Customer Reviews

The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book defies a brief explanation. I sensed deep passion in the author as I read her words, a passion for her family's weaknesses and strengths, a passion for knowing herself, a passion for the power of architecture, and a passion for her great-grandfather, the infuriatingly complex architect, Stanford White.

Stanford was generous and careless, creative and self-destructive, maniacally disciplined and utterly irresponsible. While he selflessly gave his heart and soul to his massive stone buildings, he thoughtlessly shattered the hearts and lives of the people around him. Even while he was racked by ill health, he drove himself in his work life AND his recreational life as if he were immortal. He either believed he could never die, or knew he surely must and so didn't care.

The sexual portrait of Stanford can be rather harrowing: The countless love nests he set up around New York; his systematic debauchery of young women (many of whom fell in love with him); the attorneys he hired to hush things up; the endless supply of cronies he found to join him in his nocturnal plundering--his appetites--and his ability to feed his appetites--knew no limits. As for Evelyn Nesbit, the celebrated beauty who arguably played a role in Stanford's murder, I'll just say she wasn't the first girl to ride in his red velvet swing.

Finally, two notes. This author presents architecture, and its impact on the human psyche, in a beautiful, moving way; she breathes life into the bricks of Stanford's buildings. And her depiction of the Gilded Age is superb. It's the stuff of a great trashy Summer novel. Except it's real. And probably still goes on today.

I should also warn future readers that there's a fair amount of incest in this book.

Before I start to review the book, I must say that I have been fascinated by the story of the death of Stanford White since the first time I heard it when I was in my teens. Of course, I was fascinated in a very `young' way. Something on the order of `You mean they did those things back then, too.' And the book satisfied (and broadened) my by now adult fascination. What a pleasure to read.

Ms. Lessard (White's great-granddaughter) has written a brilliant family history, showing how White's death affected the family through 4 generations.

But the book is far from merely a family history. The author discusses througouht the book her own love-hate relationship with her great grandfather and the beautiful and (for her) frightening architecture he left behind. From the New York Public Library to her own college and New York's Washington Square arch, White's architecture is everywhere.

The author is unsparing in her judgements of White, and perceptive in her conclusi! ! ons about him. And what's more, I learned the facts of the story from the inside, which constituted a fascinating and satisfying quest.

I would fail in my efforts to review this book if I didn't mention the pleasure and excitement that I felt while immersed in Ms. Lessard's description of the Gilded Age. Is it because we are at the end of the century now as well that the Gilded Age retains its fascination? I can't say. But she does a masterful job of evoking the era.

And the almost legendary people who make appearances: Stanford White, Evelyn Nesbit, John Barrymore, Harry Thaw. What a fascinating book. I would say it's the best book of it's type I've ever read, but I'm not sure what type it is. However, it is deeply satisfying and interesting in the most intimate of ways.

And what conclusions is one to draw about Evelyn Nesbit, the woman (girl) in this legendary menage a trois. One of her lovers murdered by another of her lovers when she was 21 in 1906. And she ! ! lives until at least 1955. No wonder the story still has a! hold on our collective imagination.

And I only have time to mention one of the real (and unexpected) `stars' of the book. Box Hill, the White family home on Long Island. The book is too multi-layered to discuss the home here, but it is the backdrop for much of the `action' of the book, and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

The book is dedicated to William Shawn of the New Yorker, and all I can say is that I'm sure he would be pleased with Lessard's effort.

What would it be like to be descended from one of America's most celebrated architects? For that matter, what would it be like to be descended from a man whose lurid, predatory sexual practices were once front-page news?

Members of the Stanford White family have had to deal with those issues for almost 100 years now, since White was gunned down at Madison Square Garden in 1906. For the most part, the White family did not discuss their illustrious pater familias, but Stanford White is ever-present, in all respects, in their collective lives. How the family did (or did not) deal with this mixed legacy would manifest itself over the next four generations.

Suzannah Lessard, a great-granddaughter of Stanford White, addresses this legacy squarely. She does not attempt to suger-coat White's personality, which combines breath-taking artistic genius with a self-indulgent predatory streak that ultimately led to his destruction. Through the book, she weaves multiple tales about her family, which includes stories of mental illness, sexual abuse, and emotional repression. She does this with remarkable candor.

This is a Social Register family. They are related to the Astors, the Winthrops, the Chanlers, the Roosevelts, the Rockefellers, etc. They own a magnificent property, designed by Stanford White, on Long Island. On the surface, it would appear that this family has the world as its oyster. Suzannah Lessard shows that no amount of social prominence and privelage can protect a family from the problems that can face us all.

I initially read this book on a library loan as a small part of research for a project I was doing. Now I'm back at Amazon to purchase it. It's one I want to read again in leisure time, to savor, not only for the wealth of history it provides, and the painfully honest look into family self-deceptions, but for the absolutely beautiful writing it offers. The courage she shows in telling this story, and the honest treatment of her family (which I expected her to protect and make excuses for) and painstaking fairness to other characters, sometimes at the expense of her own history, is breath taking. Many of Ms. Lessard's descriptive passages are almost musical in quality, without ever falling to sappiness, and they bleed a depth of insight that one sometimes grasps only at a second glance. Her metaphorical passages are the most beautiful - I will never forget many of them. A joy and a privilege to read. Again.

If you have a closet fascination for New York and Long Island society as I do this may be the book for you. I was intrigued by the rakish stories Lessard had unearthed about her ancestors. They were told with the right combination of objectivity and affection, devoid of any syrupy family loyalty. The portrait she paints of turn-of-the-century New York is beautifully vivid and frightenly debauch. Interspersed throughout the book are depictions of Stanford White's architectural contributions to the area. Despite the man's flaws, of which there were many, Lessard is able to demonstrate that the artist is separate from his work. Whatever his personal derelictions he was still a consummate artisan.

Suzannah Lessard is to be complemented on this reflective and perceptive account. The family skeletons are unquestionably out of the closet, as she narrates the heartrending story of Evelyn Nesbitt, Harry K Thaw and her own ancestor's intertwined lives.

If you have read "Ragtime", this is the non-fiction truth behind the tale.

The murder of the brilliant architect - the "White" in McKim, Mead and White, whose clients included the Teddy Roosevelt White House -shocked New York's 400. This book deals not only with the events as they unfolded but also their repercussions in the author's family. Well written and poignant.

Powerful, lyrical writing builds the story of Stanford White one layer at a time. The writer, his granddaughter, is uniquely qualified to tell the tale of genius gone awry. You'll remember this story long after you finish it -- a sure sign that you've experienced not just a book, but true art.

Although extensive and factual I felt it was not a book that moved along. It felt like it took and eternity to get through each chapter. I ended up putting it down after a certain point. I know this book recieved great reviews but I found it frustrating and overly wordy.

This is an exceptional read. Well written, with heart, attention to detail and inspiration. It could pass as a lovely piece of fiction, but it is all true.

I bought this book expecting to learn something new about Stanford White and his architecture. Instead, what I found is a disjointed, indulgent self-analysis of an uninteresting woman who apparently blames her famous, scandal-ridden great-grandfather for her failed life. Lessard gives us no valid reason for her apparent hatred of White, whom she never met. Ironically, she was content to take advantage of her connection to him to publish this unreadable book. Her viscerally negative, even fearful reactions to his buildings are baffling. Her contempt for Evelyn Nesbitt is also misplaced. On the other hand, she displays sympathy and makes excuses for her sexually-abusive relatives from other branches of the family, including her own father, whose deeds affected her personally and must have played a greater role in her misery than did White's legacy. I found it impossible to care about the author. Like Paulinurus, I found myself skipping large chunks of the tortured prose (I wish I had read his review before buying this!). It was actually painful to read --full of meaningless, highly-detailed descriptions, nonsensical metaphors and similies piled atop one another. Does the author really expect us to believe or care about her "memories" of how the wood or tiles or grass felt and smelled as a child? I can't remember when I've read anything so disappointing that it made me angry. Lessard would have been better off spending the decade it took to write this book in therapy. One star is generous.