About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
Anson Phelps Stokes (1838 – 1913) was born in New York City. He was educated by private tutors and then in private schools. His family was in real estate, banking and the mercantile business. They lived in style on Madison Avenue.
Stokes was born to wealth and married wealth. In 1865 he married Helen Louisa Phelps. When her father died, Helen inherited the family home and $1 million (approximately $25 million today). When he died, Stokes’ fortune was estimated at $25 million (approximately $625 million today).
Together Anson and Helen had nine children. It may be imagined that the family was conservative, insular and perhaps hidebound. However, the Stokes children were Isaac, an architect and promoter of the tenement as a way to improve housing for the poor. As “Auntie Sadie,” daughter Sarah wrote children’s books. Helen was an activist and philanthropist. James married socialist, feminist and birth control advocate Rose Pastor. Like her sister-in-law, Harriet was an activist and feminist. The Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes Jr. was an educator and clergyman. Harold wrote for the New York Times. Ethel married a philanthropist, Caroline married a sociologist and Mildred married a doctor. No one in the family appeared to be narrow-minded or idle rich.
Stokes’ interests extended far beyond money-making. He designed a warship, referred to as a globular naval battery used for harbor defense. He supported Grover Cleveland and opposed Tammany Hall. However, he claimed not to be interested in politics.
In “Stokes Records: Notes regarding the ancestry and lives of Anson Phelps Stokes and Helen Louisa (Phelps) Stokes,” published privately after his death, Stokes wrote, “I have been indisposed to political life, because it is … sordid … and often brings unpleasant and immoral associations.”
Stokes, like his children, was progressive and he explained, “I have felt that I could be more useful working non-politically for civil service reform, free trade, and bringing up my children to be good citizens.”
Early in their marriage, they established a second home on Staten Island. However, Stokes became discouraged when Staten Island became more popular, and the ferry was overcrowded. They sold in the late 1880s, and in 1891 purchased land in Stockbridge.
It would take two years, 500 skilled laborers and $1.5 million to build Shadow Brook. Progress was not smooth. Originally, the Stokeses approached the best-known architects: McKim Mead and White, and Frederick Law Olmsted.
Mrs. Stokes and White did not get along. The prestigious firm was fired in favor of a Pittsfield architect H. Neill Wilson, who, it is rumored, used the McKim Mead and White plans. Similarly, Helen rejected the Olmsted sketches and retained Ernest W. Bowditch.
In his journal, Bowditch recalled: “When I met him [Mr. Stokes] he had just purchased the old Ward estate [Oakswood, not Highwood] and adjoining land [about] 500 acres; had started a gigantic stone house with a Pittsfield architect and had just come to realizing that by no possibility could he drive to his front door in safety, and furthermore, if he succeeded in reaching that point, it was physically impossible to turn a vehicle around unless he had a mechanical turntable. Incidentally, he had no water supply, no sewage disposal and the entrance to his estate was so tangled with his neighbor’s property that it was cause for anxiety.”
Eventually the problems were solved, and Shadow Brook was finished. There are many stories, true or apocryphal, about the size of the house. Suffice it to say, it was the largest private house in America on the day it was completed.
Whatever problems there were in creating Shadow Brook, running Shadow Brook was smooth. At Shadow Brook, the “boss gardener” recalled: “Mrs. Stokes was the best manager I have ever known. Many great ladies are so sudden and impervious in their demands on a gardener that he is always nervous and wondering what next. But not Mrs. Stokes … It was run like a perfectly organized business.”
None of which could protect against the tragic end of the Stokes’ sojourn at Shadow Brook. On Aug. 12, 1899, Anson lost one leg in a horse-riding accident when he was thrown against a tree and his leg crushed. He had been warned that the horse, a gelding called Dingley, was dangerous, but felt confident that he could handle the animal.
“My groom warned me not to ride the young gelding,” Stokes wrote, “but I supposed the fault was heavy hands and a curb bit. I told him I was not afraid of any horse …” After the accident the horse was destroyed due to bad temper.
Stokes wrote, “After the loss of my leg, I was unable to enjoy Shadow Brook as much as I had previously done, because I could no longer ride about the place as I had been accustomed to do, and of course, I could not play golf,” — that and the fact that his children no longer came as often.
It was the basis of his decision to sell Shadow Brook, that and “Most of my children, being actively engaged in business and in benevolent work in New York, found they had much need to be in the city during the autumn, which was the Lenox season, and Lenox was too far away for them and for me to get easily back and forth from town.”
Shadow Brook was sold in 1906 to Spencer P. Shotter, the Georgia turpentine magnate. At one point it was owned by Andrew Carnegie, who installed a sprinkler system. Many years later, on the night it burned to the ground, no one knew about the sprinkler system. Today, Kripalu is on the grounds.
