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.
Locals know the story of Mrs. Mark Hopkins, Edward Searles, the castle, and the will. And as everyone knows, where there’s a will there’s a claimant. So here’s the story:
During the 52 years from the close of the Civil War to America’s entrance into World War I, America grew exponentially, and created a monied class that wanted to flex its muscle. To demonstrate its pecuniary strength, these princes of manufacturing, transportation, and banking (the nouveau riche) established superiority by building grand houses — city palaces and country cottages. They called their massive country houses “cottages” for the same reason they called the Atlantic Ocean “the pond.” They liked verbal understatement. Among all the cottages in Newport and the Berkshires, Kellogg House stood out — in size, grandeur, and gossip.
The story developed behind the great wall in Great Barrington. According to popular belief, the wall around the house (alternately called Searles Castle, Kellogg Terrace, and Barrington House) was built because a photographer stole onto the grounds in 1885 to photograph the enormous and still unfinished Berkshire Cottage. Great Barrington residents despised the wall because it blocked the mountain view from Main Street. For that, and other reasons, the town disliked the man who built it, Edward Searles.
Searles was the man of affairs for Mary Sherwood Hopkins. He was hired in California to complete her Nob Hill house. He served as architect, decorator, financial overseer, and later, superintendent of the building in Great Barrington. She was the very wealthy widow of the California Railroad Baron Mark Hopkins.
Mrs. Mark Hopkins nee Mary Frances Sherwood was born in New York City, the daughter of William Sherwood and Lydia Ann Kellogg. Her father was a schoolteacher and headmaster; her mother was born on a farm in Great Barrington. Mary attended the Rose Cottage Seminary in Great Barrington run by her aunts Sarah, Mary, and Nancy Kellogg. Mary briefly taught there and sometimes summered with her aunts.
Mark Hopkins was born in northern New York. His father died, and from a young age he worked to support the family. He was enthusiastic about railroads and went into business laying the track from the east coast to the west. When he reached California he was a very wealthy man. Hopkins married his cousin, Mary Sherwood, on September 22, 1854, in New York City.
They had no children of their own. Mary adopted Timothy Nolan, the adult son of her housekeeper, who took the Hopkins name and was given an administrative position at the Union Pacific Railroad. Hopkins died in 1878, and Mary inherited a sum between $20–$40 million dollars (between $500 million and 1 billion dollars today) causing the press to call her “the richest widow in America.”
Enter Edward Searles. Actually, Searles was already on the scene. When Hopkins reached San Francisco, he and Mary built a house so spectacular that the street on which it stood, formerly California Hill, was renamed Nob Hill. Searles was hired as the interior decorator for the Nob Hill house. Nine years after Hopkins’ death, in 1887, although Mary was 68 and Edward was 46, they married.
The same year, Mary Hopkins Searles began building a summer house, a Berkshire Cottage, in Great Barrington. Both Hopkins had familial connections to the Kellogg family of Great Barrington, and that might explain why she came all the way from San Francisco to build in Great Barrington. Those connections made her far more acceptable in Berkshire County than the stand-offish wall builder Searles.
The new Mrs. Searles hired premier architect Stanford White but placed the final design approval in Searles’ hands. Very soon White was replaced by Henry Vaughan, a lesser-known architect who saw the wisdom of agreeing with Searles’ design choices.
When word reached Great Barrington that Edward Searles was no longer the employee of the wealthy widow; but husband and lord of the manor, the Berkshire rumor mill was rife. Did you know Mary Hopkins was 21 years Searles’ senior? Did you realize she was 67 and he was 46? Did you know he was all but penniless, and she was one of the richest women in the country? Well, wasn’t it obvious? He was a fortune hunter.
Completing Kellogg Terrace required three years, several million dollars, and a private railroad built solely to bring the marble used in the house from the quarry. The result was spectacular but was enjoyed by Mary for very little time. She died in 1891.
Just after their marriage in November 1887, Mary wrote a will that split her fortune equally between Searles and her adopted son Timothy Hopkins. In 1891, just three years later, Mary Searles died. She was 73. When her will was read, “everything of which she died possessed” was left to Searles; nothing to Timothy. Naturally the adopted son contested the will. He claimed his mother was not of sound mind and was unduly influenced by Searles.
The truth of the Searles relationship was buried under the legal arguments for money until the day Searles testified under oath. He said he married Mary “partly out of affection and partly for her money.”
Searles prevailed in court, ignored the cousins, and settled “a few millions” on the adopted son, Timothy. Searles gave the house on Nob Hill to the San Francisco Art Institute. He settled in Great Barrington.
Nothing warmed the hearts of Great Barrington to Searles. Local sentiment was all on the side of the adopted son. He had benefited for many years from Mary’s largess and remained humble and accessible. Searles was the opposite of Timothy. He was seen about town in rich raiment, an unapproachable and mysterious figure. In the end there was the settlement, but that did not help Searles’ reputation locally.
Great Barrington claimed Searles did not settle money on the adopted son out of generosity but in response to blackmail. Regardless of the court decision, there was country justice: theft and vandalism of the Cottage — then and forever more called Searles Castle, and pronounced with a sneer.
However, that is not the end of the wills and the claimants. When Searles died in 1920, his will was as hotly contested as hers had been. By 1920, the Hopkins fortune was even larger, estimated at $30,000,000–$50,000,000. Regardless of Searles’ lavish spending, the fortune had grown through return on original investments. After comparably negligible gifts to staff, a protégé, a niece, and a nephew — about $4,000,000 — the bulk of the fortune was given to Arthur T. Walker. Who? Exactly. No one knew who he was or what he was like.
Walker was identified in the will as “a friend.” He was an employee of Searles’ with the titles of secretary and business manager. He worked in Searles’ New York office overseeing Searles’ business interests. He was unmarried, lived in Brooklyn in a two-room flat, and was 47 years old. Beyond these facts, Walker was not interested in enlightening anyone. He would not speak to the press, and would only say that perhaps one day he would make a statement. He never did.
Searles’ nephew, Albert V. Searles, contested the will. His claim was the same as Mary’s adopted son 29 years earlier: Searles was of unsound mind and had been unduly influenced by Walker. There was a difference, however. Timothy never brought any proof that Mary was of unsound mind; Albert did.
Intimates and doctors were prepared to testify. Searles had dubbed himself “Lord Methuen,” hired dozens of laborers to dress as his court, to bow, and address him as “Your Lordship.” The stories multiplied: Searles had built a mausoleum for his wife and transferred her coffin into it in a midnight processional with paid laborers enacting a royal burial. His physicians opined that the acquisition of such great wealth after a life of near poverty had unbalanced his mind. There was more: he was a recluse, afraid of, and probably a hater of, women. Finally, “his tastes and interests were those of a woman.” (These last two accusations were code for homosexuality, made at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness.)
The truth, whatever it was, would never be determined in a court of law. Nephew Searles was paid off — $5,000,000 — and the case went away. Even months after the final disposition of the will, Walker could be found in his two-room flat in Brooklyn or at the offices in New York City. Walker died a few short years later in his early 50s and the estate was nearly intact when he willed it to his relatives.
Today, Searles Castle it is once again, a private residence. You can catch a glimpse through the front gate — the opening in the wall that surrounds it.
