and is approximately 25 mi (40 km) north-east of the city of Pittsburgh within the Diocese of Greensburg. It was a stones throw from the current Pittsburgh Center for the Arts on Fifth Ave. Here's a link to a pic. James and his eldest brother Thomas agreed to pool their business interests together, becoming dealers in coal, lumber, and other building materials which were in high demand at the time in Pittsburgh. She didn't turn Thomas away, but then again, neither did she encourage him. . marital woes brought him a lifetime of embarrassment. In 1929, Mellon hired landscape architects Vitale and Geiffert to develop the Walled Garden of his estate grounds. Some of Eagle Rock was saved, however. His When it was all delivered, Saint Peters had what amounted to a stone quarry in their back yard, together with thirty tons of steel beams, sixty-five oak doors, and all the other innumerable items concomitant with the wrecking of a sixty-five room house. This was a woman who had the means to do anything she wanted, and then some. The land was then given to the city to become what is known now as Mellon Park, while the carriage house is the Phipps Garden Center. And then there are drugs. Mellon, a member of the influential banking family, built the sixty-room house in 1908-9. courtship in his memoirs: Apparently she was "all right otherwise" because Thomas Mellon decided to pursue Sarah Jane. The 65-room mansion of Richard B. Mellon, brother of Andrew Mellon, built at 6500 Fifth Avenue in 1910: The Richard B. Mellons raised two children in that "house," which included a bowling alley in the basement and a carriage house. Everything was velvety, expensive, plush, posh, polished, hand-painted and eminently BREAKABLE. Music, drawing and painting, and French cost extra. Mount Saint Peter Church is a Roman Catholic Church at 100 Freeport Road in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Instead, take heed of this: a monument to one woman's love of family, and her desire to honor the past. The park is home to the Walled Garden and holds events throughout the year. Built in 1910, it included a bowling alley and carriage house. In 1957 . And I wondered about what kinds of lives those were -- not simply in terms of material possessions, but about how the world must seem to such people. of astounding history she orchestrated by providing a serene life Adherence to Law. On July 4, 1944, the church was dedicated. Its amazing how much you can learn from a house. Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire philanthropist whose fortune was almost entirely misapplied, died 82 years too late on Independence Day, July 4, 2014. (Factual information from Images of America: Pittsburghs Mansions by Melanie Linn Gutowski), Photo courtesy of: http://thatschurch.com/2012/04/30/pittsburgh-history-with-ginny-suck-it-harlequin/. He and his brother Andrew Mellon, sons of Judge Thomas Mellon, were frequent business partners. 63 years old, died in the Veterans Administration Medical Center, West Roxbury, on June 23, 2009 after a long battle with cancer. Whenever I encountered something fancy in my hometown, be it a staggeringly grand bank, college, building, or parks, it more often than not bore the Mellon name. tree" is no more. Andrew Mellon was the most famous brother, serving as U.S. Treasury . We can't even guess what Sarah Jane thought of her suitor, for she did not record her impressions for posterity. Silly me, it was more than just Mellon parks and dollhouses. Even writing in retrospect what stood out for Thomas Mellon was that, all things considered, this 27 year old heiress was a good catch. Even Sarah Jane's small talk seemed to get on Thomas' nerves, for he notes in his memoirs: Apparently the Negleys didn't pay extra for those music lessons at the Edgeworth Ladies' Boarding School. Sarah Cordelia Mellon was born on December 2, 1903, the only daughter of Richard Beatty and Jennie King Mellon. The park is on the list of landmarks recognized by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. If you're on the look-out, you might spy his name on this bench that surrounds a fountain on a traffic island at 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, between the west wing of the National Gallery and the former Newseum. I'd pretend that each carefully landscaped section was a room in my make-believe mansion, then I'd hop-scotch around on the groovy terrazzo paving (reportedly those designs came from a suggestion by Sarah Mellon Scaife) and fantasize about climbing the magical cascading fountain. There was an early, disapproved-of marriage and subsequent divorce. in Highland Park. A gossipy 1888 book entitled The social mirror: a character sketch of the women of Pittsburg and vicinity during the first century of the county's existence alphabetically categorizes the women of the city according to the qualities of beauty, intelligence, musicality and artistry, charity, wealth, moral do-gooding, and positions of social standing that they best exemplify. Now, striking pictures show the white-panel exterior of the large house, the ornate tiled pathway leading to the front door and the slightly overgrown garden that features palm trees. These industrious men then built the monumental Mount St. Peter Church in New Kensington, which still stands and functions to this day from the materials of the Mellon Mansion. Honoring family and accomplishments mattered. James Ross Mellon was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 14, 1846, son of Judge Thomas Mellon who is better known for being the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of the wealthy and influential Mellon family. You can also learn about the Gilded Age and its extreme wealth gap. She had to, if this anecdote from William Larimer Mellon describing his involvement in ".a parasitical business based on selling the produce of my grandparents' country place" is any indication of what life was like in household filled with entrepreneurially enterprising men and boys: It's tempting to think that through all the bustle of testosterone-driven family life, Sarah Jane remained vastly competent, cool, and collected -- if also emotionally detached and [8], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}40277.47N 79554.99W / 40.4520750N 79.9180528W / 40.4520750; -79.9180528. Please cite w/ URL attribution. [2] Later, he was instrumental in forming Mellbank Corporation, a bank holding company, which helped the affiliated banks weather the Great Depression.[3]. Others were filled with religious and inspirational maxims. A few years later, they moved nearly next door into a home Mrs. Negley gifted them. There area lot of them. described as, Sarah's daughter, Cordelia Scaife May, scrupulously shunned publicity but left a legacy brimming with gossip. Richard Beatty Mellon Mansion The 65-room R.B. From the early stages, the Mellons preferred a classical style of architecture. : http://rivista-cdn.pittsburghmagazin.ver=1328293938 I soon recognized that these Mellons were omnipresent. Mellon's personal sense of style was exemplified by a hat-rack made of mirrors and buffalo horns and half a taxidermied buffalo head (yes, half), both of which he kept on display as Sarah Jane didn't make a marriage of passion. Only a comment following a frightening adventure on the Pennsylvania Canal when their boat almost plummeted over a dam on the Juniata River near Harrisburg reflects the experiences of his new wife: "In this crisis I first noticed my wife's entire command of her feelings in the suppression of every sign of fear or alarm.". To kid-me, a family name such as "Mellon" seemed pretty funny: it conjured up images of posh, well-dressed fleshy fruit. The garden's fourth wall was part of the Mellon mansion before its demolition in the 1940s. One of Sarah and Thomas' grandsons, William Larimer Mellon, essentially grew up in the house from 1868 on. Children followed in rapid succession. Whither, Sarah? 29 vintage silver prints (9 x 13 inches) mounted to album leaves, printed title-page. You couldn't live in Pittsburgh without knowing that. But who was this woman? Nor do we know what she thought of their then-novel honeymoon trip to Niagara Falls, returning by way of Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. _____________________________________________________________. History of the Mansion. He was the owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and known for his support of Richard Nixon, part of his funds to the candidate contributed to the Watergate scandal, which he later said he was 'disgusted by'. After harrowing skirmishes with Indians, he resettled his family in the more hospitable Pittsburgh area. Vitale and Geiffert were behind the planning of this garden. But for all that this makes me an unintentional font of Mellon trivia, the family still exists for me in a world apart, one separated from my understanding and experience by more than glass. I occasionally took myself to Mellon Park in Shadyside. But neither did he join the Union Army. Heinz History Center, Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs. Richard Beatty Mellon (March 19, 1858 - December 1, 1933), sometimes R.B., part of the Mellon family, was a banker, industrialist, and philanthropist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . Keep in mind that the Fricks primary residence at the time, Clayton, had a mere 23 rooms (in comparison). Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, the partners in crime behind the ill-fated Harvard Psilocybin Project, were in bad shape in the summer of 1963 as the Daheim estate sale was being finalized.Earlier that spring, after giving psilocybin to an undergraduate, Alpert became the first Harvard professor in the twentieth century to get fired. Married life of Sarah Mellon Published: 12:00 GMT, 2 July 2019 | Updated: 19:24 GMT, 12 August 2019. I have to suspect that the Mellons' history is not well known because they like it that way. The home was built in 1904 for Henry Clay Frick and his family as a summer home in Prides Crossing, Massachusetts. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. It is also home to several recreational facilities. 1 This is a photo of John M. Phillips' children on the front lawn of his mansion "Impton" at 2236 Brownsville Road with Richard B. Mellon, Richard King Mellon and Sara Mellon. The house in Palatka, Putnam County, Florida was built byindustrialist and banker James R Mellon in 1883 to get away from the winters of Pennsylvania. Not everyone agrees with me and there have been periods of history where this statement would have been ignored entirely. The church that Richard B. Mellon built, East Liberty Presbyterian, became one of several targets of protests by the controversial Denominational Ministry Strategy (DMS). Despite admonishments from his parents, James didn't come home. And then there was the Great Depression, the event that eliminated much of the remaining wealth of the Robber Barons. The Romanesque-style church was completed in 1944, using many items from the Richard B. Mellon mansion, which was in what is now Mellon Park in Shadyside and was torn down in 1941. Judge Mellon would be dismayed by it all. The modern urban landscape grew up to surround it, but the graveyard was there first. I think its important for us to stress what the buildings truly stand for and that theyre more than just material, so we can save more buildings from being destroyed. He served as president of Western Pennsylvania Hospital and the Allegheny County Juvenile Court Farm. Their two daughters did not live past infancy, and another son died at age 9. The gap between the rich and poor could not continue to exist to the extent that it had during industrialization. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders, http://www.mellon.com/aboutmellon/history.html, "R. B. Mellon Dies; Noted Industrial Leader of Nation", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_B._Mellon&oldid=1119087475, This page was last edited on 30 October 2022, at 17:07. Congressman and president of the Atlantic & Ohio Telegraph Co., predecessor to Western Union Telegraph Co. The Richard King Mellon Foundation's $30 million commitment in advanced and additive manufacturing at CMU builds on its previous philanthropic supportin this area and allows the university to expand its work through the Manufacturing Futures Institute (MFI). Tamara is the founder of luxury footwear brand Jimmy Choo. I had no idea that Judge Mellon had prudently created the park in 1878 for the sole purpose of providing a destination to increase profits for his already-existing narrow-gauge railroad. He also served as a trustee for the Athalia Daly Home for Working Girls. Even the venerable institutions associated with the family make news when scandal hits. He and his brother, Andrew W. Mellon, another son of Judge Thomas Mellon, were frequent business partners. The Mellon Park Project wanted to create a memorial in memory of Ann Katherine Seamans, who frequented the Walled Garden repeatedly after being introduced to it in kindergarten. Sarah Jane Negley The gardens were originally designed in 1912 by Alden and Harlow. Other images show inside the property with a piano and old records left behind, along with old tennis rackets and an American flag. And to the Mellon parents, enlistment in May 1864 was indeed a very bad idea. That "immense copper beech Sunday was an incredibly popular supporter of Prohibition, and his preaching likely played a significant role in the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, James Ross Mellon, pictured left, was the son of Judge Thomas Mellon, the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of the wealthy and influential family. Sarah might have been the dullest of them all, but we'll never know for sure. Richard Mellon. of a 6,000-square-foot river retreat that once belonged to a hugely successful US banking magnate. [2] In 1926 he established a $15 million pension fund for Presbyterian ministers. Still, the Negleys are not listed among the burials at Smithfield. Perhaps it did a bit of both. Reflecting upon the Mellon monies and a life of privilege, Larry Mellon once stated ", Western Pennsylvania music lovers have never gotten over the closing of the.