The Rockefellers

A recent article in the Sunday New York Times detailed the courtship and marriage between Ariana Rockefeller and Matthew Bucklin, a young man from Northeast Harbor. They were wed outdoors in September in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller garden on the grounds of the family’s former summer home, Eyrie. Abby was the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and the mother of Nelson, Winthrop, David, John III, Laurence and Abby. She was Ariana’s great grandmother.

This summer I visited this garden after 8 years spending the summer and fall here on Mount Desert Island. The garden is not advertised except through word of mouth.

You make a reservation ahead of time by calling a phone number most likely obtained from someone who has visited before you. You are assigned a date to visit during a 2-hour block of time on the one day a week when the garden is open between July and September. It's free of course.

The flower garden is contained within a Chinese walled garden, with reddish-pink walls. The tiles which decorate the top of the walls (coping tiles) were rescued from the Imperial City when sections of it were torn down.

If you are standing with your back to the lily pond featured in the Times photo of the wedding, you look through the tall trees across the sunken garden to Penobscot Mountain. This deliberate vista, a cutout in a tall bank of trees, catapults this small mountain to great heights. It is simply breathtaking. On a sunny day in the late morning in mid-August, the light was spectacular. The garden was full of butterflies. We spent some time around the reflecting pool. It took a while to distinguish the real frogs from the lily pads they were sitting on or clinging to.

The garden around the interior is devoted to flowering plants and it was designed to be at peak bloom mid-August. The serene, shaded, Asian-inspired landscaping and immense Korean and Chinese sculptures are separated from the boisterous flowers with hedges.

The family’s money is much maligned because of the way John D. Rockefeller, Sr. made his money and the Ludlow Massacre. This was a conflict of mine owners, miners, union organizers and the Colorado National Guard, which lead to the death of eleven women and children who suffocated in a crawl space under a burning tent, according to David Rockefeller's autobiography. Mr. Rockefeller writes that before that incident, in 1915, John D. Sr. planned to give his fortune away, fearing that his son was not capable of handling the responsibility for his huge fortune due to the personal issues in his life. The strength and character John D. Jr. showed or acquired while addressing the underlying issues which caused the discontent of the miners changed his father's mind. Senior began to transfer his immense fortune to his son who not only continued philanthropic projects started by his father but launched new foundations based on his own interests in art and the environment.

John D. Jr. and Abby bought then renovated and expanded their summer house in Seal Harbor. They showed little interest in Bar Harbor society. This couple loved their children, travel, each other, art, their philanthropies and summers in Maine.

The house they built no longer stands. It survived the 1947 fire. After Abby died, John D. Jr. was very lonely and remarried. His second wife made a number of changes to Eyrie. After SHE died, the children restored the home as much as it could be to the way their mother designed it, including returning her furniture to many rooms. The rooms were photographed for posterity. Then the house was torn down.

Today, the Rockefeller land within which this garden still stands, thousands of acres, is operated by a family corporation called Greenrock. This vast expanse of land between the road from Seal Harbor to Northeast Harbor and the Jordan Pond House is open to the public. For free, of course. These lands contain the original carriage roads, part of the 57 miles of carriage roads designed by John D. Jr. and landscape architect Beatrix Farrand.

Many people are unaware that Acadia National Park was not purchased by the federal government but was given to the country by private individuals including George Dorr who spent most of his money on land acquisition, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. They had to beg the feds to take the land. For free of course.

Before and during the Depression, John D. Jr. employed many local men building these bridges – there are 15 of them, each unique - and the miles of carriage roads, closed to motorized vehicles, which are enjoyed by visitors to the Park today. Which isn't free, of course, but worth the price of admission. Many folks thought he was crazy and self indulgent to spend his money that way during those hard times. Except for the men he employed.

Living here on Mount Desert Island I have come to appreciate the philanthropy of this family. Abby's collection was the basis for the Museum of Modern Art and the Folk Art Museum at Williamsburg. John Jr. and Abby poured money into the restoration of Williamsburg. There are other, smaller museums around the country which were graced with Rockefeller money, including the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine. A member of the family invested heavily in the Clivus Multrum, a composting toilet, found in many rural parks. The toilets at the Rockefeller garden are Clivus Multrums.

By the time the trust funds trickled down to John D. Jr.'s grandchildren, if a book about the dynasty is to be believed, conflict erupted about the family business. Some younger family members expressed embarrassment about being trust-funders. Others refused the money. Some hated Nelson for his politics. Some felt burdened by the way Senior made the family fortune but took the trust fund money anyway. Some just lived life and made the most of their opportunities These grand children included Michael Rockefeller, Nelson’s son, who disappeared in New Guinea while pursuing his interest in anthropology and Jay Rockefeller, Senator from West Virginia.

If you are a reader, I highly recommend David Rockefeller's autobiography. I’d also recommend a book about the multiple generations of the family called The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty by Peter Collier. It's a brutally revealing book. A book about the carriage roads, Mr. Rockefeller's Roads, written by John D. Jr.’s granddaughter, Ann Rockefeller Roberts, details the conception and construction of these roads.

This place, Mount Desert Island, owes a great deal to the Rockefeller family. Acadia National Park comprises around 45 percent of the land on MDI, land which will never be developed and will always be open to the public.

David Rockefeller is now in his 90’s. He had a boat built here which was launched this year, specifically to accommodate his limited mobility, so that he can continue to go out on the water. Some may think that is a crazy thing to spend money on in this economy. I doubt that the boat builders who were employed the last 18 or so months working on that multiple hundred thousand dollar boat think that.






NOTE: for the absolutely wonderful story about the courtship of the couple who married in the garden a few weeks ago, see Sunday New York Times, Fashion and Style, September 19, 2010, Vows: Ariana Rockefeller and Matthew Bucklin.