Chapter 23
Gold Coast, Long Island
The press had given these years a nickname: the Roaring Twenties. The description was appropriate, particularly in our Hutton household. Ned’s career had been marked—and made—by seizing opportunity and molding success for himself. It was an outlook on life that felt right to me; it felt like home. That was precisely how Papa had taught me to live. Having achieved wealth beyond anything that a poor, fatherless boy from Ohio or a scared, penniless girl in Battle Creek had ever dreamed possible, we governed our marriage with an attitude all about enjoying life to the fullest.
Since Ned’s appointment to the position of chairman at the Post Cereal Company, we were doing better than ever before, earning millions every year. As long as Americans continued to eat breakfast, the money would continue to pour in—more money than we could possibly spend. And believe me, we spent plenty. While Ed’s recurring censure during our marriage had been prompted by my propensity for the lavish—what he’d shuddered to call gaudy—Ned saw nothing wrong in enjoying our wealth. He applauded as I ordered custom gowns dripping in fringe and silk and crystal beadwork. Necklaces from Cartier with diamonds as big as grapes, bracelets from Tiffany with sapphires and amethysts.
Life as Mrs. Ned Hutton felt as though we were always driving at top speed, as though somehow Ned Hutton made the world spin around us, full and bright. Ned loved cars, and even though we had several chauffeurs on staff at all times, he learned how to drive for himself, and I loved nothing more than those golden afternoons when he’d knock on my bedroom door, leather driving gloves and goggles on, mischief tugging on that impossibly beautiful face as he said, “How about a drive, Mrs. Hutton?”
As the lush Long Island countryside unrolled before and around us, we’d laugh with delight as Ned sped the automobile down the dusty back roads, parking when we found pleasant and private clearings, and there, with the windows down and the seabirds cawing across the sky overhead, he’d make love to me. After years of trying, I’d yet to have luck in conceiving, but we were certainly putting in our best effort, and we were still young enough to believe it would happen.
Life together settled into a hectic but joyous rhythm. We’d ring in the New Year in Palm Beach, where we had quickly established ourselves as popular mainstays of the winter season. Spring found us back in New York City just as the tulips began to line Park Avenue. As spring warmed to summer, we would decamp with the girls to our new mansion, Hillwood, on Long Island. Fall found us back in Manhattan. I soon learned that, even as we changed location with the passing of the seasons, many of the faces remained the same. At every gala, show, or house party, we’d see the Ziegfelds and the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers and the Hearsts, the Dodges and the Pulitzers. Our neighborhood on Long Island was labeled the Gold Coast by the press, and with good reason—our neighbors had gold aplenty.
That spring, there was a party every weekend, and Ned never wanted to miss a single one. When it came time for us to host at Hillwood, I set my focus on planning with all the care and attention for which I’d become so admired in Palm Beach. “I’ve decided on a theme,” I declared to Ned several weeks before our event.
“Oh? And what shall it be?” he asked.
“Versailles,” I said, showing him the creamy stock of the invitation I was working on, its letters swirling in gold-embossed cursive. I needed to post them within the next few days to get the party on everyone’s calendar.
“Versailles,” Ned repeated, looking the invitation over. And then, with a lopsided smile, he kissed his fingers and said: “Let them eat cake.”
In the days leading up to our event, I filled my home with potted trees and hothouse orchids. Our groundskeepers erected a massive white tent on the lawn with a wooden parquet dance floor, and we ordered long mahogany banquet tables and hundreds of Louis XVI chairs from New York City for the dinner. Silver candelabra festooned the tables as lanterns twinkled overhead. I made sure our small ponds and fountains were teeming with new multicolored fish.
On the evening of the party, with the house astir and the meal and the grounds nearly ready, all that remained was for me to put on my costume. With the help of my lady’s maid, Renée, I dressed with care in a custom gown of rose-colored silk à la fran?aise, a froth of pearls and ribbons lining the bodice. A pannier hoopskirt gave my figure a wide bell shape, and Renée spent over an hour powdering and teasing my hair until it soared over my head in a vaulted pompadour worthy of Marie Antoinette herself.