Telling The Story Of ‘The Remarkable Huntingtons’

By Jan Howard

It was a chance meeting that brought together two very different individuals from two very different backgrounds, but Anna and Archer Huntington lived happily together and brought their individual talents together to provide a legacy for the arts.

Newtown author Mary Mitchell presented a slide show and talk last week about the book, The Remarkable Huntingtons, Chronicle of a Marriage, that she and the late Al Goodrich wrote. The book tells the story of the marriage late in life of Archer Huntington, a New York City millionaire philanthropist, and Anna Hyatt, an artist and sculptor of Greenwich Village.

The book also features photographs of several of the animal and heroic sculptures created by Anna Hyatt Huntington during her long career.

Together the Huntingtons left a legacy of art and beauty, including more than 250 sculptures she created that now occupy parks, museums, schools, and other public places and buildings in the United States and around the world and his gifts of parks and museums in the areas where they resided, such as Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

While writing the book, Ms Mitchell and Mr Goodrich researched 30 volumes of Anna’s personal diaries, which she kept from 1925 to 1955, when Archer died.

The book came about as a result of a trip by Ms Mitchell and Mr Goodrich in December 2000 to Brookgreen Gardens, a sculpture garden founded in 1930 by the Huntingtons.

“Friends who knew we were interested in the Huntingtons recommended we go,” Ms Mitchell said. “It proved to be spectacular.”

The gardens include sculptures by Anna and other American sculptors against trees, brick walls, and marshes. “The scene took our breath away,” Ms Mitchell said.

When she and Mr Goodrich asked at the gift shop for information about the Huntingtons, Ms Mitchell said, “Nobody could satisfy our curiosity, nor was there any publication for sale telling about them.”

Once they were back in Newtown, Ms Mitchell and Mr Goodrich learned that Anna’s papers were at Syracuse University Library in New York. An archivist told them the collection had never been studied by anyone writing about their married life.

“The collection measured 37 linear feet of boxes filled with Anna’s diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, blueprints, dog kennel records, all the rich minutiae that makes up a person’s life,” Ms Mitchell said. “We asked for an inventory, eager to start the research.”

Archer and Anna met by chance around 1920, and were married in 1923. “Everyone said the marriage would not last. They were too different,” Ms Mitchell said. He was a millionaire, raised in New York City by a single mother, Arabella Worsham.

She, in 1884, married Collis P. Huntington, a wealthy railroad tycoon, who adopted Archer informally. When Archer asked to take the Huntington name, Collis readily agreed, always referring to him as his son, Ms Mitchell said.

Anna’s background was conventional, Ms Mitchell said. Her mother was an artist and her father, a Harvard professor. She had been a successful sculptor since she was 25. In 1910 she created an equestrian statue of Joan d’Arc, which won honorable mention at the Paris Salon, winning her international renown. In New York she created sculptures, mostly of animals, that were very popular.

She met Archer following his divorce from his wife, Helen, who had left him for another man. He and Anna met several times regarding programs at the Hispanic Society of America, which he had built to display his collections of Spanish books and art.

In spite of their differences, Ms Mitchell said Anna found herself looking at a man, not as a sculptor’s model, but as a person. She said yes to his persistent pleas to marry him. “Middle-aged, she realized she had fulfilled her artistic ambitions and yearned to help Archer regain his dignity and pride,” Ms Mitchell said.

Because of his mother, Archer had a commanding position in the artistic community. With Arabella, he had developed Audubon Terrace, where he had built the Hispanic Society of America building, as well as five others, including the administrative building for the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1930, the Huntingtons fell in love with four plantations called Brookgreen in South Carolina.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” Ms Mitchell said. Archer saw a site on the dunes where a winter residence could be built and a setting at Brookgreen where Anna’s sculpture could be displayed. They bought the property for $225,000 and later purchased 2,500 more acres as a refuge for migrating birds. They named their home Atalaya, the Moorish word for water tower.

The first design for Brookgreen Gardens, created by Anna, looked like a butterfly. To ensure the future of the gardens, Mr Huntington had his lawyers draw up papers to establish Brookgreen with a trust and trustees. At the same time he had a deed drawn up to establish the Mariners’ Museum and its park in Norfolk, Va., also a popular tourist attraction today.

“The maritime museum is fascinating,” Ms Mitchell said.

Though Anna’s career as a sculptor had been regular and productive before her marriage, with more than 200 pieces created after 1895, it was erratic following her marriage until Archer’s death. However, Ms Mitchell said, “After reading each of Anna’s diaries for that period, I cannot cite one instance when she bemoaned the loss of her freedom.”

In 1939, the Huntingtons purchased an 800-acre estate in Redding, called Stanerigg, where they lived for the rest of their lives. Following her death, the estate was established as the Collis Potter Huntington State Park.

 “During World War II, Anna and Archer led very different lives,” Ms Mitchell said. He was retired, but she had never been so active. She raised Scottish deerhounds and ran the farm, which consisted of large vegetable gardens and a dairy. In 1946 she began a new version of a previous Don Quixote sculpture. In her diary, she wrote, “I am having much fun with this.”

In 1947 she began her most spectacular work, the “Fighting Stallions,” an example of her lifelong study of horses. From that time on, her sculptures told a story. Acting upon a suggestion of Cuban journalist Jose Garcia-Mazas, who had interviewed Archer, her sculpture, “Torch,” was offered to the University of Madrid. On May 17, 1955, motorcycles escorted the horse-drawn delivery wagon with the nine-foot statue through narrow streets to the College of Medicine where it stands today.

Because of his long devotion to Spain, Archer paid for the whole operation, the creation of the statue, having it cast, and shipping it to Madrid. It was his swan song, Ms Mitchell said. He died on December 11, 1955. His legacy, she said, was founding and supporting important institutions that enrich people’s lives today.

Following his death, Anna did not enter her studio for two months, Ms Mitchell said. Then began another productive period during which she produced sculptures featuring incidents in American history, such as a statue of General Israel Putnam, her last piece of work, which is in Redding near the Routes 107 and 58 entrance to Putnam Park. The statute is currently being reconditioned as part of the Putnam Park renovation.

Of the Huntingtons’ life together, Ms Mitchell said, “From start to finish a give-and-take attitude formed it.”

 Ms Mitchell and Mr Goodrich also wrote Touring Newtown’s Past and five editions of the Newtown Trails Book.

The Remarkable Huntingtons, which was edited by Andrea Zimmerman of Newtown, is available locally for $23 at the Drug Center on Church Hill Road, the C.H. Booth Library circulation desk, and from Budd Drive Press, PO Box 309, Newtown CT 06470.

 Profits from the sale of the book will be divided between the Lt James A. Goodrich Memorial Scholarship at Newtown High School and The Hispanic Society of America in New York City.