Haute on the Hudson: A Vogue Editor’s New Book Explores a Bygone Way of Life Inline
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection1/9The wall fountain on the back terrace at Foxhollow Farm, photographed by Harry Coutant ca. 1917. Tracy hired Henry Hering, best known for his sculptural and architectural work, to design the fountain. It featured a Pan-like cherub playing flutes above a basin into which water streamed from the mouths of three bronze frogs. Hering had been a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens at Cooper Union, whom he also assisted, and studied at the Art Students League of New York and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection2/9Margaret Dows sitting on a garden bench next to the walled courtyard of the house, summer 1911.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection3/9The Dowses’ suite at The Plaza, 1909. For the first few years after the family moved to Rhinebeck, they would travel to Manhattan and spend a few months during the winter and early spring at hotels, where they socialized with friends and attended performances at the theater and opera. To personalize the rooms they would bring framed family photographs and other items to place on tables and mantles.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection4/9Alice Dows and Mrs. Lewis Iselin sitting on the running board of the Dowses’ car on the beach at Jekyll Island. Lewis is in the driver’s seat. The Iselins, good friends of the Dowses, were also visiting the island in 1916.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection5/9Helen Huntington Astor walking toward her newly married sister, Alice, on the terrace at Hopeland House, the country home of Robert Palmer Huntington, in Staatsburg, New York. The young flower girl is Margaret Dows. Alice Ford Huntington married Charles Henry “Buddy” Marshall, Jr., on June 3, 1917, reported by The New York Times as one of the most important weddings of the year.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection6/9Margaret and Deb Dows having fun in the hay storage loft out in the fields of Foxhollow Farm, 1920. Even this simple building had a pleasing architectural style.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection7/9Guests at the wedding of Margaret Dows to Knut Richard Thyberg at Foxhollow Farm, October 3, 1925. Deb was Margaret’s only attendant. The original wedding plan, with several bridesmaids, was scaled back in light of the recent death of Margaret’s grandfather, Stephen Henry Olin. According to Alice, it was a stressful day since the food and supplies from the caterers, Sherry’s restaurant in New York City, arrived too late to provide the wedding breakfast. Events had to be reordered, with the ceremony first, followed by dancing and champagne before the meal. Despite these complications, it was a lovely wedding.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection8/9Margaret and her husband, Knut Richard Thyberg, with Antoinette, their bullmastiff, sitting in front of an extraordinary eight-panel screen of zebras, painted by Olin in 1932. During this time the Thybergs were living in Copenhagen. Margaret had married the Swedish diplomat in 1925 at Foxhollow Farm.
Photo: Courtesy of Dows Collection9/9Tracy Dows, age 33 in 1904, with his binoculars and Kodak Folding Pocket camera on the grounds of Woodland Cottage, the picturesque cottage where he and Alice first lived after their wedding. He later purchased a Graflex Speed Graphic camera in 1912, the first year it was produced.
