“I just can’t stomach any of it,” I said. “As a nation we’ve got our problems, sure. And we aren’t perfect. But I believe we could accomplish a lot more good by pulling together rather than tearing one another apart. Anyways, I’d like to do my part. And if this place can provide any use…Well, what do you think?”
“Well, Mrs. Post.” The president heaved a sigh as he looked to his wife, then back to me. “It’s certainly incredibly generous. I don’t think anyone has ever doubted your patriotism. Or your commitment to making our nation a better place. For all who live here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s an exciting proposition, to be sure,” he went on. “One I wish I could accept right here on the spot. But the reality is complicated.”
I sat back in my chair, folding my hands in my lap. “Isn’t it always?”
The president nodded as he said, “We’d have to get the blessing of the branches of the federal government, as well as the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. Congress would have to sign off on it, if we were going to make it an official government property. The Park Service would be tasked with the ongoing management.”
“Goodness,” I said with a sigh. “Never realized it’d take an entire government to manage what I myself have been doing all these years.”
“You said it,” the president answered, a wry grin turning up his lips. “How many rooms is it, Mrs. Post?”
“One hundred and twenty-six.”
A whistle. “All right,” he said, nodding. “Let me speak to my team. Of course I’d love it. It’s just a question of whether or not the United States government can manage it. I don’t think we are any match for you, Mrs. Post.”
* * *
—
I planned everything—I had done so all my life. So how could I do anything differently when I knew the end was coming? Knowing what a unique and fortunate life I led, and knowing how hard I’d worked to make each home a place of not only beauty but also significance, I made similar arrangements for all of my properties. Camp Topridge and its hundreds of acres of Adirondack woods and waterfront would go to New York State, thanks to plans worked out with my good friend Governor Nelson Rockefeller, whose family I’d known since my first days as a young bride.
And my beloved Hillwood would become a part of the Smithsonian Institution. My husbands had complained of living in a museum, after all, and so it was only natural that Hillwood’s next phase of life would be just that. This place that had been my bulwark against the torrents of marriage and divorce, scandal and joy, the place I’d designed with such loving precision, the home in which I’d watched my children and grandchildren celebrate birthdays and holidays. Where I’d sat down to lunch with presidents and royalty. I’d put painstaking care into every inch of that home, designing it to my exact specifications, and I could not imagine some other buyer coming in and undoing all of that. What if some greedy developer decided to tear it down and build a strip of soulless apartment buildings on the estate? It made me ill just to think of it.
And the treasures inside! Treasures that had taken a lifetime and several fortunes to amass. I had to protect it, and I wished to share it with the world. Everything would be preserved there for the public to enjoy. My 275-carat diamond choker, a gift from Emperor Napoleon to his Habsburg bride. Empress Eugénie’s blue diamonds. The diamond crown Tsarina Alexandra wore on her wedding day. Marie Antoinette’s earrings. Furniture and tapestries and dishes that had filled Versailles and the Winter Palace and the Tuileries Palace. Handwritten letters from Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. Portraits commissioned by Habsburgs and Bourbons and Romanovs—and then, too, by Posts.
Chapter 52
The truth was, I was finally beginning to feel the age in my body. I, who had been taught to rise each morning and face the day without a drop of caffeine, was beginning to feel tired. I was ready to slow my pace and simply enjoy the gifts of my years—my family, my homes, my friends. All of the beauty that I had amassed around me.
Life took on a certain rhythm, albeit one that moved to a slower beat. Each morning I would take breakfast—still Post cereal, still my Postum coffee substitute—in bed, Scampi nestled beside me under the covers, and then I’d rise to get a massage. After that I’d sit in my dressing room, looking out over the grounds as my silver, waist-length hair was combed and styled. And then I would dress. I still enjoyed dressing in beautiful gowns, and so for the night of my eightieth birthday, I did just that, preparing for a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra. I slid into a floor-length gown of icy light blue, pairing it with Marie Antoinette’s diamond earrings. When I was dressed and ready, I turned from the mirror toward my waiting daughter. “What is the plan for this evening?” I asked Eleanor. For once, I had relinquished the role of organizer and hostess, instead allowing my girls to take the reins for the night’s activity. And I had little idea of what they had hatched.