Drexel family homes photographs (PSNCA.H.027)

Biographical and Historical Note

Alice Gordon Troth (1866-1947) and John Rozet Drexel Sr. (1863-1935) married in 1886. They were socialites and notable collectors of antique furniture. Mr. Drexel was the son of banker Anthony Drexel, founder of Drexel University. The Drexels maintained several homes throughout their lives, including the Horace Trumbauer-desgiend John R. Drexel Mansion in New York City, a home in Philadelphia, Fairholme in Newport, Rhode Island, and the townhouse in Paris.

The Drexels had four children: Lillian Mae Drexel (1889-1894), John "Jack" Rozet Drexel Jr. (1890-1936), Alice Gordon Drexel Barrett (1892-1959), and Gordon Preston Drexel (1895-1964). Eldest son Jack married Elizabeth T. Thompson (1893-1943) in 1918, and they had one son, John Rozet Drexel III, who would maintain a close relationship with his grandparents. Jack would later marry Jane Barbour and father another two children, David Anthony Drexel (1927-2003) and Jane Barbour Drexel (1929-2008). Gordon Preston Drexel did not have any children.

Daughter Alice Gordon Drexel surprised her family and social circles by eloping with Captain William N. Barrett (1887-1963) of the Army Air Service in 1919. The following year, they separated around the time a California woman, Syadia (Mrs. John) Spreckles, Jr., accused Barrett of stealing a valuable pearl necklace. Their son, Edwin Gerald William Barrett, was born in 1920 but died of meningitis in 1921.

Alice and John Drexel departed the United States, selling much of their real estate but transporting their interiors and antique collections to Europe; in 1921 they purchased the townhouse at 34 rue François-Ier, in the eighth arrondissement of Paris. John Drexel Sr. died in 1935, and Alice Troth Drexel in 1947.

Originally designed as a Stick Style cottageby George Champlin Mason for Thomas Forbes Cushing in 1869, Rock Cliff's first name was New Lodge. Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr. purchased the house in 1916; after a massive renovation rendering the house into a Classical Revival style, it became known as Ames Villa. Jessie P. Donahue purchased the house in 1945 and renamed it Rock Cliff. John R. Drexel III, grandson of Alice and John Sr., and his wife Noreen Stonor Drexel briefly lived at Rock Cliff on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, purchasing it in 1956 from Donahue. The house sits on the southern end of Bellevue Avenue, between Ocean View and Rough Point, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The Drexels sold the property to Harold Sterling Vanderbilt in 1961.

The archivist found these photographs in the archival collection of the Preservation Society of Newport County. A note on the box of Paris photographs read "Allard," possibly denoting that this apartment or perhaps the furnishings the Drexels brought from New York were from the Jules Allard et Fils firm. Handwriting on the note is similar to that of Noreen Stonor Drexel, the granddaughter-in-law of Alice Troth Drexel and John Drexel Sr.