Click on images to enlarge)
Betty Katz, ca. 1915. Photographer unknown. From the Betty Katz Papers archive in the posession of Betty Katz's niece Dottie Ickovitz. Many thanks to Beth Gates Warren, author of Artful Lives, Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather and the Bohemians of Los Angeles for informing me of this.
Betty Katz was one of the more colorful, beloved members of the avant-garde coterie surrounding photographer Edward Weston and architect R. M. Schindler and his mercurial wife Pauline. Born in Romania around 1895, Katz had immigrated to New York in 1905 with her mother and siblings, two sisters and a brother. After her brother was killed in a streetcar accident, Katz was forced to go to work in a succession of sweatshops to help support the family. She took a job at the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and was by chance not working the same shift that a raging fire engulfed the top three floors of the ten-story building. One hundred and forty-six garment workers were killed in the flames with as many as 90 choosing to jump to their death rather than succumb to the flames after discovering that the exit doors to the stairways were locked. (From Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles by Beth Gates Warren, Getty Publications, 2011, p. 125).
Image of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911. (From Wikipedia.
By a fluke of scheduling Betty Katz had escaped the tragic 1911 conflagration at the New York factory which took the lives of 146 of her fellow garment workers. This inspired her to join the International Workers of the World (IWW) and become a tireless crusader for better wages and working conditions.
"Carlota," Margrethe Mather by Edward Weston, 1914. From "Artful Lives" by Beth Gates Warren, p. 60.
After Katz contracted tuberculosis in 1915, the Wobblies sent her to Los Angeles to recuperate and continue organizing L.A.'s rapidly expanding garment trade. (Ibid.).
During the summer of 1915 Betty worked at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and wound up organizing the free toilet workers, young black girls, increasing their pay in the process and ended up as the City inspector for the toilets earning $100 per month. Coincidentally, R. M. Schindler had traveled from Chicago to visit both the San Francisco and San Diego Panama-California Expositions. Edward Weston also exhibited some of his work in the San Francisco Exposition with one entry, a portrait of Margrethe Mather entitled "Carlota, Child Study in Gray" winning a bronze medal. Schindler, Weston and Betty undoubtedly would have bonded over these shared experiences at later Kings Road salons. ("Aunt Betty" by Martin Lessow. Betty Katz Papers. See also my "Edward Weston and Mabel Dodge Luhan Remember D. H. Lawrence and Selected Carmel-Taos Connections").
Pauline Schindler, Taliesin, 1919. Photographer likely R. M. Schindler. Courtesy Esther McCoy Collection, Association of American Arts.
The Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy occurred about the
time the nearby South Orange, New Jersey resident Pauline Gibling was cementing her
plans to attend the progressive Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in
the fall. After matriculating she was soon exposed to major labor unrest
during the infamous 1912 IWW "Bread and Roses"
textile workers strike in nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts during her impressionable
freshman year at Smith. The following year she received further inspiration
from the IWW Paterson Silk
Strike a few miles north of her family's New Jersey home. With
financial backing from his then lover Mabel Dodge, radical
journalist John
Reed staged a reenactment of the strike in New York's Madison Square
Garden with Pauline and/or her activist mother Sophie Gibling possibly in attendance
(see above). (For much more on Mabel Dodge Luhan see my "Edward Weston and Mabel Dodge Luhan Remember D. H. Lawrence").
Hull House ca. 1915. Photographer unknown. (Wikipedia)
About the same time Katz was moving to Los Angeles, Pauline was moving into Jane Addams' and Ellen Gates Starr's Hull-House while continuing post-graduate studies in social work after her graduation from Smith. Shortly after her arrival Pauline fervently joined the picket lines with 15,000 women's garment workers in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union strike organized by her mentor Starr (see below) and was proudly arrested for her zealous involvement. ("Life at Kings Road: As It Was, 1920-1940", Robert Sweeney, p. 91 in The Architecture of R. M. Schindler edited by Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Abrams, 2001, and "Unemployment and Labor Problems: Labor Committee at Hull House, Hull-House Year Book, January 1, 1916, p. 58. Author's note: Pauline's labor organizing exposure and striking activity presaged major bonding with Katz after they became fast friends upon her arrival in Los Angeles in late 1920. For much more on Pauline Schindler's Chicago activities see my "The Schindlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School").
The Garment Workers' Strike, International Socialist Review, November 1915, p. 260.
Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, Betty Katz's tuberculosis worsened and her kidneys began to fail. Doctors advised relocation to the desert for a more beneficial climate so she rented a small desert adobe cottage and as she regained strength she made periodic sojourns between Palm Springs and Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles in 1916 Katz met soon-to-be Edward Weston partner and lover Margrethe Mather and the two resourceful, radical women made an instant connection. Photographer Mather excitedly posed Katz in profile standing in front of a roman window shade and holding a long-stemmed rose. (see below).
Betty Katz, 1916. Margrethe Mather photograph. J. Paul Getty Museum, 85XP.249.1. (From Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather and the Bohemians of Los Angeles by Beth Gates Warren, p. 126).
A few days later Margrethe sent some prints to Katz accompanied by a romantic note,
"Betty-girl -here they are - at last! I wish I had much better to offer you - you and your rose deserved it - Someday - again - ?My evening with you was sweet - only I so regretted sending you home alone. I had a white little bed at home. - you should have had that - and I could have had the floor - Really I mean it - Forgive my thoughtlessness -I'm sorry you are going - I so want to know more of you -I like you -This note should be a poem - I feel like one -but -Margrethe (Warren, p. 127)"
Betty Katz, Ramiel McGehee and unidentified man in Japanese-Style Garden, ca. 1919. Unidentified photographer, possibly Margrethe Mather. Betty Katz Papers. (Also from Warren, p. 162).
Sometime in 1919 Betty Katz and Margrethe Mather met and befriended a mystically inclined esoteric individual named Ramiel McGehee. Ramiel was a scholar of oriental art and occasionally gave demonstrations in Japanese dance. Weston and McGehee also had a brief physical relationship before the four became close friends often bar-hopping in downtown Los Angeles. (Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Norton, 2001, p. 21. For much more do a "McGehee" page search in my "Bertha Wardell Dances in Silence: Kings Road, Olive Hilland Carmel." Also see my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles").
Roy Rosen by Margrethe Mather, ca. 1919. Mather Collection, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
It was through Betty Katz that Margrethe Mather also met Roy Rosen. Like Katz, Rosen was also of Romanian extraction. Born into an orthodox Jewish family in New York City he received his early education in a rabbinical school. When he reached adolescence Rosen rebelled against Orthodoxy and became a hobo, riding the rails to explore the country. During his travels he found the time to join the I.W.W. which likely played a part in his friendship with Betty.
At the time the word hobo had a very specific meaning, as compared to a tramp or a bum. It was Emma Goldman's business manager and lover, Ben Reitman, known as "king of the hobos," who explained the differences. "The hobo wanders and works, the tramp wanders but does not work and the bum neither wanders nor works." (Artful Lives, Warren, p. 128. Author's note: Pauline Schindler was also involved in James Eads How's Hobo movement during her Chicago Hull House days which would have further ingratiated her with Katz. This involvement also resulted in her husband receiving a commission to design a Los Angeles house for How in 1924. See for example my "The Schindlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School").
Roy Rosen by Margrethe Mather, ca. 1919. Mather Collection, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
Hancock Banning Residence, Fort Moore Hill, 416 N. Broadway, ca. 1938. Designed by Al Greene & Associates. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.
Betty Katz moved into Roy Rosen's apartment in the attic of the Hancock Banning residence at 416 N. Broadway. Rosen had lived there since 1917 but told Betty she could live there while he was recovering from a similar bout of tuberculosis in the nearby Barlow Sanitarium on Chavez Ravine Road. (See below). (1917 Los Angeles City Directory, p. 1733).
Barlow Sanitarium, Chavez Ravine Road, ca. 1920. Photographer unknown.
Betty Katz on balcony of Hancock Banning House, Los Angeles, 1920. Edward Weston photograph. J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.XM.170.11. (From Warren, p. 202).
By late October 1920 Weston's affair with Katz heated up. She was back from Palm Springs staying again in Roy Rosen's attic crow's nest in the Banning House. Weston indirectly mentioned his relationship in a letter to his photographer friend Johan Hagemeyer then In Europe:
"I have much to talk of - a great deal unwritable - it will be saved for our next all night session!I have made some thrilling adventures! And done some new "attic prints" from new negatives made in "Betty's" attic - you will like them I think.Work has been very very slow - and I have been blue as a result and in no good mood to write and spoil some pleasant afternoon of yours - but things seem better now.I wonder when you are returning or what you think of conditions by this time - I have never given up entirely the idea of Europe - if not this year why not next - I will try and write you more interestingly soon - but this will let you know I think of you - Good Luck. (EW to Johan Hagemeyer, October 25, 1920, Warren, p. 201).
Reginald Pole as Othello, 1920. Photo by Margrethe Mather. From Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston, A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Norton, New York, 2001, p. 72.
Another denizen of the desert who got his Southern California start in Palm Springs was Shakespearean actor and dramatist Reginald Pole. Pole was a British emigre who first arrived in Palm Springs in 1914 under the recommendation of Robert Louis Stevenson's widow Fanny, who was then recuperating at Nellie Coffman's Desert Inn. He would build his own desert house in 1917 with the help of one of his drama students, Lawrence Tibbett, which will be further described in more detail later herein. Betty most likely crossed paths with Pole through social events at Mather's studio. The above Mather portrait of Pole as Othello was taken ca. February 1920 about the time that Weston was taking the attic photos of Betty. (Letter from Fanny Stevenson in Palm Springs to Reginald Pole in San Francisco, January 11, 1914. From Palm Springs Historical Society. Drama, Othello Benefits for Children's Hospital, Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1920, p. II-12. "Othello" at Trinity, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 1920. p. II-9. Author's note: The stage sets for Othello were designed by Lloyd Wright and other actors included Lawrence Tibbett as Iago, Florence Deshon and Frayne Williams. From "The Road I Came" by Paul Jordan-Smith, Caxton, 1960, p. 380. See also Notable Production of "Othello" Soon, Riverside Daily Press, February 12, 1920).
Anna Zacsek aka Olga Gray, 1919. Photo by Edward Weston from Weston Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
Pole next staged Henrik Ibsen's last play "When We Dead Awaken" at the Egan's Little Theater with Olga Gray [Anna Zacsek], a protege of Alla Nazimova taking the lead role. Another Mather-Weston coterie member Otto Matiesen was also in the cast. Stage sets were again designed by Lloyd Wright. (Will Present play by Ibsen, Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1920, p. III-1. Author's note: Pole and John Cowper Powys collaborated on an adaptation of Ibsen's "The Idiot" which Pole would stage on Broadway in 1922. Pole would reprise "The Idiot" starring himself and his second wife Frances, his former New York girlfriend Beatrice Wood, Anna Zacsek and Boris Karloff in Los Angeles in 1928 with stage sets designed by R. M. Schindler. Schindler designed a house for Zacsek in Playa del Rey in 1936.)
Otto Matiesen as Pierrot, 1920. Photo by Margrethe Mather from Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston, A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Norton, New York, 2001, p. 68.
November brought about the next Reginald Pole production, yet another Ibsen play. "Rosmersholm" was again presented at Frank Egan's Little Theater under the direction of Reginald Pole with stage sets again designed by Lloyd Wright. "Anna Zacseck, playing Rebecca West, gave a brilliant characterization of the strange female lead of the play. Beautiful and delicately charming and yet able to make known clearly the hidden fires which caused her to take her actions, she exerted a tremendous appeal." Otto Matiesen and Frayne Williams also played starring roles. (Theater Review, Little Theater, Los Angeles Herald, November 11, 1920, p. B-9.
Frayne Williams as Hamlet, 1918. Photo by Margrethe Mather. Ibid. p. 49.
Frank Egan started the new year with Reginald Pole staging still another Ibsen play, "Hedda Gabler" with his star actress Olga Gray Zacsek again taking the lead role. Los Angeles Times reviewer Edwin Schallert reported,
"Even with her reactions to certain sentiments, Hedda is always the victim of a deadly ennui, her struggle is futile and she is hopelessly aware of it. With the play's progress, Miss Zacsek made this part of her interpretation ever more convincing. ... Pole is always successful as an actor, even though, at times, restrained in naturalness by his superior training." (Reviews: Ibsen Production "Hedda Gabler " at Little Theater, Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1921, p. III-4).
Betty in Her Attic, 1920. Photo by Edward Weston.
Ramiel in His Attic, Redondo Beach, July 1920. Photo by Edward Weston.
Weston first experimented with attic pictures in Ramiel McGehee's attic in Redondo Beach. He also was struck by the similar angles in Betty's attic on North Broadway where he photographed her during their short affair. The two above portraits were sent by Weston to several exhibitions during 1921. (Mather & Weston by Warren, p. 25).
The Ascent of Attic Angles," Betty Katz or Tina Modotti in the attic of Ramiel McGehee, Redondo Beach, 1920. Edward Weston photograph. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Weston paired the two above images, "The Ascent of Attic Angles" with Betty Katz, and "Sunny Corner in an Attic" with Johan Hagemeyer, for submission to several other 1921 exhibitions. Both images were made in Ramiel's Redondo Beach attic.
Betty Katz in Ramiel McGehee's Attic, Redondo Beach, 1920. Photo by Edward Weston.
Betty Katz, 1920, Edward Weston portrait. Image scanned from Edward Weston in Los Angeles by Susan Danly and Weston J. Naef, Huntington Library and Art Gallery, Plate 2, p. 13. Original image courtesy The J. Paul Getty Museum. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Betty Brandner [sic] Seated, Smoking, 1920. Edward Weston photograph. From Tina Modotti and Edward Weston: The Mexico Years, by Sarah M. Lowe, Merrell, 2004, Plate 8. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Betty Katz in Her Attic, 1920. Edward Weston photograph. Collection Center for Creative Photography. ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Betty in Her Attic, 1920. Photo by Edward Weston.
In the spring of 1921 Weston wrote to Betty Katz describing to her a very busy period of his life,
"I am frightfully busy - getting off four exhibits - sent "Betty in Her Attic" to Boston and Philadelphia and "Attic Arrangement" to Kansas City - all [$] 100.00 first prizes - Opened at Friday Morning Club joint exhibit with M - yesterday - all your attic things away - that is the good ones so not showing any - would like to show best one if I could borrow your copy - is any one coming to town?...Miss Lerner coming here Saturday to see me - or rather I should say - my work - much more important - please get well - cut out one cig a day - it is distressing that you should have had another hemmorhage [sic] - dear girl - you do not take care of yourself - " (Edward Weston letter to Batty Katz [early February 1921], Bety Katz Papers, from Artful Lives, note 4, p. 333. Author's note: Betty was likely then in Palm Springs at "Fool's Folly" judging from the above question.).
Somewhat outside of character, Edward Weston did not suggest a portrait session upon meeting Miriam Lerner, but he did befriend the attractive female, perhaps with a future modeling session in mind.
Katz immediately sent the photo Weston requested prompting the following response,
"The print arrived safely - Betty dear - I will try and get it up this week so it will at least have a couple weeks of showing - I did have a very nice visit from Miriam Lerner - I found her very lovely and with taste and discrimination. In Philadelphia I am showing - that is if they hang anything - at the John Wanamaker Store - March 7 to 26 - I feel very sure of at least getting hung and even quite confident of pulling down a prize - I am distressed to hear of your sickness again - you have had your share - please - please get well! I have had a strenuous winter so far with sickness on all sides of me - plus a very hard economic fight - to raise an unexpected amount on short notice to clear our property - Do tell me you are better - you and your desert - (Edward Weston to Betty Katz, February 15, 1921, Betty Katz Papers, from Artful Lives, note 5, p. 333).
Later that year Weston wrote to Katz of news of the results of the spring salons:
"I had hoped to have interesting news to write you with the coming of the coming of news from various exhibits - but alas - Betty and Ramiel in their respective attics are out of the running - In the Wanamaker exhibit which I had counted on so very much with either Ramiel or you - I received seventh prize for a new picture just made - a nude called "Fantastique" - of course seventh in an exhibit usually having some fifteen hundred entries is not being entirely left behind - but I needed the money! In "American Photography" Margrethe and I both received minor prizes unworthy of mention - At Kansas City I only got a "Special Mention" - while M - received 6th prize - some 748 prints entered - So you see - excepting at Carnegie Institute (no money prizes only honor counts!) where I had six hung out of six sent - I had a bad year....Well I shall send Betty and Ramiel to London this summer and see how they are received over there. - But I spent so much time and effort - I'm a little blue - " (Edward Weston letter to Betty Katz, December 9, 1921. Betty Katz Papers. Courtesy of Betty's niece, Dottie Ickovitz.).
The Schindlers eagerly threw themselves into the social orbit of Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, Tina Modotti, Johan Hagemeyer and Betty Katz immediately upon their arrival in Los Angeles in December of 1920. Schindler was to take over the supervision of the construction of his then employer Frank Lloyd Wright's Barnsdall House on Olive Hill. Pauline found a teaching job at the Walt Whitman School in Boyle Heights where she coincidentally taught Weston's two oldest sons Chandler and Brett. (For much more detail on this see my "The Schindlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School.")
Pauline and R. M. Schindler at Yosemite, October 1921. Photographer unknown. From the Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
Indicating the closeness Pauline Schindler then felt towards Betty Katz by October of 1921, she excitedly wrote from Yosemite, where she and her husband were vacationing upon the completion of the Barnsdall House, to eagerly discuss plans for their new house RMS was going to design.
"Betty!
The Yosemite would have been perfect for your hermitage. Would be still. Tentless and houseless until snowfall, - then perhaps an inn on a mountain-height for you, - snowbound under 12 foot drifts. Heights and distances and silence. I could beg you to plan to be here all next May and next October, - before the rest of the world arrives. The Yosemite has a quite impossible beauty. In the afternoon early the air is sunny enough for us to go in for a heavenly moment into the river, - and come out ecstatic with the icy joy of it. Betty! It IS all such a lark......and weeks since we slept under a roof. A sequoia tree, with stars gleaming through, our covering...
We return, perhaps at the end of the month, to Los Angeles...and do not go to Japan. Our first immediate work, to build our own studio, - one of the two or three most joyous things in the world to do. I wish we might make several studios at once, - one for you perhaps, one certainly for Kimmie and Clyde [Chace], since she has such energies to apply toward cooperative housing experiments. Labor and utensils in common, - and much technique of the mere mechanism simplified. When you are well, and permanently in town, - we'll do something of the sort together if you like. At least as lovely as the Hollywood Hill. You the Community Kitchen altogether, for us and for as many as you please.The stimulating recuperative play of ours out here sets all sorts of music and thinking going within one. I've ideas enough to last us several years..new ways to live..new simplicities. The important thing is, that this new clarity, these new qualities, should outlast the return to town.
Fruit's trial must have begun...He wrote me that several of the other boys thought of defending themselves, - Peters possibly by silent defence.
Where are you, desert or town? Its important to know where to think [of] you, otherwise you become too vague, - an abstraction of a Betty...If you are in the desert, though, I can understand all degrees of silence. Any utterance is too unsimple for such primitive beings as we can become when we've room. If you're not above such trivialities Betty, remember me to the Dunlap..when next you write the boy...He too would do very well out here, - perhaps to take care of the wood-gathering for your camp fire, and to see that supplies were hidden away from bears at night... But the deer Betty, shy, flawlessly musical in their movement, exquisite beings, -
And so yours, Betty,
Pauline (Typed Letter Signed, Pauline Schindler to Betty Katz, October 19, 1921. Betty Katz Papers)
The above letter cleary referenced the bonding that former labor organizers Pauline and Betty must have undergone evidenced by their mutual interest in the current I.W.W. trial playing out in the Los Angeles Times. Pauline's sharing with Betty her correspondence with W. I. Fruit, one of the defendants charged with treasonable propaganda for the "crime" of simply being a member of the I.W.W., illustrated their mutual concern for justice in the labor movement. (For example "Nine of I.W.W. Found Guilty", Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1921, p. II-1
Schindler House under contruction in February 1921, 835 Kings Road. R. M. Schindler, architect. From Esther McCoy Collection, Archives of American Art.
El Centro Central Union High School, ca. 1922. From Internet.
Pauline Schindler was teaching at Central Union High School in El Centro during the spring of 1922 while her husband and Clyde Chace were busy building their new residence in West Hollywood. As head of the art department she was also director of the senior play, "Clarence," by Booth Tarkington. Tarkington's 1919 Broadway play was soon to be adapted into a movie directed by Aline Barnsdall's Hollywood Blvd. neighbor William C. deMille. Pauline also assisted in the direction of the music for the operetta "Wild Rose," originally written by Edith Burrows with music by W. Rhys-Herbert in 1915 (see below). The very busy Schindler was also director of the El Centro Girls' Glee Club which gave a performance of "Where the Bee Sucks" in the county-wide May Festival of Music. (The Play: A Delightful Tarkington Comedy by Alexander Woolcott, New York Times, September 22, 1919, p. 8, Senior Play, Imperial Valley Press, March 18, 1922, Cast Entertained at Dinner, Imperial Valley Press, March 22, 1922, p. 2, Operetta Presentation a Success, Imperial Valley Press, April 15, 1922, p. 2, Music Festival, Imperial Valley Press, May 6, 1922, p. 3).
From Amazon.
After hearing from a pregnant Pauline Schindler of her recent activities teaching at El Centro and her request to visit Betty in Palm Springs, Betty replied,
"I have tried to picture El Centro as it looks, I can't see it. I can't even see you clearly. I think you are an abstraction of my imagination and to-night I would that you were real.
As soon as I know when I will be alone I will write you of it. It will be so good to actually have you here for a while. The middle of May will probably be quite warm; but your presence will make the hours seem cool and kind, and we will stay indoors until the sun goes over the hills and perhaps you wont mind the heat.
It will be good. Right now the house is ever full of people - a clamorous dissonance. I tried to get away from it by going up to town for a and foggy now.
Tell me something about the studio R.M.S. is building. Is Kimmie [Chace] going to be living near you? I am rereading some short stories of Korolenko. Translated into German. Much better translation than English. "Der wald rauscht" and "Der traum des Armen Malear" are both exquisite bits of lyrical prose. If you feel like reading I will send the book down to you. The Dial that you mention has not come, perhaps lost in the mail.
Good-night dear. I like hearing from you.
Faithfully,
Betty" (Hand-written letter signed, n.d. ca. spring 1922. Betty Katz Papers.).
Betty Katz third from left at a picnic with unidentified friends in Palm Springs, n. d., ca. 1922-3. Betty Katz Papers.
The above picture is an example of the "clamorous dissonance" that Betty was trying to convey to Pauline Schindler in the spring of 1922.
In an excerpt from a letter to Betty a few months later, Miriam Lerner wrote:
"[Edward] went to Chicago to see his sister and while there, so he wrote Tina [Modotti], he got an opportunity to run over to N. Y. where he said he would stay as long as his money lasted. I was very glad to hear that he had a chance to go, as N. Y. is humming now. I have that kindly feeling towards him, so that to hear of his good fortune was a pleasure. I expext he will return here very soon, however." (Mirian Lerner to Betty Katz, November 1922, Betty Katz Papers).
With their mutual interests in radical politics and labor organizing, Margrethe, Betty, and Pauline likely became instant kindred spirits upon meeting sometime in 1921, possibly at Florence Deshon's boyfriend Max Eastman's lecture at the Kate Crane Gartz residence in Pasadena sometime around June 1921 or perhaps at a party at Margrethe Mather's or Tina Modotti's studio. (See more at my "The Schndlers and the Westons and the Walt Whitman School." Author's note: Reginald Pole developed a crush on Florence Deshon in early 1920 during rehearsals of "Othello" (see earlier above). From "Love and Loss in Hollywood, Florence Deshon, Max Eastman and Charlie Chaplin" edited by Cooper C. Graham and Christoph Irmscher, Indiana University Press, 2020, pp. 4, 209, 231, 234, 250, 252, 255, 419).
Betty Katz again wrote to Pauline in El Centro during March 1922 of the news of Florence Deshon's suicide reinforcing the fact that the Schindlers were indeed in the Mather-Weston-Katz-Modotti-Hagemeyer-McGehee orbit prior to this. (See Artful Lives, Warren, p. 244 and note 9, p. 337). (Betty Katz letter to Pauline Schindler, ca. March 1922. Schindler Family Collection. For much more on this, do a "Deshon" search in my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles.").
R.M.S. was also corresponding with Betty around this time evidenced by the below letter he sent her strongly recommending that she should travel to Europe to hear any lecture by Karl Kraus.
"A weeks rehammering should have been enough - instead I have dried up stiffly, like an isolated palm tree confronted by an eternal low tide.I think your path - I think you must go to Vienna or any place where you can hear a lecture by Karl Kraus - the editor of the "Fackel" - one of the most vital persons in Europe and the only master of word and voice of our time - hindered by a somewhat local Viennese color and enmity of all which in any way is connected with journalism - (he is never mentioned with one word in any newspaper) he has become the most vital writer of Europe - I believe that - in spite of disagreement - Besides he has the mode of a great actor - and his lectures go right to the bone. I would go to Europe to hear them - and to send you there is the richest gift I can offer.My greetings" (Letter from R. M. Schindler to Betty Katz, no date, ca. 1922. Betty Katz Papers).
As mentioned earlier, Betty was spending a lot of time in the desert recuperating from the affects of tuberculosis ca. 1918 when she first met Chicago heiress Lois Kellogg who happened to be out on one of her daily desert horseback rides. Lois's mother was also recuperating from tuberculosis in Palm Springs, likely at the Desert Inn, before she died in 1918 leaving her fortune to daughter Lois.
Desert Inn, 1913. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
In 1919, Lois Kellogg purchased property with 450 ft. of frontage along Main Street [later to be renamed Palm Canyon Drive] through to Indian Canyon Road, south of Baristo Road and hired nearby architect Harold Cody to design plans to
build her a Moroccan-Persian inspired estate. The compound began with the construction of three initial houses, perhaps to be designated as service facilities for the main mansion. However, after the foundations and part of the first floor and all of the heavy concrete were installed for the intended mansion, Lois abandoned the project when Cody died in 1924 and the uncompleted
building stood there ever since.
Palm Springs, 1921. From the Palm Springs Historical Society.
Hispano-Suiza similat to one driven by Lois Kellogg.
"Motoring around the dusty dirt roads of Palm Springs in her imported Hispano-Suiza sedan, Kellogg cut quite a swashbuckling figure, but in Weston's portraits she assumes the role of the haughty, imperious socialite she had been brought up to be, rather than the roguish idiosyncratic adventuress she had since become. (Artful Lives by Beth Gates Warren, p. 279).
Lois Kellogg, 1923. Photo by Edward Weston. (Arful Lives by Beth Gates Warren, p. 278).
Lois Kellogg at work assisting on her compound in the desert, ca. 1920. Photographer unknown. (Betty Katz Papers)
Florence True with cart full of rocks at site of "Fool's Folly" ca. 1920. From PSHS.
Florence True on top and Lois Kellogg and two workmen at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1920. Palm Springs Historcal Society.
Lois Kellogg reading at "Fool's Folly" construction site ca. 1920. From PSHS.
Lois Kellogg and contractor laying roof shingles at "Fool's Folly" 1921.
After the winter season in Palm Springs, the spring of 1921 found Lois showing her prize Russian wolf-hound that she had recently purchased in Germany in the fall of 1920. Frank Dole reporting for the New York Herald wrote,
"The Russian wolfhounds at Detroit were a high class lot. The best of them was a sensational puppy Cresta O'Valley Farm, a very typical hound with a good head, nice bone and the most wonderful hindquarters I ever saw on a nine-month old puppy. This dog was bought in Germany when it was only three months old by Miss Lois Kellogg of Chicago, who is now half owner of the O'Valley Farm Kennels. Miss Kellogg in speaking about the purchase said that she inspected over a hundred Russian wolfhounds before she selected this puppy. It is quite evident that Miss Kellogg has a natural eye for selecting a prize-winning dog in this breed. Cresta is one of the most typical Russian wolfhounds ever seen." (Lessons Taught by Canine Show Held at Detroit by Frank F. Dole, New York Herald, April 10, 1921, p. 7).
Betty Katz inspecting an unfinished portion of Lois Kellogg's Harold Cody-designed house, ca. 1922. Betty Katz Papers.
Betty in the open gate of the unfinished "Fool's Folly" compound ca. 1923. Betty Katz Papers.
Betty outside Lois's completed house, "Fool's Folly" ca. 1923. From Betty Katz Papers.
Lois and her wealthy mother lived in Santa Barbara before moving to Palm Springs in 1918 in search of a better climate for her mother's health. Socialite Isadora Dreyfus (seen below) was one of Lois's young friends who attended a beach bathing party with forty other "members of the younger set" at "Bonnymede,"an estate on the Montecito shore, in 1917 (see above). At the "El Mirasol" (see below) the the day before, Isadora and Lois both also attended an afternoon tea hosted by Camilla Waterman celebrating the recently-announced engagement of Miriam Vail. (The Merry-go-Round of Society, Santa Barbara Morning Press, July 20-21, 1917, p. 5).
Dreyfus visited Florence True and Lois in Chicago for two weeks during the spring of 1921. (Miss Dreyfus Returns, Santa Barbara Morning Press, June 9, 1921, p. 6).
Isadora Dreyfus on "Ignatz" and Lois on "Gus" in in front of chauffer's quarters where Betty usually stayed at the "Fool's Folly" compound, ca. 1921-2. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
One of Lois's many visitors during her construction of "Fool's Folly" included her former Santa Barbara socialite friend Isadora Dreyfus who also traveled to Europe with Lois and Florence True and Palm Springs neighbor Harriet Cody. She also visited the pair in Palm Springs in 1922 upon the completion of Lois's first three "servants" houses at "Fool's Folly" (see above).
Isadora Dreyfus and Florence True in bed at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1922. From PSHS.
Lois Kellogg serving champagne on her birthday to Florence True, Harriet Cody and Isadora Dreyfus in England September 24, 1922. From PSHS.
To Give Play in Palm Oasis, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1921, p. II8..
In the fall of 1921 Nellie Coffman and the Board of Trade of Palm Springs conceived of an idea for an outdoor pageant to attract visitors to the desert community. Nellie and Garnet Holme, veteran producer of the long-running Mountain Play on Mt. Tamalpais, the Pilgrimage Play in Hollywood and other large-scale outdoor events, met in Riverside in September to start ironing out the details for the early November extravaganza. The play was entitled "Fire" which was written by Mary Austin, and was first performed and directed by Austin herself at Carmel's Forest Theater in 1913. Holme also was secretary-director of the Pilgrimage Play in Hollywood in which Reginald Pole played Christ during it's first ever summer season in 1920. Both Pole and Holme were speakers at a Pilgimage Play Club meeting in November of 1920 where it was announced that work for the second annual summer season was well under way. (Pilgrimage Club Meeting, Los Angeles Herald, November 22, 1920. Author's note: It appears highly likely that part-time Palm Springs resident Reginald Pole brokered the meeting between Holme and Nellie Coffman to plan production of a new outdoor pageant in the desert to promote the growth of Palm Springs.).
Mary Austin, front center, rehearsing the cast of
"Fire" for a 1913 performance at Carmel's Forest Theatre. Herbert
Heron played the lead role of Evind, the fire bringer. George Sterling as Atla
the hunter, upper right. (From Old Carmel in Rare Photographs by L. S.
Levin produced by Sharon Lawrence with Kathryn Prine, Carmel, 1995, p. 29).
The play, "Fire," took place at the mouth of Tahquitz Canyon on land owned by Austin and Pearl McManus. Pageant producer Garnet Holme was also the stage director of the annual summerlong Pilgrimage Play in Hollywood in which Reginald Pole played Christ during its first year in 1920 and rotated roles between Judas and Christ through 1925.
Reginald Pole as Judas in the Pilgrimage Play, 1920. From I Shock Myself by Beatrice Wood.
Pole's fellow actor's from the Pilgrimage play were recruited to fill out the cast for Mary Austin's "Fire." Pole was not among the chosen despite having a house in Palm Springs, most likely because he was busy in New York with a Broadway production of "The Great Way." He was also soon involved in an adaptation of "The Idiot" that he co-wrote with John Cowper Powys that was performed at New York's Little Theater. Cowpys spent a pleasant week with Pole and his pregnant wife Helen in their new Palm Springs adobe house in the spring of 1918. (For details on this visit see Powys search 25/65 in my "The Schindlers and Westons and the Walt Whitman School and Connections to Sarah Bixby Smith and Paul Jordan-Smith").
The enterprising Pole likely put in a good word with Pilgrimage Play writer and producer Christine Wetherill Stevenson for his New York girlfriend Beatrice Wood's best friend Helen Freeman to be selected for the new part of Mary Magdelene in the 1922 version of the Pilgrimage Play. Stevenson sequestered herself in Palm Springs, either in Pole's adobe or at Nellie Coffman's Desert Inn, to write in Freeman's Magdelene part. She almost certainly would have taken the opportunity to compare notes with Nellie Coffman on their reapective pageants. (Schallert, Edwin, "Develop Theme of Magdelen," Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1922, p. III-1 and "Pilgrimage Play: Helen Freeman to Portray Mary Magdelen," Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1922, p. III-1).
Martha Taggart House, 5423 Live Oak Dr., Los Angeles, 1922, Lloyd Wright, architect. Photographer unknown, 1924.
At the same time Pole was busy staging his and John Cowper Powys' adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's "The Idiot" at New York's Little Theatre. Powys was at the same time deep into his West Coast lecture tour in Los Angeles, and on April 20, 1922 was visiting Pole's wife Helen and her mother Martha at a house-warming party in their new Lloyd Wright-designed house (see above). Lloyd was holding court amongst guests including Theodore Dreiser and his paramour and aspiring actress Helen Richardson and as Dreiser coined them Jack's [John Cowper Powys] queer friends which most likely included Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, Paul Jordan-Smith, R. M. Schindler (Pauline was then teaching in El Centro), Clyde and Marian Chace and possibly Betty Katz and Lois Kellogg. Pole and Freeman came to Los Angeles in late May to begin rehearsals for the six-week summer run of the Pilgrimage Play. (Schallert, Edwin, "Develop Theme of Magdelen," Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1922, p. III-1 and "Pilgrimage Play: Helen Freeman to Portray Mary Magdelen," Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1922, p. III-1 and my "R. M.Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Tibbett, ReginaldPole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles").
Mission Pageant playbill 1925. From ebay.
Garnet Holme seemed to have his finger in every outdoor pageant in the state as he was also involved in the production of the 1925 San Juan Capistrano Mission Pageant as the above playbill suggests. The smoking gun that Reginald Pole played a major role in Nellie Coffman and Holme getting together in September of 1921 to plan the first Desert Play in Palm Springs is born out by Holme inviting them, among significant others, to the 1925 Mission Play pageant as reported in the The Los Angeles Times,
"... Among distinguished visitors who have sought inspiration in the outdoor spectacle are Ruth Helen Davis, New York authoress and playwright, Reginald Pole, director of the Pilgrimage Play, Sigurd Russell, manager of The Potboilers, and Mrs. [Nellie] Coffman of the Desert Inn, a sponsor of the Desert Play at Palm Springs. ... " (San Juan Show Draws Artists, Los Angeles Times, August 2, 1925, p. 14)
Audience parking for the Desert Pageant "Fire Dance", Tahquitz Canyon, November 5, 1921. From PSHS.
"To make this desert festival a success, the townspeople of Palm Springs have spared no pains. Funds were collected and labor donated to make smooth the road to Tahquitz Canyon for motorists and to provide parking space for cars. The Indian population of the Aguas Calientes village did its part by donating the use of the canyon. The famous Desert Inn afforded hospitality to numerous motor parties who stayed the night in order to enjoy the crisp even deliciousness of the desert evening. The entire village was thrown open to the hundreds of visitors who motored into the valley for the festival. The success of the production and the hospitality of the town will bring many and many a visitor back again next year and in years to come to repeat a pleasant experience." (Pageant of Desert is Memorable Event by Olga Hammond, Riverside Daily Press, November 7, 1921, p. 3).
Lois, Betty and friends would certainly have attended if they were in town as the event was extremely well advertised for the two weeks leading up to the event. They also would certainly have put up anyone from Los Angeles who wanted to stay for the weekend. Almost two thousand people were in attendance for the first annual pageant.
Audience seating for the Desert Pageant, "Fire Dance," Tahquitz Canyon, November 5, 1921. From PSHS.
"The players will pass to and fro among massive boulders whilst the audience itself will be seated on the banks of the dried up arroyo. The steep hills to the west will form a welcome shelter from the sun, although the rest of the play will be lit up by sunset colors, the spectators will be seated in comfortable coolness. ... The play will end in time for those who are not camping or staying at the hotel, to return to civilization in time for supper." (Desert Play to Be Presented at Palm Springs, Riverside Enterprise, October 26, 1921).
Desert Pageant "Fire Dance," November 5, 1921. From PSHS.
Based upon the success of the first pageant in 1921, the event would be renewed annually throughout the 1920s under Garnet Holme. He used the same author who wrote the "Mountain Play" the previous year, Daniel Totheroh, to also write 1922's "The Tahquitz Legend." Later years used reprisals of Mary Austin's 1911 "The Arrow-Maker" and "Fire." The annual event became so successful that it was a major factor in fueling rapid growth for Palm Springs throughout the 1920s.
Tahquitz Legend is Desert Play Motif, Riverside Daily Press, September 12, 1922
Katharane Edson, 1915 by Edward Weston.
"Tahquitz, the desert play given in Tahquitz Canyon last weekend attracted many, and hundreds motored to this beautiful spot where Mary Austin's "Fire" was given last year. The enthusiasm enkindled at that time was so great it resulted in the determination to make this also an annual event. This play was given as those already mentioned in the open - using only the scenery that was afforded by nature.
The Desert Play was the thought of William Severance, a lover of the desert, who often dreamed of such an event. Mrs. Nellie Coffman gave the idea ungrudging support, both moral and financial, and Mr. Holme was asked to co-operate. Dr. Kocher, Mr. Barnes, Mrs. Bunker, Mr. Adler and Mr. McManus of Palm Springs lent active assistance."
Characters in the Tahquitz play, Katharane Edson and Otto Matieson, were well-known to Betty from her Margrethe Mather-Edward Weston social circle evidenced by the above and below photos. The reviewer continued with, "Katharane gave a dance with her usual grace" and Otto Matieson "was excellent as the blind man." (Nature is New Stage, by Ethel MacDonald, Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1922, p. III29. Author's note: Edson was listed among the cast of 1922's Mountain Play "The Pied Piper.").
Margrethe Mather, Otto Matieson and Johan Hagemeyer, 1921 by Edward Weston from Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston, A Passionate Collaboration by Beth Gates Warren, Norton, New York, 2001.
Natacha Rambova, 1921 by Edward Weston. (Author's note: Rambova was modeling a dress she designed for Alla Nazimova to wear in the 1922 movie "Salome"
Betty Katz and unidentified woman outsde Lois's house at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1924. From Betty Katz Papers.
"Fool's Folly," 366 S. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs. Photographer unknown. Ca. early 1924. Courtesy of the Palm Springs Historical Society.
Lois eventually named her compound "Fool's Folly" (see above). In the largest completed building, the entrance doors were custom-painted by Lois's artist friend Florence True. (See below). A large entrance hall led to many guest rooms which were usually filled with many fun-loving friends. Lois's architect Harold Cody passed away in 1924 leaving unfinished Lois's intended main house.
Florence True painting entrance door panels to Lois's house at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1923. From PSHS.
Custom door panels painted by Florence True on Lois's house at the "Fool's Folly" compound, ca. 1924. From Betty Katz Papers.
Lois Kellogg's "Fool's Folly," Harold Cody, architect, ca. 1923-4. Unknown photographer ca. 1924. From internet.
Betty and Lois became fast friends. It was not long before Lois hired Betty to be her secretary at $150 per month which was a very convenient camoflage to cover their much more intimate status as lovers. Betty usually stayed in the smaller building that Lois was planning on using as the chauffer's quarters. (Artful Lives, Warren, p. 276).
Interior of Betty's digs in the chuaffer's quarters at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1924. Betty Katz Papers.
Bety Katz sewing in her living room in the "Fool's Folly" chauffer's quarters ca. 1924. From Betty Katz Papers.
Betty Katz on horseback next to the chauffer's quarters at "Fool's Folly"ca. 1924. Betty Katz Papers.
Miriam Lerner ca. 1923. Photographer unknown, possibly Margrethe Mather. From Lois Kellogg Papers, Palm Springs Historical Society.
One of the three houses in the "Fool's Folly" compound on S. Palm Canyon Dr. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers.
Betty Katz mounting a horse, likely rented from Harriet Cody's stable. Betty Katz Papers.
Harold Cody's wife Harriet owned a riding stable that was originally located behind her house on Cahuilla Road which mainly served the clients of the nearby Desert Inn. Lois and Betty and their visiting friends also obtained horses for their periodic desert rides at Harriet's stable which was moved to Ramon Road and Palm Canyon Drive near "Fool's Folly" in 1921.
Harriet Cody, Palm Springs, no date. Photographer unknown. From internet.
On Lois's third trip to Europe in 1922, she was accompanied by lifelong friend Florence True, "Izzy" Dreyfus and Harriet Cody. While passing through Belgium Lois purchased a Russian wolfhound from the kennels of Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov and had the dog shipped to Stamford, Connecticut where she had become partners in the Valley Farm Kennels the previous year. (Lois Kellogg Left Unique Footprint on Palm Springs by Renee Brown, Desert Sun, December 26, 2015).
Lois Kellogg, ca. 1923 posing with her pet Borzoi. Unidentified photographer. (From Betty Katz Papers. Also in Artful Lives by Beth Gates Warren, p. 277).
Lois Kellogg by Edward Weston, 1923. Courtesy Betty Katz Papers.
Betty talked Lois into sitting for portraits with her erstwhile lover Edward Weston in 1923, shortly before he left for Mexico with Tina Modotti and his young son Chandler (see above and below for example). While Edward was in Mexico, Betty and Lois traveled to New York, Stamford and Chicago together. Betty also exchanged much correspondence with stage actress Eva LaGallienne during this time indicating yet another lesbionic relationship. (Betty Katz Papers).
Lois Kellogg by Edward Weston, 1923. Courtesy Betty Katz Papers in possession of her niece Dottie Ickovitz.
On July 26, 1923 Betty wrote to Edward Weston who was shortly leaving for Mexico.
"It is not that I have seen so much of you in the last few years, but the fact that you were about where I could see you was comforting. I cannot get it thru my head that you are really going away to another country. My feeling for you has not been a transient whimsy...
Lovely as my moods have been with you, the memory of them is even lovelier and clearer - the present of any situation is always hampered by fever and passion and fear - But the memory of beautiful hours, if we keep our soul from scoffing at that which has been, (just because it is no more), - ah! there is a beauty about which no actual reality has - it makes the thing removed from life and removed from death. - Maybe we will meet again before death overtakes us, maybe not - a part of the best that is in me goes out to you." (Artful Lives, pp. 290-1).
Thanksgiving at the Schindler House, Kings Road, November 22, 1923 Photo likely by R. M. Schindler. Clockwise from front center: Betty Katz (facing camera), Alexander "Brandy" Brandner (married Betty in 1943), Max Pons (partially obscured), Herman Sachs (soon-to-be Schindler client for the Manola Court Appartments), Karl Howenstein and Edith Gutterson (Schindler friends from Chicago then living at Kings Road), Anton Martin Feller (architect and soon-to-be Frank Lloyd Wright draftsman at Taliesin, E. Clare Schooler (lover of Pauline Schindler's sister Dorothy Gibling) and unidentified.
Betty Katz was one of the attendees at the Schindler's new Kings Road House Thanksgiving celebration in November of 1923. She can be seen in the above photo in the front center facing the camera and seated to the right of her future husband Alexander "Brandy" Brandner, an architect friend of Schindler's from Chicago who also happened to be Romanian. Also to the far left is another old Chicago friend of the Schindlers, Herman Sachs, yet another Romanian, who would in 1926 commission Schindler to design him an apartment building which Betty and Brandy eventually purchased upon Sachs' untimely death in 1940. (For more on Katz, Brandner and Sachs, see my "Herman Sachs Batik, ca. 1920").
"When Harold Cody died in 1924, Harriet put her Vassar University education to work by turning her limited knowledge of riding horses into a livery stable. Harriett initially located the stable behind their home on what is now South Cahuilla Road and mainly rented horses to visitors staying at the nearby Deset Inn. She later moved the stable to Indian Avenue (now Indian Canyon Drive) near the Lois Kellogg estate. Business thrived because city streets were made for horse traffic with hitching posts and water troughs up and down Main Street (now Palm Canyon Drive). Harriet rented horses for $5 a day and also boarded horses for visitors, including movie cowboys Tom Mix and Jack Holt." ("Calling Casa Cody" by Jim Powers, Palm Springs Life, June 2, 2021)
Eva La Gallienne as Alexandra in "The Swan", Cort Theatre, New York, 1923. Photo by Nikolas Muray.
Betty and stage actress Eva La Gallienne began corresponding in September of 1924. Betty and Lois were then in New York and likely viewed Eva performing in "The Swan" at the Empire Theater before it's run closed on September 20th. Eva wrote Betty from the Belmont Hotel in Chicago the night before she opened at the Blackstone Theatre in the same play on September 24th. The correspondence indicates that they had a romantic relationship in New York and that Eva and Lois may also have previously been romantically involved at some point. (Eva in Chicago to Elisaveta in New York, September 23, 1924. Betty Katz Papers. Author's note: Lois was likely also tending to business with her Valley Farm Kennels in Stamford, CT while on ths trip.).
A week later Eva again wrote Betty referencing yet another romantic entanglement with Alla Nazimova.
"I loved your beautiful letters. Thank you. ...I think of those beautiful hours we had together. They are so poignant - so filled with a beautiful anguish. If we should never meet again in our present lives - it will still have meant a great deal - at least to me - and I hope to you. If I should bring you sorrow & pain - will you still think it was worth while? I am so afraid of hurting you who have suffered so much and have smiled so wonderfully into the face of sorrow! God bless you for the beauty you have given me. ...I wrote to Alla [Nazimova] the other day and wrote nothing about you. Was that right? To me it seemed so - tho I suppose she will hear from Lois that I have met you." (Eva to Elisaveta, September 29, 1924. Betty Katz Papers. Author's note: Nazimova was also a sometime visitor to Reginald Pole's Palm Springs adobe along with Charlie Chaplin, Lawrence Tibbett, Lloyd Wright and others. She also was in attendance at the Palm Springs Hotel after the May 1922 Valentino-Rambova wedding in Calexico.).
Lois Kellog and Russian wolfhound at 1923 S. Prairie Ave., Chicago ca. 1922.
Kellogg House, 1923 S. Prairie Ave., Chicago. Clipped from Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1898 article titled "Select Residence District Where Wealth Has Not Prevented Death From Visiting Many Houses."
Florence True passport photo, 1921. From FamilySearch.
In the early 1920s Betty and Lois traveled to Lois's childhood home at 1923 S. Prairie in Chicago. Perhaps this is where Betty first met Lois's distant cousin and lifelong friend Florence True who was apparently living in the house. The 1920 Census indicates that Florence was a resident along with head of household Lois and two servants. Florence had also accompanied Lois and her mother to Europe in 1907 and was Lois's closest friend and confidant throughout their lives. (From Family Search immigration and passport records. Author's note: Florence wrote to Betty from England in 1921 referencing taking great pleasure in being able to write to both Lois and Betty with one letter. The letter was written on 1923 Prairie Ave. stationary. Betty and Florence lived together in Los Angeles and traveled to Europe together when Betty was about 25. From Aunt Betty bio by Martin Lessow, Betty Katz Papers).
S. S. Rialto. From Internet.
In his "Aunt Betty" bio, her nephew Martin Lessow describes at length Betty's early friendship with Florence True. Betty most likely met Florence through Lois. In the bio he says that Betty met Florence at Hull-House and that she later lived with her in Los Angeles. Betty related to Martin that Florence lived with her in Los Angeles around 1920 and the two traveled to Europe together on a 42 day voyage Florence had learned about, aboard an Italian freighter, the Rialto, to Genoa, Italy. They struck up a deal with the shipping company to trade travel sketches at the various ports of call by artist Florence and promotional material written by Betty in return for their boat fare. Martin's bio describes some of their fascinating adventures during stops in transit. ("Aunt Betty" by Martin Lessow. Betty Katz Papers).
Lois Kellogg at 1923 Prairie Ave., Chicago ca. 1922. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers.
La Gallienne's next letter found Betty at Lois's house in Chicago. Eva was still staying at the Belmont Hotel and performing in "The Swan" at the Blackstone Theater. On October 6th Eva wrote Betty asking her to delay her arrival in Chicago if she could because Mercedes [de Acosta] was arriving for a week to 10 days. (Eva La Gallienne letter to Elisaveta Kopelanoff at 1923 S. Prairie Ave, Chicago, December 5, 1924.).
Lois Kellogg posing in her ballet outfit at her childood family home at 1923 Prairie Ave. in Chicago. Betty Katz Papers.
Lois Kellogg loved the ballet as Harriet Cody verified in her obituary in the Desert Sun in 1944.
"Miss Kellogg gave substantial sums in support of a Russian ballet and herself took lessons so that she could say she had danced the ballet” said Mrs. Cody. “She did appear in one performance in Chicago. She did so love the desert for it gave her freedom of movement and life that her wealth barred from her in Chicago.” ("Story of Lois Kellogg's Life Told in Copy of Tonapah Paper Received by Friends of Pioneer in Village," Desert Sun, September 1, 1944, p. 4).
Playbill for "The Swan" at the Blackstone Theatre, Chicago, September-October, 1924. From Internet search.
Before Betty left for California in November, Eva drafted her a letter of introduction to West Coast theater director Irving Pichel. Betty was then presumably toying with the idea of becoming an actress.
"My Dear Irving Pichel -
I haven't heard from you in ages - and don't even know if you are still on the Coast or not - but I am taking a chance and giving this letter to a friend of mine, Miss Elisaveta Kopelanoff - to present to you, as an introduction. Circumstances necessitate her living on the Coast for a time, and she is very anxious to do some work there in the theatre. She has much to bring to the theatre I know - and I thought you would be interested in meeting her. I know you will find her an unusually intelligent and charming person.
I am here in Chicago playing in "The Swan" - I loathe this place! But we will be here I am afraid for some time. Should you ever want to reach me, 212 E. 48th St., N.Y.C., is my permanent address.All Best WishesAs ever affectionatelyEva La Gallienne" (Eva La Gallienne to Irving Pichel, November 20, 1924. From Betty Katz Papers. Author's note: Irving Pichel had previously directed plays for Aline Barnsdall in her Little Theater in 1916 in Los Angeles and in 1914 in the Forest Theater in Carmel for Mary Austin.)
Casa Laguna, 1855 N. Kingsley Dr., Hollywood. City of Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument No. 832. From Internet.
In early January Eva wrote to Betty in Los Angeles about seeing a couple performances over the holiday layover and sharing some time with Lois who was also very likely spending time at her Valley Farm Kennels in Stamford, CT. (Eva in New York, January 5, 1925 to Betty in Los Angeles. Betty Katz Papers).
In early February Eva wrote a four page letter to Betty, three pages of which were a sad, heartfelt critique of Alla Nazimova's performance in The Redeeming Sin which clearly indicated her romantic relationship with her.
"I write to you like this because I know you love her and feel as I do. Sometimes I long so much to talk to you - you who understand everything!
I have been working very hard these days with Norman Geddes. We want to do some plays together next season. On February 16th "The Swan" goes to Boston. We shall stay there I expect to the end of March. I shall be at the Parker House. It may be that as soon as the Swan closes - at the end of March, I will sail for Paris, perhaps the first week of April. ..Write me more often. Your letters are beautiful and prescious. God bless you.LoveEva" (Eva La Gallienne to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, February 9th, 1925. Betty Katz Papers. Author's note: Other sources place Nazimova as a frequent visitor at "Fool's Folly.").
RMS Mauretania, 1929. From internet.
Next April Eva wrote to Betty from the RMS Mauretania with more details on her Paris production of Jehanne d'Arc.
"I am to play the "Jehanne d' Arc" and "The Mother of Christ" in Paris, in French. Norman Bel Geddes is directing and has of course done the sets (and they are incredibly wonderful to see!) - and we are to appear under the auspices of [Fermin] Gemier. ...I have thought so much of doing this very thing, and now that it is unfolding in reality I can scarcely believe it. What a strange potent force is thought!" (Letter from Eva La Gallienne aboard the S.S. Mauretania, April 3, 1925 to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, 1855. N. Kingsley, Hollywood, from the Betty Katz Papers).
Bel Geddes, along with Irving Pichel, had earlier made a mark in Aline Barnsdall's Little Theater in Los Angeles in 1916 and was friendly with Lloyd Wright and Margrethe Mather's circle of dramatic friends. (Do "Bel Geddes" and "Pichel" page search in my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright,Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles.").
"A play in three acts and nine scenes written by Mercedes de Acosta, Jeanne d'Arc was designed, costumed, and directed by Bel Geddes, with music by Ruth White Warfield. It was produced by Eva Le Gallienne with the patronage of the U.S. Ambassador and the French Minister of Fine Arts at the Porte St. Martin Theatre in Paris from 12 June to 9 July 1925. It starred Eva Le Gallienne and Jacques Gretillat." (From the Norman Bel Geddes Database, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas).
Betty Katz needed a valid passport in order to accompany Lois on her frequent European travels. So in 1924 she officially changed her name from Betty Katz to Elisaveta Kopelanoff in San Francisco, falsely claiming she was born in the U.S. and that her birth records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Betty used her new passport in order to first visit Paris. (Betty Katz Papers, from Artful Lives, p. 300.).
Rendering of set and costumes for Jehanne d'Arc designed by Norman Bel Geddes and staged at the Porte St. Martin Theatre, Paris, 1925. Ibid.
Eva La Gallienne as "Jehanne d'Arc", Paris 1925. Photo by James Abbe.
Both "Jehanne d'Arc" and "Mother of Christ" were written by Mercedes de Acosta with whom La Gallienne was also involved in a five-year affair and aptly juggling time with Betty, and Alla Nazimova.
Hotel Duminy, Paris.
Betty and Lois left for Paris on April 1925 and checked in to the centrally located Hotel Duminy, located between Place Vendôme and the Jardin des Tuileries, most likely to take in the "Exposition Internationale" as well as to follow in the footsteps of Eva La Gallienne who was soon to perform in the title role of "Jehanne d'Arc". Eva guiltily wrote to Betty at the Duminy some time in May regretting not having any time to see her but imploring her to come to a rehearsal.
The New York Times reported on the June 12th premiere which Lois and Betty undoubtedly attended.
"...The extreme simplicity of Miss La Gallienne's interpretation was made more effective by contrast with the brilliant midieval settings. Norman Bel-Geddes, under whose direction the play was produced, was congratulated for his fine use of modern stage effects, mainly in the coronation scene." ..." (Eva La Gallienne Scores in Paris", New York Times, June 13, 1925, p. 10).
A very busy Eva did eventually find the time to invite Betty to dinner while they were in Paris. (Eva La Gallienne to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, Hotel Duminy, Paris, no date, ca. June 1925).
Two views of the Porte d'Orsay, 1925. Ibid.
Elisaveta Kopelanoff, Paris, 1925. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers. Inscribed on verso "For Michael (Schindler?) from Paris - 1925."
Betty and Lois were soon after joined in Paris by Miriam Lerner whose continuing correspondence to Edward Weston referenced their activities while there. In a November 1925 letter to Miriam, Weston remarked:
"... Lois - Betty - Miriam all together in Paris! I throw you individual and collective kisses across the waters! I wish the kindly Pagan Gods would transport me there for just a week. Could a good American photographer make his salt in Paris? ..." (Edward Weston in Mexico to Miriam Lerner in Paris, November 20, 1925. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley).
Betty Kopelanoff on hammock on porch of auxiliary "Fool's Folly" house with uncompleted concrete mansion in background ca. 1924. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers.
Uncompleted "Fool's Folly", ca. 1925. Photographer unknown. (From "Gay Community Has Shaped Palm Springs for Decades" by Tracy Conrad, Desert Sun, April 6, 2018).
Betty spent much of 1925 in Paris, both alone and with Miriam and Lois. While writing in her journal one day in Paris, she painted a telling picture of her "boss" Lois Kellogg.
"June the 12th. (1925)
This morning was one of routine.
Cabled L[ois].
Have been thinking it is time she crossed the sea again. Strange beautiful creature. Inexplicable, even to herself. She will be doomed to misunderstanding by the world. Even by her friends. She is of the body and spirit simple and that is to rare a specimen to be understood. Her imagination knows no pretty niceties. She occupies herself with Borzois and with cattle and to the same complete 'ubergibenheit' as if there were not a whole world of difference aesthetically between them. The same holds true for her personal life...she attempts to mix the cowboy and the college graduate in her house and at her table with the naivete with which a child mixes and mingles her dolls.
In herself she is the lady and the prostitute, the courtesan and the brooding hen. She is too rich in to many directions and is doomed to die a failure for she dissipates herself a little every which way." (Betty Katz Paris Journal, no date, ca. 1925. Betty Katz Papers.).
While in Paris Betty made a side trip to Romania, her native country, to view her childhood home and surroundings. While trying to cash a check in a Bucharest bank she met her future husband Geoffrey Household. Household wrote of this fateful meeting in his autobiography substituting Elisaveta's name with Marina.
"Casually, and satisfied by the exquisite choosing of my midday menu, I passed down the length of the bank with some trivial enquiry from the Correspondence Department to Bills and Discount. Upon the hard bench were clients who wished to cash a cheque in foreign currency were compelled to remain a good quarter of an hour was sitting a woman of, at a guess, about my own age. With foreknowledge of the future our eyes met and could not be parted. The look was gentle, and not quite that veiled stare which arises from the mutual decision of the genes, imperious and generally inaccurate, that they are compatible. Nor was it curiosity. I can only describe it as recognition. As for my actions in the familiar three-dimensional world, I requested that her cheque be cashed with reasonable speed, and that was all.
Next day we passed in the street, and exchanged some remarks of a curious, sudden melancholy, unnatural for complete strangers. (Against the Wind by Geoffrey Household, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1958, pp. 31-2).
Geoffrey fell hopelessly in love, quit his job and followed Betty back to Paris. He returned to England by the end of the year without his hopes for marriage completely dashed.
Geoffrey Household, Paris, 1925. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers.
Weston first met Miriam Lerner in Los Angeles in 1921, four years prior to her first portrait sitting with him in 1925. She was then executive secretary to E. L. Doheny, a California oil magnate, as well as a member of the Young Socialists League. (Conger, Edward Weston; Photographs, fig. 168/1925).
Lerner was quite charming, intellectually adept, and ran in Weston's circles. Weston did not immediately propose a portrait session to Lerner in his studio. It was not until 1925, the year Weston returned from his first extended stay in Mexico, that the two reunited for their fateful session. Weston was enchanted by Lerner, commenting in a letter on 'the full bloom of Miriam’s body—responsive and ever-stimulating' (12 November, 1925, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley).
The series of images produced during their collaboration—only 7 negatives total—still stands as one of Weston’s most successful, partially for being among the first bodies of work he produced upon his initial return from Mexico.
January 9th [1925] or thereabouts. ...Betty [Katz] and Miriam [Lerner] have been out and I see Peter [Krasnow] often, but other than these I have seen no one, nor want to." (Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. I, p. 114)
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
"Twisted Torso" of Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925. Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
Miriam Lerner by Edward Weston, 1925.
January 16, 1925, EW in San Francisco to ML at 2228 El Moran, Los Angeles
Though as I told you for long I held vague premonitions and desires - last night's episode was more or less unexpected - and as beautiful as I sensed it must be - walking out into the cold night - and curses that it had to be! a fine exhilaration possessed me and I said to myself - "This has been a night compensating for many a drab day - incense to the Gods who fostered it!" so hail to you lovely Miriam! for you have given me a new beauty to dream upon - - I eagerly await the hour when I shall attempt to catch concretely this very loveliness of face and form and attitude long felt by me in you - - i hasta pronto! I hope -E
February 2, 1925, EW in San Francisco to ML at 2228 El Moran
I called you "chapparita" not the cat! - rather untranslatable - we might say little one for want of a better interpretation - - the exhibition opens next Monday at "Gumps" a joint show - "Edward Weston of Mexico City" and "Johan Hagemeyer of Amsterdam - Holland" how does that sound?! - so for a while - rush - rush - rush! we have rented a studio here and hope for a quick "clean up" - - return to Carmel tomorrow to pack up and move to S.F. - it appears as though I might be tied up for a month - maybe more - - I can't call you for many a day a la telephone - - please save a thought - a few kisses and embraces for me? - The only way for me to do your portrait - and the nudes right now - or Betty's pictures is to transport you here - - well sooner or later I shall return - and I look forward to the time in anticipation of much pleasure - don't let the wicked analyst spoil you! and forgive my occasional flippancies - -
- You are very beautiful -
Edward
Weston-Hagemeyer Exhibition Announcement, Gump's, February 9-21, 1925.
Indeed, Mexico had a deep impact on Weston, enriching his knowledge of the arts, culture and politics, especially through the Socialist prism of his fellow artists and poets living there at the time, from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to Jean Charlot. Several months later, back in Mexico for nine months in 1926, he sent several unmounted proofs to Lerner, commenting, “from our last sitting—or was it ‘lying’? … They have been well liked by Charlot—Diego—Tina and others—especially the twisted torso.” Upon his return to California, he ceded that he was at the beginning of "a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
Schindler in the meantime was corresponding with Betty as can be seen in the letter below, written some time in 1924.
"The "Leaping Tuna" has bucked the last time for me - the new car is a "Franklin" - middleaged - but still with the feeling of a thoroughbred - and the smoothness of it. I hear they are good desert cars - so I am sure you will be friends.
I am still trying to be alone as much as possible - listening in the dark - waiting for my life to become fluid. Nothing happens to write about - which shows how blind and drunk I have become. I feel dimly that I am nearing a crossroad - then I must decide - but do not want to take direction yet - ...(R. M. Schindler to Betty Katz, ca. 1925. Betty Katz Papers).
Schindler's pride in his new "middleaged " Franklin is apparent in the way he staged it when he parked in the below photos likely taken on a tour of his work he was giving to a newly arrived Richard Neutra who had just moved to Los Angeles in March of 1925.
Popenoe Cabin, Coachella, 1925. R. M. Schindler architect, 1922. Note "middle-aged" Franklin on right. Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
Lovell Mountain Cabin, Wrighwood, 1925. R. M. Schindler, architect, 1924. Note "middle-aged" Franklin in driveway. From Neutra Collection, Cal-Poly Pomona.
Lovell Farm House, Fallbrook, R. M. Schindler, architect. Note same Franklin. From Neutra Collection, Cal-Poly Pamona.
Lovell Beach House under construction, Newport Beach, 1925. R. M. Schindler, architect and photographer. Note same Franklin in distance at left.
In June and July of 1925 Weston and Lerner exchanged a few more love letters. On his way back to Mexico in late August Weston wrote Lerner:
"On board S. S. "Oaxaca" Aug. 23 - 1925
- last night as if to intensify my memories - a lovelorn Mexican youth sang "Cielito Lindo" as he gazed out into the black void we plowed through - yes what memories I retain - of kisses and embraces we shared - of your lovely hill-top - of my new friend.-
I wish you were with me on this boat - tonight I would ravage your body - I would kiss you til you fainted!
- but we are sailing farther and farther apart - it may be years before we meet! I am almost sentimentalizing - and that would never do! - how we fear sentimentality - yet how beautiful it can be!
I hope this greeting reaches you. I did not write down your address - - send it to me - -
Adios Querida mia - hasta la vista - recuerdos a Betty y Lois tambien - muchos besos para tu
Edward - - (Edward Weston to Miriam Lerner, August 23, 1925, Bancroft Library, Univerity of Califonia, Berkeley)
In the above letter Edward reminisces of time spent with Miriam on her hill-top lot (at 1951 Walcott Way in Elysian Heights) upon which Miriam would in 1943 commission Schindler to design a house for her and her then husband and former Schindler client Louis Fisher. The house was never built likely due to chronic materials shortages caused by World War II. (Author's note: Fisher and his first wife Clara previously commissioned Schindler to design an unbuilt bungalow court at 312 S. Breed St. ca. 1923. Coincidentally, Betty Katz was listed in the Los Angeles City Directory as residing at 305 and 316 S. Breed in 1924 and 1925 respectively.).
At some point in 1925 Betty Katz read a poem in The Atlantic that reminded her of Schindler. She intended to mail the below poem entitled "A Portrait" to him, perhaps while she was in Paris with Lois and Miriam Lerner.
A Portrait (for R.M.S. 1925)
So finely modelled is your thought, like curveOf ships built to the wind, whose mouldings traceA line of art meticulous, and laceInevitable patternings to serveAn instant purpose, or a lasting grace.E.K." (Betty Katz Papers).
In a period Schindler letter to Betty, Schindler wrote,
"I am sorry if I have caused you distress - I thought you would understand my silence - which was saturated with you - but what I need is what life has denied me these last years - the quiet resting in myself - in order that I may grow and ripen and mellow - I did not realize how dizzy the dance had made me - and how much the whirl..." (R. M. Schindler to Betty Katz, no date. Betty Katz Papers).
Another letter continued,
"Two letters all at once - such joy - I am alone now - trying to put my house in order - slowly calming down - not yet ready to articulate again - but enjoying the slow even ebbing of the day into the depths of the night - darkness gives me unlimited space to travel - I feel free - outside of space - close to anybody I choose to call. Loneliness is only possible in daytime - and then I am rushing to catch up with my pocketbook - trying not to think about this waste of time.
Brown(e) is trying to get his theatre collected - but could never do it if it was up to him.
Heard yesterday that Aline [Barnsdall] has abandoned her trip just before leaving - I would have liked to know the house empty - I see it often from across the valley.
How long will you stay in France? You like it so well - is there any danger of a too lasting attraction? Don't forget the eucalyptus - and the glorious yucca - which shimmers on the hills just now." (R. M. Schindler to Betty Katz ca. 1925. Author's note: Schindler's reference to Maurice Brown indicates that Betty perhaps new of Maurice Browne through mutual attendance at Kings Road salons. Pauline hosted a Browne Keyserling lecture at Kings Road in late 1925. For much more on this see my "Schindlers, Westons, Kashevaroff, Cage and Their Avant-Garde Relationships").
R. M. Schindler letter to B. Kapelanoff, Hotel Duminy, 3 Rue du Mont Thabor, Paris, ca. November, 1925. Betty Katz Papers courtesy Dottie Ickovitz.
Likely unbeknownst to Weston, Schindler was coincidentally corresponding with Betty while she was in Paris evidenced by his below answer to her previous cable. Betty's silence is likely explained by her side trip to Romania to view her childhood neighborhood.
"Your cable was a relief - for weeks the distance held only darkness - your last letter made me expect you back at the time I received it - therefore I did not answer - forgetting that Paris cannot be left so quickly. But why your silence?
Today is one of those wonderfully clear days with the wind blowing sharply all is in motion and sound - one would like to run - and sing - but I am working.
Soon? (R. M. Schindler to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, no date. Betty Katz Papers).
Shortly after she returned from Paris, Betty hosted Schindler's photographer of choice at the time, Viroque Baker, at "Fool's Folly." I speculate upon the occurence of this visit based upon Baker's lesbionic proclivities, a poem on her 1924-5 stationary in Betty's hand in Betty's Papers and a 1924-5 photo of the Oasis Hotel by Baker with a marketing note, presumably to Lloyd Wright. (Author's note: Schindler had designed an unbuilt house for Viroque's mother Maud Baker in 1923 and a Hollywood Blvd. studio for Viroque in 1925 and another studio for Baker and her partner Ernest Pratt on Olvera St. in 1930. Viroque and Betty visited the Schindlers at Kings Road just before Christmas of 1924.).
Two-sided desert poem by Elisaveta Kopelanoff on Viroque Baker stationary, undated, ca. 1924. From Betty Katz Papers.
Oasis Hotel ca. 1924. Photo by Viroque Baker. Likely intended for architect Lloyd Wright.
Viroque Baker Studio, 5417 Hollywood Blvd., 1925, designed by R. M. Schindler. From Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
Viroque Baker by Ernest M. Pratt, 1932. From Pratt Collection, UCLA.
Lois Kellogg and Carl Eytel at Betty's digs in the "Fool's Folly" chauffer's quarters ca. 1925. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
Letter from Ruth Ann Curtis, nee Baldwin to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, August 11, 1927.
Contained in Betty's papers are various letters indicating the wide breadth of close friendships and adresses where Betty lived. The above example is a perfect case in point being forwarded four times before finally finding the addressee. Ruth Ann Curtis, nee Baldwin, was in the Schindler-Weston coterie evidenced by her being listed as living in the Schindler Kings Road House guest apartment account ledger a month before Betty's future second husband Alexander Brandner (see below). Ruth Ann was also reported to own a stone cabin above 320 acres in the desert. ("Desert Ranches," by Harry Carr, Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1925, p. A1). (Author's note: Ruth Ann Baldwin was a noted screenwriter who married Australian artist Robert Emerson Curtis in the summer of 1924 and later moved to Chicago and Sydney, Australia. From Family Search).
Kings Road Guest Room Account, 1924. From Centennial Ehibition at Kings Road, 2022.
Still in France in November of 1926, Miriam Lerner wrote to Betty, by then back in the US, sharing news of their mutual paramour Edward Weston and his new love interest Tina Modotti in Mexico.
"...I want to tell you about Weston, from whom I had a sad & weary letter dated Nov. 9 from Mexico saying he was leaving next week for good for America. Two days before I received a very sad letter from Tina about E's going. It seems the parting was bitter for them both. You will probably see Edward. I am sorry that they are both so unhappy." (From hand-written letter from Miriam Lerner to Betty Katz, From the Betty Katz Collection in the possession of Betty's niece Dottie Ickovitz.).
Edward Weston self-portrait, Mexico, 1924. From internet.
Weston ended his Mexican Daybook with the short, sad lament,
"Dear friends came to the train - Felipe - Pepe - Roberto - Frances [Toor] - and M, - others sent messages and love. Vamanos! - last embraces all around - Tina with tear-filled eyes. This time, Mexico, it must be adios forever. And you, Tina? I feel it must be forever too." (The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. I, Mexico, November 9, 1926. p. 202).
Sylvia Beach Bookstore Shakespeare and Company, Paris, 1928. Note Sylvia Beach and Ernest Hemingway to the right. (I am grateful to Yvonne Patch of the Shakespeare and Company Project for making me aware of Beach's lending program.).
Betty was back in Paris in 1928-9 likely visiting Miriam and while there happened to meet fledgling author Rex Stout, then working on his first book. Betty applied for, and was issued, a lending card at Sylvia Beach's Bookstore in 1928, likely having heard through Miriam who had subscribed in 1925. Betty and Stout spent a couple of weeks in each other's company before Betty had to leave Paris for the U.S. at the end of January 1929. Judging by period correspondence Betty made quite an impression. A Stout letter to Betty in late January was filled with witty small talk indicating perhaps a romantic liaison of sorts. Betty replied from aboard ship which prompted a quick response from Stout.
Rex Stout, 1929. From internet.
"Pretty Girl -
A radio and an ocean letter are two nice things to get - and when I consider how your time was probably being taken up by the captain I especially appreciate them. ...
I eat always at Little Normandy and Monsieur always asks me if I have had any nouvelles from you, and I always reply, "Naturallement; deux radios; ella va bien." Then I sit to my solitary meal with my solitary demi-carafe, and read The New Republic or Jane Austen. What a substitute! Friday afternoon Whit [Burnett] came in, and that evening I went with him and a young man named Alvah Bessie to the Tavern Nicolas Flamel to dine. ...
Day after tomorrow you will have been gone a week. The days with you were so sweet and I miss you so much that I wish now I had tried every way possible to persuade you to stay another month and go back with me. Maybe you wouldn't have done it, but I could have tried...." (Rex Stout to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, February 4, 1929. Betty Katz papers).
S.S. De Grasse, 1929. From internet.
Betty responded upon reaching New York and Rex quickly replied.
"Dear
It took long enough for the cablegram to get here - I was beginning to wonder if you had decided to come back with the De Grasse captain, as if you'd forgotten that 44 Blvd. Henri IV is a good place to send cablegrams to - but no. I felt better after getting it; I knew you were through with waves and captains and out among the puppy worms. ...
God, I wish you were here now. I wish I knew if you were going to California, and how long it will be after March 5 that I see you. ...
Feeling sentimental, I walked past 8 Rue du val-de Grace [Betty's Paris address] today, and damn near wept." (Rex Stout to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, February 11, 1929. Betty Katz Papers).
Hotel Lotti, 44 Blvd. Henry IV, Paris. From Internet.
Stout's next letter to Betty on June 8th was written from from his farm in Brewster, New York and is addressed to her at Valley Farm Kennels in Stamford, Connecticut indicating that she was likely accompanying Lois who was then wrapping up her 8-year partnership in the kennels. An excerpt from Lois's 1944 obituary in the Desert Sun clarified,
"She divided her time between Palm Springs and Stamford. The kennels were regarded as one of the outstanding in the nation and once received the highest award for dog breeding that this country bestows, the George Mortimore trophy—for the best American bred dog of any breed. After the death of her partner, she took over the entire kennel and moved the dogs to California, where she opened the Perchino Kennel. ("Story of Lois Kellogg's Life Told in Copy of Tonapah Paper Received by Friends of Pioneer in Village," Desert Sun, September 1, 1944, p. 4).
"How Like a God" by Rex Stout, Vanguard, New York, 1929, first edition.
Stout wrote from his farm again in August.
"Dear Betty
I'll save all the corn hoeing until you get back. It would be grand to have you here; is it still to be the middle of September? That's only six weeks off.
As for HOW LIKE A GOD, I gave it the title, and the publication date is August 29th. I had intended to start another novel about the first of August, but am now negotiating to buy a nearby hillside with a view of forty miles, and if I succeed, I shall probably begin right away building a road up it and a house on it. So you may be put to plastering instead of hoeing corn. ...
Physically, I see nothing but improvement on every side; my back and chest and arms have a fine coat of tan, and the sharp contrast between brown back and white buttocks is very pleasing. John Thomas of course has been within the protected area and retains his virginal pink. ...
I think of you often and find myself looking forward to September." (Rex Stout to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, August 1, 1929. Betty Katz Papers).
Rex Stout, Paris to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, May 15, 1929, Stamford, Conn.. From Betty Katz Papers.
Betty accompanied Lois Kellogg to New York and Stamford in the summer of 1929 to attend to her kennel business and some East Coast dog shows and seemingly told Stout that she would visit while in town. (Desert Sun, September 27, 1929).
Still in New York with Lois, Betty's next letter from Stout was received on December 28th and the discussion centered upon getting together and spending New Year's Eve with some people at Lee Chumley's Bar in Greenwich Village. Chumley was an old Wobbly, thus it was likely that Betty and Rex had previously discussed the subject. (Rex Stout to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, December 28, 1929. Betty Katz Papers).
Most of Stout's next two years were taken up by the planning of his new house in Fairfield County Connecticut near his farmland in Brewster, New York. Stout collaborated closely with architect A. Lawrence Kocher who was also then managing editor of Architectural Record and partners with Gerhard Zeigler. (Author's note: In 1934 Kocher and Frey designed one of the first modern buildings in Palm Springs for Kocher's brother Dr. John Jacob Kocher,, the Kocher-Samson Building.)
Rex Stout House, Brewster, New York, A. Lawrence Kocher and Gerhard Zeigler, architects, 1930. From Architectural Record, July 1933.
Betty was conflicted about marrying Geoffrey and was able to hold him off until 1930 when she finally succombed to his entreaties. They were married in New York in June, 1930.
Lovell Beach House, Newport Beach, R. M. Schindler, architect, 1926. Photograph by Edward Weston, August 1, 1927. Courtesy Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
Schindler completed the Lovell Beach House in 1926. He finally talked Weston into photographing it in August of 1927, around the time his wife, fed up with her husband's philandering ways, packed up her son and left Kings Road in a huff. Schindler likely talked Weston into spending a couple days at the house with his family. Weston wrote of the events in his Daybook.
"Monday, August 1. Back again, and with me a bad enough case of sunburn. I was careful of my body, but my face I could not protect. I have always laughed at those who burn themselves to a lobster red and suffer a week for one day's outing: now the laugh is on me. But I was caught in a Trap. Chandler took his mother home early, leaving Brett, Elena and me on the beach until 4:00 while the wind and sun played havoc: even Elena's dark skin grew rosy. How I respond to women of dark skin! Yes - like them all - but especially the swarthy.
August 2. Yesterday I did the first work at Balboa Beach, - the home of Dr. Lovell. I respond fully to Schindler's construction. It was an admirably planned beach home with a purity of form seldom found in contemporary houses unless they be mere reproductions from another age or..." (Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. II, p. 33. For much more on Weston's time in Newport Beach see "August Light: Edward Weston at the Lovell Beach House" by Jose Para and John Crosse).
A few months later, likely still unaware of her husband's feelings for Betty, Pauline wrote to Weston's former lover, telling her of her recuperative stay in Halcyon licking the still raw wounds of the traumatizing breakup with RMS. Despite being unsuccessful in luring Betty to be part of the original tenants of Kings Road, she used this letter to profess again her feelings for Betty and make a strong attempt for cohabitation in a new house to be designed by her estranged husband. Pauline wrote,
"Betty,
Your deeply moving letter. Both of us in a state oe go to Ojai to live; or to England, where Bertrand Russell is starting a new school for little children next autumn. Then in the fall when we are settled, - I should like to begin work on a novel.
I am writing all of this to asking you silently to consider your plans and mine in possible relation......Writing "I", I am still whispering "you; can you; do you; does it fit your way too?". Betty, - do you still choose the California coast? I do. For the sun, and for certain elements of the free lifepossible here. Also for the growth of a new type of human being possible out here.
Will you live with me in Carmel, or Ojai, or further north? We will build a little house together, - R. M. S. to design it. A place for our solitudes in the sun. Living a part of the year together, - and part of it away, as we choose. I have now a natural thirst for some movement about, - after the static years. I wanted to talk this whole plan over with you before you sailed...but no answer from you to my wire. we could have chosen our living-place; come back to it ready upon your return. Now, you can scarcely answer yes or no. Your year must be left open. But you will be thinking it over, mulling and reflecting as you sit in your steamer chair looking out over the ocean. From Panama a letter will start from you to me, telling how far your thoughts have gotten with the plan.
Do you see our life together? We know and love and trust one another in pain, fatigue, despair, ecstacy, shared thinking. Neither of us shuts out the future from the other. We will make a strangely beautiful and satisfying marriage together.
Betty...Betty....I love you!
Pauline" (PGS to Betty Katz Kopelanoff, December 22, 1927. Betty Katz Papers in possession of Betty's great niece Dottie Ickovitz.).
From Pauline's letter to Betty it can be inferred that Betty already knew Ellen Janson and had likely attended Pauline's 1926 salon at Kings Road where she had Janson's husband Maurice Brown lecture on Keyserling. (See much more on Ellen Janson and Maurice Brown at my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism.").
R. M. Schindler by Edward Weston ca. 1927. Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
R. M. Schindler by Edward Weston ca. 1927. Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.
The above portrait session was seemingly conducted sometime in the spring of 1928 after the field shoot of Lovell's beach house in Newport Beach. Weston wrote Schindler asking whether he wanted another set of beach house prints that he would ship together with the portraits.
"Dear Schindler,
Have your portraits ready but will hold till you answer my note about beach-house prints - and ship altogether.
To repeat - do you wish to return the ones I sent you in emergency and have me print you a fresh set? The one's I sent are Pauline's. I note there are six negatives of beach-house. Do you wish all six? Did you ever have or want view of back of room?
Best of wishes -
Edward W.
4-27" (Edward Weston letter to R. M. Schindler, 4-27,[1928]. Courtesy Center for Creative Photography, Weston Archive, University of Arizona).
In late September of 1926 Miriam sent to Betty a rather humorous piece titled "Being the Journal of a Bed-Bred Dog Out of Bed." It described a day-in-the-life of a dog being cared for by Miriam and it was addressed to "Dear Gaurdian..." and signed Ghita/Bed-Bred Dawg. In early 1927 Betty herself purchased a pure-bred whippet named Wingfoot Ghita from breeder Lilian M. Reuland likely arranged through the largess of Lois Kellogg who had a personal preference for pure-bred Russian wolfhounds or Borzois. (Pedigree papers in The Breed Archive indicate that Wingfoot Ghita was born on February 22, 1927 and was fawn in color.).
Painting of Lois in the desert on horseback with one of her Borzois, ca. 1927. Perhaps by Florence True. Betty Katz Papers.
Betty Katz typing at Lois's house at "Fool's Folly" ca. 1927. From Betty Katz Papers.
In January of 1927 Lois contacted Lloyd Wright for the purpose of sprucing up her landscaping possibly because the Del Tahquitz Hotel (see above) was under construction directly adjacent to the north and possibly because Betty and Lois would be hosting a visit by Edward Weston, Harriet Freeman and "Brandy" Alexander the following month (see below).
Soon after returning from Mexico, Edward Weston, along with Brett, was invited by UCLA art professor Annita Delano to exhibit, at UCLA in February 1927. Weston diarized,
Daybooks - February 13. Brett and I are exhibiting together, - his first public appearance. The University of California invited me, and I included him as quite worthy. I am showing around a hundred prints, - Brett twenty. We hung the exhibit yesterday and were exhausted by night. He should be stimulated and has sense enough not to become conceited.
February 17. I should feel gratified that so many came to the exhibit in the storm. Among others were Betty [Katz] and Harriet [Freeman], with whom I promised to spend the weekend at Lois[Kellogg]'s home - Palm Springs. I have an excuse for myself of work to do, - Lois's horse to photograph, for actually I have no desire for a holiday, much stronger is the urge to create. I will take my 8 x 10, and maybe find something for myself, - there is the desert!February 23. Life seems to afford me a sequence of dramatic episodes. I probably make them so. This act was staged for the desert bound for "Fool's Folly," - Lois' home. Four of us went, - Betty, Harriet [Freeman] and "Brandy," were the others. We knew the highway was impassable from landslides and washouts, - but there was a detour across the desert. Leaving late, night came on, the detour was found by moonlight. Far into the wasteland we drove before the storm swept upon us, - sand not rain, - stinging blinding sand, blasted along by a desert gale, shrouding the landscape, hissing fiendishly, obliterating the road. A silent, snow-crowned mountain towered hardby. Foot by foot we made our way through the drifts and the gale, - digging - pushing. For miles Harriet [Freeman] and I walked, floundering along, wind buffeted...
[Undated] One day at the knot-hole in a fig tree tempted an exposure, - and after, another of the same tree trunk. The former is slightly blurred - wind-shaken I guess, which is too bad for I had hopes. (Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. II, pp. 5-6).
Reading Geoffrey Household's letters to Betty through the years was like watching an author evolve over time. His time as a traveling banana salesman for the United Fruit Company in Spain and Latin America in the late 1920s was strongly recommended by Betty in order for him to gain necessary life experience to fuel his writing. She also hoped that the time apart would cool Geoffrey's ardor. Instead it made his love stronger resulting in the couple settling in New York in 1929 and finally marrying on June 12, 1930.
In the process, Geoffrey not only became fluent in Spanish but also found a setting for his children’s story, "The Spanish Cave"—or The Terror of Villadonga as it was first published—and for numerous other tales. Geoffrey made an honest attempt to break in as an author. Betty took some of his short stories to Brandt and Brandt the New York literary agents. They took them, and Geoffrey's life slowly began to change.
The Great Depression, however, thwarted these plans, and he took a job as a junior editor for a children’s encyclopedia, occasionally writing children’s radio plays for the Columbia Broadcasting System. Then from 1933-39 Household returned to being a traveling salsman. Representing printers’ ink manufacturer John Kidd & Co. in London, he traveled extensively in the United States, Central and South America, and the Mideast. These travels further deepened his life experience, enabling him to embellish his writings with a colorful sense—and a wide range—of persons and places.
Geoffrey did not undertake full-time writing, however, until the mid-1930’s. A friend who happened to be the son of the manager of the huge Anglo-Austrian, Romanian, and Greek financial consortium known as the Bank of Romania helped land him a post as an assistant confidential secretary. He subsequently spent four of what he described as delightful years learning Romanian and French and enjoying Romanian culture. In 1926, he took a post with the European branch of the United Fruit Company marketing bananas in Spain. In the process, he not only became fluent in Spanish but also found a setting for his children’s story, The Spanish Cave (1936)—or The Terror of Villadonga as it was first published—and for numerous other tales.
From Spain, Household (with his first wife, Elisaveta Kopelanoff, to whom he was married from 1930 to 1939) came to the United States with the intention of supporting his family by writing. The Great Depression, however, thwarted these plans, and he took a job as a junior editor for a children’s encyclopedia, occasionally writing children’s radio plays for the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Eventually, Household returned to business. Representing manufacturers of printers’ inks, he traveled extensively in the United States, Central and South America, and the Mideast. These travels further deepened his cosmopolitanism, enabling him later to embellish his writings with a colorful sense—and a wide range—of persons and places.
During the mid-1930’s, Household developed what proved a lifetime association with the Boston publishing firm of Atlantic, Little, Brown. Before the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, they had published his picaresque novel "The Third Hour" (1937); while "Rogue Male" came out two years later.
In 1939, Household joined British Intelligence, serving with distinction until 1945. His postings to the Balkans, Greece, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq were dangerous and challenging ones. His successes earned for him the rank of lieutenant colonel and numerous decorations. In these years, too, he acquired a firsthand feel for the critical confrontations that were to be a hallmark of his best stories.
In his autobiography, 'Against the Wind,' novelist Geoffrey Household tells us the story of his own life, showing us the background and the experiences, droll and sometimes hazardous, from which he emerged as a writer. A graduate of Oxford, he was slated for a career in the Civil Service, but instead he went to Romania as an apprentice-clerk in the Ottoman Bank. His next assignment was as a banana salesman in Spain; from there he lived in New York City and then as the war closed in, Household, with his command of languages, qualified as an officer in Field Security. He was sent back to Romania with a plan for destroying the oil fields before the Nazi invasion. From there he was shifted to Greece, Syria, Palestine and Persia. In the final chapters Household addresses the writer's craft and his personal aspirations. His life's story--unconventional, amusing and exciting--is the essence of a great narrator.
On June 3, 1930 Betty Kopelanoff married Geoffrey Household in New York City. He, with support from Betty and Miriam Lerner, who worked for a New York publisher during the 1930s, would go on to become a noted author. They seldom lived together but lived briefly at Kings Road in 1930-1, just before Richard Neutra returned from his world tour, and in 1932-3 in the Hollywood Hills at 5857 Tuxedo Terrace. During the 1930s Miriam Lerner worked in New York for publisher Farrar & Rinehart, and in a letter to Betty offered a foot in the door for Geoffrey's children's book. (Miriam Lerner to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, no date, ca. 1933. Betty Katz Papers).
Betty and Geoffrey divorced from a then loveless marriage in 1939. Betty and Household's on-again off-again relationship is chronicled in Household's autobiography "Against the Wind" in which he calls her "Marina."
Schindler wrote to Betty seemingly around the late 1920s judging by the content of the below undated letter:
"My life is much quieter now - It has a certain routine - John [Bovingdon] is dancing from time to time in the garden - and I have not much work right now.
I think about you - and talk about you - but your going away has taken some reality out of your picture - a story which has not ended - and which I am powerless to direct even in my imagination.
I am just now preparing some of my plans for publication in some American magazines - I shall send you some photos and descriptions (5 or 6 bldgs.) as they get ready.
Why dont you send me some of the things you write? And some of the things you think -Just received the (i)nclosed sheet - will you take care of it? Fourteen years?" (R. M. Schindler to Elisaveta Kopellanoff, undated. Betty Katz Papers).
"Bovingdon Arrives", The Carmelite, edited by Pauline Schindler, front page, July 4, 1928. From the Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel. (For much more see my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism").
The above letter indicates that Betty had been in attendance at previous Bovingdon performances at Kings Road which occured after Pauline's 1927 departure. It also shows that Schindler was aware of Betty and Geoffrey Household's relationship for which he seemed to be somewhat forlorn about. The letter indicates that Betty, like her friend Miriam Lerner, was dabbling in writing which illustrates that she was inspired with Geoffrey's attempts to become a published author.
On his way back to Los Angeles from his around the world tour, Richard Neutra wrote to Schindler in March of 1931 asking questions about the plans for an upcoming exhibition in New York. Plans for a wall of California submissions was seemingly being brokered by Albert Kahn and Neutra apparrently wanted to make sure he was included. In the letter Neutra also asked about the Households who were seemingly living at Kings Road at the time. Neutra jnformed Schindler that he would be staying with Pauline's parents in Evanston while in Chicago. (Letter from Richard Neutra in transit to Chicago to R. M. Schindler ca., spring 1931. Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara).
Back in Paris in January of 1929, Betty spent a good portion of time in the company of aspiring artist Rex Stout. An exchange of letters between Stout and Betty aboard ship on her way back to New York reveal a very loving time spent together while Stout was trying to finish his first novel, "How Like a God", which was finally published in August of that year. (Author's note: A very poignant 1965 letter from a 71-year old Betty, just back from a trip to Paris, to Stout, then living in New York, congratulated Stout for his photo recently appearing in the Saturday Review of Literature and fondly reminiscing about the beauty of Paris and her regret for not looking him up while in New York.). (Betty Kopelanoff to Rex Stout, October 10, 1965. Betty Katz Papers).
Living My Life, Emma Goldman autobiography, Knopf, New York, 1931.
June 29, 1929 Miriam still in France, wrote to Betty, then in New York, about working for Emma Goldman in St. Tropez typing her autobiography manuscript and correspondence in exchange for room and board. She also wrote about trying to write a play and Betty's potential social life. Her letter indicates that Betty had not informed her of Pauline Schindler's previous 1927 letter regarding Carmel and her desparate plea to live together. (Author's note: For much discussion concerning Mitiam Lerner's fascinating relationship with Emma Goldman see Artful Lives by Beth Gates Warren, pp. 209-10.).
"...I do hope you can make some plans soon. The desert is shut because of the heat, I know. What about Carmel? Edward [Weston] has Hagemeyer's studio there. I'm sure you must need a rest and a change after nursing Dora." (Miriam Lerner in St. Tropez to Betty Katz in California, June 29,1929. Betty Katz Papers. Also see my "Pauline Gibling Schindler: Vagabond Agent for Modernism" for more on her and Weston's Carmel activities.).
Later in the same letter Miriam wrote, "Emma leaves me absolutely unstimulated. She is even depressing - writing her memoirs makes her moody and cranky. You are an angel. You have mastered the art of living. Why are you so far away?" (Ibid.).
Shortly after receiving the above letter Betty traveled to New York with Lois and that is likely when she first met Rockwell Kent. Kent reminisced of this romantic time after he returned from Greenland in an August 1930 letter.
Rockwell Kent portrait by Carl Van Vechten, 1933.
In two letters the following week Kent made dramatic pleas to Betty to join him on his Au Sable Forks, New York farm to provide secretarial help surrounding the finishing of his manuscript for the Literary Guild which was due on September 10th. (Rockwell Kent to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, 320 E. 57th St., New York, August 26, 1930. Betty Katz Papers).
320 E. 57th St., New York. From internet.
Betty, still in New York and living at 320 E. 57th St. after her June 3rd marriage to Geoffrey, received a last minute frantic appeal from Rockwell Kent to come to his upstate farm.
"I don't know whether I'm losing my senses, but this wanting of you to come and of you so sweetly wanting to has gottten me into such a pitch of eagerness, as if we were lovers, I want to cry out to youPlease, Elisaveta, Come!
So to your maybe, I can only say do. And if you need the justification that it is at least for one of us necessary know that I do need you to help me with this book [N by E]. Come tomorrow, Tuesday, if you can. But if it can't be until Friday still come along. And we'll go back together Monday night, the eighth.RK." (Letter from Rockwell Kent to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, September 2, 1930. Betty Katz Papers).
There is no indication in the correspondence whether Betty informed Kent of her June 3rd marriage to Geoffrey or whether she responded to Kent's plea at all.
"N by E" by Rockwell Kent, Literary Guild, New York, 1930.
The book that Kent was most likely referring to was "N by E" which he first published in a limited edition in 1930. The book was his account of a voyage on a 33-foot cutter sailing from New York Harbor to the rugged shores of Greenland. When the ship sinks in a storm-swept fjord within 50 miles of its destination, the story turns to the stranding and subsequent rescue of the three-man crew, salvage of the vessel, and life among native Greenlanders. Magnificently illustrated by Kent's wood-block prints and narrated in his poetic and highly entertaining style, this tale of the perils of killer nor'easters, treacherous icebergs, and impenetrable fog quickly became a collectors' item.
Sometime around early 1930 Betty and her dog Ghita briefly reconnected with Miriam in France before leaving back to meet Geoffrey in New York via Le Havre. Miriam wrote from Giverny:
"DearestThere is nothing in the world that gives me what a day with you does. That I have had for myself throughout our friendship. And now you have given me much more than that. You have clarified and revealed to Lamar and myself each of us. On the train to Rouen Lamar mentioned it at the same moment I was thinking about it. It hs made us much closer."
She went on with describing activities in Rouen before leaving for Giverny. She closed with,
"I have already written to Mrs. Willy and Geoffrey.It is windy today but it is a warm wind. The vine outside my window is a red streak of dying fire. Now do let me know what day you are marrying. Perhaps I shall marry the same day.Love Always,Golliwog
She followed up with a handwritten note, "I miss Ghita here very much. Pick a flea off her for me."
Elisaveta ("Betty") Kopelanoff and Geoffrey Household lived together off and on between their first meeting in 1925 and their 1930 marriage in New York. Geoffrey sold bananas in the late 1920s and printers ink in the early 1930s. Betty traveled to England annually to hookup with Geoffrey during the 1930s.
In a letter to Betty in Los Angeles around 1932, Miriam offers to try to help Geoffrey get his children's book [The Spanish Cave] published at Farrar & Rinehart where she was then currently working. (Miriam Lerner to Betty Katz, undated, ca. 1932. Betty Katz Papers).
Betty and Geoffrey were married in New York on June 3, 1930. They traveled back to Los Angeles and briefly moved into Kings Road which must have been a fairly hard pill for Schindler to swallow. Pauline was recently back from Carmel and living in Frank Lloyd Wright's Storer House with Brett Weston. Betty had also apparently just purchased some lots from Harriet Cody who had recently subdivided some of her land to form the Palos Verdes Tract. (See below).
Palos Verdes Tract, Palm Springs, Harriet Cody, 1929. Map courtesy architectural historian Luke Leuschner.
Schindler notebook entry For Betty Kopelanoff property in Harriet Cody's above phase 1 of the Palos Verdes Tract, 1930. Note seemingly lists Betty's requirements for a new house. Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara. Courtesy Luke Leuschner.
Kopelanoff Residence, Palm Springs, 1930. R. M. Schindler, architect. UCSB Schindler Collection.
Kopelanoff Residence, Palm Springs, 1930. R. M. Schindler, architect. UCSB Schindler Collection.
In late 1930 R. M. Schindler designed two projects in Palm Springs for Elizavetta "Betty" Kopelanoff. Betty was seemingly trying to choose between houses on two different sites or possibly considering commisioning two houses as can be seen from the two drawings above. She was likely looking to finally have her own desert hideaway after having a serious falling out with Lois Kellogg.
Palm Springs in the early 1920s from above the present day tennis club. Indian Canyon Road is the tree-lined street at the upper right side of the photo. Arenas Ave. is the perpendicular street in the middle.
The drawings for the projects were perhaps done while Betty and Geoffrey were living at Kings Road for a short period after returning to Los Angeles from New York in late 1930 after the Neutras left the previous spring. (Richard Neutra in Chicago to R. M. Schindler, ca. March, 1931, Betty Katz Papers).
Lois Kellogg's property including Fool's Folly includes 450 feet of frontage on both Palm Canyon Blvd. and Indian Canyon Dr. at the upper right of the above photo and the right of the below Schindler subdivision map for the McManus property which would eventually subdivided as Tahquitz Park Acres. (See two below).
Subdivision for Pearl McCallum McManus (via Elizavetta Kopelanoff), Palm Springs, 1930. R. M. Schindler, architect. Courtesy Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara. Special thank you to Luke Leuschner for saring this drawing.
Betty was also somehow then involved with Pearl McManus, for whom Lloyd Wright designed the Oasis Hotel in 1923 and an unbuilt prototype house in 1926. Betty seemingly put the McManuses in touch with Schindler to rough out a subdivision for their property in downtown Palm Springs across Palm Canyon Drive from "Fool's Folly." The above plan looks to be designed so that it could be developed to its maximum potetential and to give the McManuses a sense of what the total tract was worth. The right side of the above map is the location of Lois Kellogg's "Fool's Folly" property at 366 S. Palm Canyon Drive directly south of the new Hotel Del Tahquitz seen below. Lois owned 450 ft. of frontage on Palm Canyon Dr. through to Indian Canyon Road, a depth of 290 ft. None of the above projects ever came to fruition. (Author's note: The upper left hand corner of the McManus tract map is where Pearl McManus built the Palm Springs Tennis Club in 1938.)( "New Palm Springs Tennis Club to Formally Open Gates February 5th With Exhibition Tennis and Driving," Desert Sun, January 28, 1938, p. 16).
In 1931 Harriet Cody apparently asked Schindler to design for her a residence in Palm Springs which she perhaps intended to include in her Palos Verdes Tract mentioned above. Schindler replied with a letter and plan that described the same floor plan he had given to Betty the year before, indicating Betty's involvementin some fashion.
"Dear Mrs. CodyI am enclosing a tentatif (sic) plan for a desert house. Will [you] let me know if it suits your requirements. Note that although the livingroom gives all the outlook of a second story room it is only about seven feet above ground and only about five feet six above the bedrooms.The bedrooms can be used as two or three rooms by moving the partition between them. The porch can be used from either bedroom, or as a separate room. I would appreciate all points of criticism you could offer.Sincerely" (R. M. Schindler typed letter to Harriet Cody, Palm Springs, June 20, 1931.From Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara).
The house was never completed. (History: Architect Rudolph Schindler's Strange and Varied Clients in the Desert, by Tracy Conrad, Desert Sun, February 20, 2022 . See also Finding Aid for the R. M. Schindler papers, Online Archive of California).
While in France during the late 1920s Miriam had tried to find her footing as a writer as her correspondence with Betty and Edward Weston indicated. She also corresponded with Weston in 1930 while still in France telling him of deeply desiring to finish a novel. He replied:
"Your book? When you wrote me, "But I must write this, the artist in you spoke! We must do these things, they have to come out, we conceived, we are just as pregnant as a woman with child. May their be no miscarriage! Tell me more of this some day." (Edward Weston letter to Miriam Lerner, April 4, 1930. Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, via architectural historian Luke Leuschner.).
In a September letter Weston informed Miriam of Brett moving south and starting out on his own but did not mention that he had moved in with Pauline Schindler into Frank Lloyd Wright's Storer House where he opened his first professional studio. Weston closed by forwarding Miriam Tina Modotti's address in Berlin and asking again "Where is Betty? I would write her." Litttle did he know that Betty and her new husband were at the time briefly living at Schindler's Kings Road House and collaborating on Palm Springs projects discussed elsewhere herein. (Edward Weston in Carmel to Miriam Lerner in Paris, September 2, 1930. Weston-Lerner Letters, Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley via architectural historian Luke Leuschner.).
Edward Weston Exhibition catalogue, Delphic Studios, 9 E. 57th St. NYC, October 15 - 31, 1930. Alfred Honigsbaum Collection, Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley.
Miriam Lerner finally gave up her dream of becoming an author and decided to return to New York and get a job at a publishing house. After notifying Edward Weston of the news he replied in November. By coincidence he was then exhibiting concurrently at Alma Reed's Delphic Studios Gallery through the largesse of his Mexican friend Jose Clemente Orozco who she was also representing and who both visited him in Carmel the previous summer.
"What a surprise you gave me! And what a coincidence - you and my exhibit in New York together. I am so very glad [unintelligible] it could be your seeing of my new work. ... The New York exhibit has "gone over" beyond my hopes: a fine real response. And starting Nov. 15th, or thereabouts, I am showing a group from my Mexican period, same place, in an all Mexican exhibit. ... - and where is Betty?" (Edward Weston, Carmel to Miriam Lerner, 313 W. $th St., NYC, November 10, 1930. From Weston-Lerner Correspondence, Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley. Many thanks to architectural historian Luke Leuschner for sharing this letter. Author's note: This was also about the time that Betty and Geoffrey were living at Kings Road and commissioning Schindler to draw up preliminary plans for her lots in Palm Springs and a preliminary tract map for Pearl and August McManus.).
Sometime during 1931 Miriam ran in to Rex Stout, whom she had met in Paris with Betty, at a publishing event where she informed him of Betty's June 3, 1930 marriage to Geoffrey Household and gave him Betty's address. In December Stout wrote a poignant letter to Betty, who was then living on Courtney Ave. in Hollywood.
"Dear Betty -
The other evening, happening to meet Miriam in New York, I asked her about you. Also for your address which she furnished by giving me the envelope of a letter which she had recently received from you. Just now I looked inside the envelope, and there was a dried flower there; it is now here on a white sheet of paper on my desk. I can't decide what it is. Nor can I decide what the tears in my eyes are.
I have many times wondered why you did not come to Brewster that day when you telephoned and said you would.
I believe the reason I am using the address to send you this letter is because I feel it is an honor to be able to write - no matter what - to so honest and brave and genuine a woman as you. These are funny words for me to use - next thing you know I'll be talking about nobility - but anyway, I mean them and that is what I want to say. Also, you are one of the few (not more than two or three) people I have known who are permanently fixed in my heart, and whether that is important to you or not, it is to me. I hope you won't mind me writing to say that.
Rex (Rex Stout in Brewster, New York to Elisaveta Kopelanoff Household, 1566 Courtney Ave., Hollywood, December 22, 1931, Betty Katz Papers).
Ca. 1933 Miriam wrote to Betty, who was by then living with Geoffrey at 5787 Tuxedo Terrace in the Hollywood Hills. She wrote about her life in New York and her new job at the publishing company Farrar & Rinehart. Miriam wrote about trying to help Geoffrey get his children's book "The Spanish Cave," published at her firm.
"I do wish Geoffrey would send me the manuscript. We'd do for it here. Our juvenile list is not overcrowded. I have just talked to our juvenile editor and she tells me it is much better for a juvenile to come out in the Fall; as a matter of fact it is unfair to bring one out in the Spring as it cannot make the school lists which come out only in the Fall.
I should think his story would be a knockout with his very fine assimilation of all the aspects of Spain, historically and socially, meaning sociologically, etc. and Geoffrey can write! I vividly remember the stories I read last winter. What is the news about Wilma and the lot? Is it all off or still indefinite? I've just got a bill for $30. for assessments. I'd love to have a tent house on that hill, only I do not want to live near my old association matter. Please tell me what you are having to pay for rent for your lemon tree and avocado and eucalypti. Perhaps if I knew I could get a job, I'd come out, in the Spring." (Miriam Lerner to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, 5787 Tuxedo Terrace, Los Angeles, ca. 1933.. From the Betty Katz Papers. Geoffrey was finally successful in publishing "The Spanish Cave" by Little-Brown in Boston in 1936).
"The Spanish Cave" by Geoffrey Household, Little-Brown, Boston, 1936
Betty again travelled to Europe in the fall of 1933, this time as a chaperone for two teen-age girls, the daughters of talent agent Ad Schulberg, whom she dropped off at school in Switzerland, and author J. P. McEvoy, whom she accompanied on to Florence. (Ad Schulberg to Betty Kopelanoff Household c/o Thos. Cook & Son, Geneva, Switzerland, October 5, 1933 and J. P.McEvoy Letter of Introduction To Whom It May Concern, September 21, 1933, Betty Katz Papers).
Lois Kellogg with her Borzois at the Palm Springs Mid-Winter Dog Show, 1934. Photographer unknown. Fron Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1934, p. 50).
Lois Kellogg entered her four pure-bred Borzoi Russian wolfhounds who all won Best of Breed honors of the over 400 dogs entered in the Palm Springs Mid-Winter Outdoor Dog Show at the Desert Inn Mashie Golf Course in 1934. Lois is pictured above with Jeddard Perchino, winner of best in the novice class; Nemrod Perchino, winner of best American breed; Fedor Perchino, best in the open class and Fernwald Perchino, winner of best of breed.
"Lois Kellogg and Her Russian Wolfhounds", Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1934, p. III-1.
Columnist Ed Ainsworth reported in the February 8, 1936 issue of the Los Angeles Times that Lois Kellogg had been sued for $55,000 for a back boarding bill for her dogs.
"Yes $55,000.
Now its all right to give the dogs plenty to eat.
But I'll be darned if I believe they ought to have hummingbird wings on toast and caviar at every meal!"
He had obviously seen the below article appearing the previous day in the Desert Sun.
"An unusual case of local interest has been entered in the courts at Riverside. Mrs. Maude Williams, owner of dog boarding kennels in Beaumont, asked Superior Judge Freeman to award her a judgment for approximately $55,000 against Lois Kellogg. Palm Springs dog fancier, for care of the latter's dogs between 1929 and 1934. Mrs. Williams testified in the trial of her Superior Court claim, that Miss Kellogg, member of a widely known American family, owes her the huge boarding bill. Her detailed report showed that at one time she boarded 117 dogs owned by Miss Kellogg in addition to several horses. The board bill originally was more than $80,000 but part of it has been paid, she testified. The plaintiff also asserts that she advanced to Miss Kellogg more than $3,000 for the latter’s personal use during the five-year period, and she asks repayment of this money." ("Bill for $55,000 for Dogs' Keep", Desert Sun, February 7, 1936). (Author's note: Kellogg had been working with Lloyd Wright on a ranch development in nearby Banning in 1931. From Finding Aid, Lloyd Wright Papers, UCLA.Online Archive of California).
Ranch Development for Lois Kellogg, Beaumont, 1931. Designed by Lloyd Wright. From Lloyd Wright Collection, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Courtesy of architectural historian Luke Leuschner.
Perhaps related to Lois's unpaid bill for boarding her dogs and horses in Beaumont was her commission of Lloyd Wright to work on a ranch development plan in Banning in 1931. This is possibly the same ranch that Norman Farra was also opening a "dude" ranch on near Mission Creek. Lois had around 1929 or 1930 moved her wild mustang and four Charolais white bulls from "Fool's Folly" to Farra's stable in Palm Springs and was perhaps considering some sort of partnership with Farra which likely fell apart when Farra started having money problems and declared bankruptcy. (Mention of Norman Farra's Palm Springs stable is from a photocopied page from an auction catalogue for an Edward Weston photo of Lois at the Palm Springs Historical Society via Luke Leuschner.). ("Dude Ranch to be Established Upon Transferred Property on Desert East of Banning Area," San Bernardino Sun, July 29, 1928, p. 15). ("Real Estate to Be Sold at Trustee's Sale," Desert Sun, December 14, 1934).
Lloyd Wright in 1934 was again commissioned by Pearl and Austin McManus to prepare preliminary plans for the Cascades Club, an early vision for the tennis club eventually built in 1937. Wright prepared three color renderings which never developed into a full-scale project but most certainly inspired what was to come.
Cascades Club, Palm Springs for Pearl McManus, 1934. By Lloyd Wright, architect. Lloyd Wright,. Archive, UCLA. Courtesy architectural historian, Luke Leuschner.
Cascades Club, Palm Springs for Pearl McManus, 1934. By Lloyd Wright, architect. Lloyd Wright,. Archive, UCLA. Courtesy architectural historian, Luke Leuschner.
Parlaying Lloyd's renderings into what she had envisioned during her and Austin's previous trip to Europe, resulted in an initial development of some tennis courts to share with English friends which evolved into a full-scale tennis club with pool.
Palm Springs Tennis Club, Pearl and Austin McManus, Philip O. Ormsby-Lloyd Steffgen, Architects, 1938. From Internet.
Palm Springs Tennis Club Pool for Austin and Pearl McManus, Philip O. Ormsby-Lloyd Steffgen, Architects. 1938. (Photo from Pearl McCallum McManus, by Tracy Conrad, Desert Magazine, November, 2012.
An excerpt from the January 7, 1938 issue of the Desert Sun read,
"Sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Austin O. McManus, the new [tennis] club embodies many unique and interesting features designed by Mrs. McManus, herself. Nestling comfortably at the foot of the mountains in the romantic "old Palm Springs," the five-acre plot has been converted into an enchanting spot with an old-world atmosphere, embodying Italy, Spain and Old Mexico. ... An interesting swimming pool in the center of a tropical setting completes a picture that will entice the visitor to return to this lovely spot." (New Tennis Club to be Completed in Near Future, Desert Sun, January 7, 1938, p. 1).
Harrriet Cody ca. 1925. Courtesy Palm Springs Historical Society.
In a February 1936 letter from Geoffrey in Malaga, Spain to Betty in Palm Springs, he pleads with her to join him. In answer to her question on what he though she should do with her Palm Springs property he replied,
"I couldn't advise you much about the sale of your land. If you can get rid of a third of it, it seems a sound idea. As for selling the lot, you must decide for yourself. I think you are inclined to be optimistic about a further rise in values in Palm Springs. ... On the other hand, Palm Springs depends for a certain amount of its wealth on the patronage of Hollywood, and when the crash comes the entertainment industries wont be greatly affected." (Geoffrey Household in Malaga to Elisaveta Kopelanoff in Palm Springs, February 1, 1936. Betty Katz Papers).
In November of 1937 Betty, at the time living with Geoffrey in London, received a five-page typed, single-spaced letter from Harriet Cody who had just visited Lois Kellogg on the Nevada cattle ranch she had first purchased in 1935. The letter indicates that the three were indeed lifelong close friends through the time Betty spent at "Fool's Folly."
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Betty and Geoffrey, London, ca. 1937. Betty Katz Papers.
Harriet began by responding favorably to the news that Betty's husband Geoffrey had finally completed his book. Geoffrey's writing career was starting to take off about this time having had four short stories published in The Atlantic in 1936-7. Geoffrey also had his boy's book published in 1936, "The Spanish Cave," which was published by Little-Brown in Boston. Harriet perhaps may have also been referring to a New York Times article about the publishing of one of Geoffrey's stories in the annual anthology "Best British Short Stories: 1936". ("The Best British Short Stories: 1936", New York Times, October 18, 1936, BR12 and "New Books for Boys and Girls," by Ellen Lewis Buell, "The Spanish Cave" by Geoffrey Householder, New York Times, January 3, 1937, B9).
"Adventures in Search of Utopia" by H. L. Martin, New York Times, January 3, 1938, p. 84.
Geoffrey was again featured in the New York Times the following January (see above) with an article which included his picture entitled "Adventurers in Search of Utopia" by H. L. Martin which favorably reviewed his first adult novel "The Third Hour." This is most likely the book that Harriet Cody was referring to in her below letter opening. Martin closed his review with "The editors of The Atlantic should receive their just praise for having discovered Geoffrey Household in his short stories and encouraging him to write this, his first novel. We look forward to his next attempt."
"Dear Betty,
I am so ashamed of myself for not writing and am glad to hear that Geoffrey's book is finished. The English edition please (see below). We were so dumfounded and delighted to see his story in the Post. Hope they take more.
The Third Hour by Geoffrey Household, Chatto & Windus, London, 1937. First English edition.
How are you? Hope the bank has not been dunning you. I told them not to that as soon as we had them paid off we were sending you the deeds. I tried to get them for you any-way but the bank would not permit it. If all goes well we will have them paid off this season. Not so bad when you consider that we owed them $14,000.00 on the First of March and have paid them $9,000.00 up to now with only $5,000.00 more to go." (Harriet Cody letter to Betty Katz, November 1937. Betty Katz Papers).
Palos Verdes Tract 1937. From Internet.
Palos Verdes Tract, 1939. From Internet.
Harriet's above discussion of finances begs the question of whether Betty was involved in the purchase of even more Palm Springs property with Harriet in her Palos Verdes Tract which was beginning to be seriously marketed. (See above).
Harriet's next three pages described in great detail Lois's "Perchino Breeding Farm" and a three-day cattle-drive from the ranch to greener pastures on higher ground. The travails of the extremely arduous drive made for fascinating reading indeed. Harriet was thinking all along that her visit would be nothing more than a welcome rest from her work in Palm Springs but was greatly surprised to be conscripted into horseback cattle-herding duty during the hot August Nevada summer.
Harriet closed her captivating missive with;
"Lo came home the next day. I want to go home. This is too strenuous for me. But the cook quit and the indian girl quit, and Lo and Norman and I cook for the gang of men ten days. I finally send to Palm Springs for a woman and while Lo goes to Reno to meet a Mr. Johnson, who is to engineer a sale of her pure-bred stock back in Kansas City, or some such. I hastily take the mail car out to Big Pine and the stage to Los Angeles getting home in due time. Its hot but oh so peaceful. Meantime Shel has concocted an air conditioner which makes desert in the summer reasonably comfortable.
The family, desiring desert furniture for the apartments, grew quite versatile. A ragged old swing, table and chairs, declined by a tenant, were brought in, swing and table repainted by Shel. Unbleached muslin dyed by Pat and inserted by Shel into chair seats. Umbrella washed and renovated by Shel. Lawn furniture re-varnished by Shel. Swing awnings and cushions recovered by Harriet. Couch cover dyed by Pat, sewed by Harriet, nailed on by Shel. Until we've got quite a yard. See pictures, when taken. (Author's note: Harriet is possibly describing in this paragraph improvements on her own cottage on the site of the Casa Cody in Palm Springs.).
I'll let the kids write you their doings, they'll do them better justice. I gave your address and a letter to the tract people. I would've taken care of it for you but I just couldn't.
Love you lots. Hope to see you and Geoffrey soon. In all my lengthy screed about Lois's animals did I tell you she had the best Percheron mare in the States and a filly and stallion colt for each of which I hear she has refused $1,000. I gather she flew east to the sale and had a visit with Peanut [Florence True].
Come back soon.LoveHarriet (Ibid.)
Lois Kellogg purchased the Chatovich Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada in 1935 for the main purpose of breeding Borzoi dogs and raising cattle. She immediately changed the name of the ranch to the Perchino Breeding Farm. From Palm Springs she took her black stallion, white Charolais short-horned bulls and at least 20 of her Borzois to the ranch. Harriet described in her above letter the Borzois having the run of Lois's ranch and having to evict four dogs from her room.
"Unsurpassed Building Record," Desert Sun, April 9, 1937, Second Section
What Harriet did not mention was the completion of some cottages for her new hotel Casa Cody. She commisioned her deceased husband's old architectural firm of Myron Hunt to complete the project not long after she had purchased four surplus cottages from the Los Angeles 1932 Olympic Village and relocated them adjacent to her and Harold's original 1916 cottage on Cahuilla Road.
A row of cottages at the Los Angeles Olympic Village, Baldwin Hills, 1932. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
"Located in Baldwin Hills at the end of West Vernon Place and west of Crenshaw Boulevard, the Olympic Village consisted of 550 portable houses designed and built by H.O. Davis, each measuring 24 by 10 feet. Each house contained two 10x10-foot rooms with a connecting shower. Each room housed two athletes, with two beds, two chairs, a dresser, and a lavatory bowl. The Olympic Committee only charged the athletes $2 a night to stay in the village. At the end of the games all portable units were sold for $140, or $215 if furnished." ("The First Ever Olympic Village Was in Los Angeles" by AbbyChin-Martin, KCET, July 26, 2012).
The relocated units were perfect for Harriet's needs and provided a steady source income to replace that of her livery stable. She in 1936-7 consolidated her four Olympic Village units with her and Harold's original cottage, and the cottages built by Hunt & Chambers into the Casa Cody located at 175 S. Cahuilla Road, now the oldest continuously operating hotel in the city of Palm Springs. She financed construction of the new cottages by selling 30 acres of property at the corner of Palm Canyon and Indio Roads. Soon thereafter, Harriet merged the original Reginald Pole adobe she had acquired from Francis Crocker. At its peak, the hotel grew into a facility with 37 total rooms. (See discussion later below). ("30 Acre Cody Corner Sold for $50,000 Dollars," Desert Sun, October 16, 1936, p. 1).
Casa Cody ad, illustrating the 1937 Myron Hunt cottages date and publication unknown. From "Women With a Vision in Palm Springs," Palm Springs Life, February 27, 2013.
Ranch Development for Lois Kellogg, Beaumont, 1931. Designed by Lloyd Wright. From Lloyd Wright Collection, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Courtesy of architectural historian Luke Leuschner.
Likely satisfied with Lloyd Wright's 1927 and 1929 landscaping projects at "Fool's Folly," Lois Kellogg commissioned him again to design a ranch development in Banning in 1931 that remained unbuilt. She desparately needed a ranch to start breeding her Borzois since she cancelled her partnership in the Valley Farm Kennels in Stamford, Connecticut in 1929. The development never came to fruition. For some unknown reason Kellogg instead chose to board her dogs and horses at a nearby facility in Banning running up a tab of almost $80,000 for boarding up to 117 dogs and horses for a five year period between 1930 and 1935.
Then in 1939 she again hired Wright to design and build a grain mill on her Nevada ranch which she had purchased in 1935 and renamed it Perchino Breeding Farms. An architectural roll of plans for the grain mill designed by Frank Lloyd Wright of Beverly Hills was found in a wall section by the next owner Tim Haffen. (Oral History Interview of M. Kent "Tim" Haffen conducted by Robery McCracken, 1988).
It was likely through Reginald Pole or his neighbor Harriet Cody, or during one of Lloyd Wright's visits to Pole's adobe with his Pole's wife Helen that Pearl McCallum McManus met Lloyd and commissioned him to design her Oasis Hotel in 1923. Harriet would have likely met Lloyd during one of her visits to Reginald Pole's neighboring adobe. It was also perhaps through Harriet and/or Betty that McManus hired Schindler to draw up her original subdivision plan in 1930 as seen earlier above). (Author's note: Lloyd Wright married Reginal Pole's first wife Helen Taggart whose mother also owned property in the desert near Palm Springs.)
Reginald Pole Adobe on the site of Casa Cody, nw corner of Arenas Ave. and Cahuilla Rd., Palm Springs. 1917. From Casa Cody ad on the internet.
The below 1935 article in the Desert Sun reports that Lloyd Wright's then cronies, Shakespearean dramatist and playwright Reginald Pole and soon-to-be New York Metropolitan Opera star Lawrence Tibbett, as building an adobe house for Pole in 1916 about the time he married one of his drama students, Helen Taggart. (See much more on this in my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles".).
"Francis Crocker, local manager of the Southern Sierras Power Company, has purchased the Frank Lloyd Wright (sic) home on Arenas Road, one of the oldest homes in Palm Springs. The house, built, in 1916, was designed by [Harold] (William) sic Cody, well-known architect. Lawrence Tibbett, now famous grand opera star, assisted Reginald Pole, famous playwright, in digging the cellar and mixing the adobe. This was before either of them had won national fame. Among the noted people who have lived in the house are Charlie Chaplin and Nazimova." (Desert Sun, March 1, 1935). (Author's note: Charlie Chaplin traveled in the same circle as Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, Reginald Pole and Lloyd Wright in the late 1910s. Alla Nazimova preceded Betty Katz as an object of Eva La Gallienne's affection as can be seen earlier herein. Lawrence Tibbett was only 20 years old when he assisted on Pole's house.).
Pole stayed at Nellie Coffman's Desert Inn (see below) when he first arrived from San Francisco via Tahiti to the U.S. desert in 1914 to recuperate from tuberculosis. Reginald Pole came to Palm Springs from San Francisco after first corresponding with Fanny Stevenson, the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. Pole was on a quest searching for a climate to help cure his tuberculosis. He obtained high praise from Stevenson who wrote from the Desert Inn that she paid $20 a week for room and board, and the tent houses were "as comfortable as one could wish." (From Palm Springs Life 1960-61 Annual Pictorial, p. 29. Pole also reminisced of this time in an oral history located at the Palm Springs Historical Society graciously transcribed and shared by historian Luke Leuschner.).
Pole departed to England later that year. Returning from England permanently in 1915, perhaps to avoid the war and also intrigued by the desert and its climate, Pole purchased three lots from the McManuses adjacent to property that architect Harold Cody and his wife Harriet were also building their first house. Pole enlisted the help of his drama student Lawrence Tibbett to build his adobe cottage just to the left of the below photo adjacent to what would become the Casa Cody Hotel. Lloyd Wright was in 1916-17 a landscape architect collaborating with Paul Theine in Los Angeles and also working as head of set design for Paramount Pictures.
Nellie Coffman's Desert Inn, Palm Springs, 1913.
Tent cabins at the Desert Inn, ca. 1914. (From Palm Springs Life 1960-61 Annual Pictorial, p. 29.).
Martha Taggart Residence, 5423 Live Oak Dr., Los Angeles, designed by Lloyd Wright, 1921.
Reginald Pole ca. 1926 with son Rupert at mother-in-law Martha Taggart's house designed by Lloyd Wright in 1921. (Author's note: Lloyd Wright married Pole's es-wife Helen Taggart 1n 1927. Rupert Pole grew up to marry Anais Nin and had a house designed by Lloyd Wright's son Eric Lloyd Wright).
Reginald Pole Adobe, Palm Springs, 1917. Photo by Will Connell. From Lloyd Wright Archive, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. I am extremely grateful to architectural historian Luke Leuschner for sharing these photos.
Reginald Pole was a well known Shakespearean actor, dramatist, lecturer and poet with many famous friends, some of whom came to visit him and his first wife Helen at his winter home seen above and below, including John Cowper Powys, Lawrence Tibbett, Lloyd Wright, Charles Chaplin and Madame Alla Nazimova.
Reginald Pole Adobe, Palm Springs, 1917. Photo by Will Connell. (Ibid.).
As mentioned elsewhere herein, Reginald Pole built the above adobe house in 1917 with the help of Lawrence Tibbett using adobe blocks provided by Agua Caliente Indians Lee Arenas and Ramon Manuel. Lloyd Wright stayed here on at least a few occasions with Helen Taggart Pole while her husband Reginald was in New York involved with Broadway productions during the winter months of the early 1920s where he also met and fell in love with Beatrice Wood. Pole did not feel guilty because his best friend Lloyd Wright was there to help Helen if needed. (From I Shock Myself: The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood, Chronicle, 1985 by Beatrice Wood, p. 63. Author's note: Lloyd Wright designed stage sets for at least three of Pole's Ibsen productions at Frank Egan's Little Theater in Los Angeles in 1920.)
Pole would come back to Los Angeles to perform in the Pilgrimage Play every summer. It is
almost a certainty that Lloyd Wright took his father to the Pilgrimage Play Theatre to
view a performance of the "Pilgrimage Play" starring Pole as
Judas. This is evidenced by an excerpt from his Olive Hill weekly report, "[Reginald]
Poel sends his best and was sorry not to have seen you off. Expects to put on
Shakespeare's "Hamlet" at the Trinity Auditorium next month. (LW to
FLW (Tokyo) ca. late August 1921. Frank Lloyd Wright Correspondence, Getty
Research Institute).
Rendering of The Oasis Hotel, designed by Lloyd Wright, 1923. Old MacCallum Adobe front center.
Lloyd Wright, Pearl and Austin McManus and contractor Quinn Spalding beginniing construction on the Oasis Hotel, 1924. Photographer unknown
Oasis Hotel floor plan by Lloyd Wright, architect, 1924. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
Oasis Hotel elevations by Lloyd Wright, architect, 1924. Ibid.
Lloyd employed a slip-form system that he learned from his mentor Irving Gill in the 1910's to construct the reinforced concrete walls of the hotel. It is not clear whether he preceded Schindler's (and Clyde Chace's) use of the same method in his Pueblo Ribera Apartments in La Jolla in 1923. ("Lloyd Wright, Architect" p. 72. See more on Lloyd's employment with Gill at my "Irving Gill, Homer Laughlin and the Beginnings of Modern Architecture in Los Angeles, Part II, 1911-1916). (Author's note: Clyde Chace and his wife "Kimmie" lived with Irving Gill in 1921 while helping to build his Horatio West Court in Santa Monica.).
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Oasis Hotel, Palm Springs, Lloyd Wright, architect, 1924.
Original MacCallum Adobe on the site of the Oasis Hotel, Will Connell photo. California Southland, December 1928, p. 26.
"The adobe is the simple unit with wooden posts and shingle roof, so familiar in our revival today. It was the first house in Palm Springs and was occupied for forty years by the former owners who added the tower and twenty rooms designed by Lloyd Wright in the style of his father Frank Lloyd Wright and was made noble in modern concrete. An original feature is the use of green lattice which seems to form the entire dining room and appears here and there in the tower and contemporary wings."(Ibid.).
Oasis Hotel Dining Room designed by Lloyd Wright, architect, 1923. From Lloyd Wright, Architect by David Gebhard, UC-Santa Barbara, 1971, p. 15.
Oasis Hotel Ding Room designed by Lloyd Wright, 1924. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
During the construction of Pearl McCallum McManus's original Oasis Hotel in 1924, the Reginald Pole adobe adjacent to Harriet Cody's house was inhabited by architect Lloyd Wright. He would have undoubtedly befriended nextdoor neighbor Harriet Cody and her circle of friends including Betty Katz and Lois Kellogg and if he had not already made their acquaintance in Los Angeles or during previous visits to Reginald Pole. (For much more do a "Lloyd Wright" page search in my "R. M. Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles").
"It is not clear if Wright owned the adobe or merely rented it from Pole, but it became known locally from that point forward as the mythical "Frank Lloyd Wright Adobe." Opera and film star Lawrence Tibbett had an unusual history with the house. As a young man, unknown in the theatrical world, he helped build the house, digging the basement and mixing adobe for the bricks. Decades later, he would actually periodically stay in his friend Reginald Pole's old adobe after achieving fame in the New York Metropolitan Opera and Hollywood." (City of Palm Springs Citywide Historic Resource Inventory, 330 W. Arenas Rd. via Steve Vaught). (Author's note: Lloyd Wright also designed projects for Lawrence, Grace and Jane Tibbett. Lloyd Wright Papers, Online Archive of California and Lloyd Wright, Architect, pp. 76-77).
Reginald Pole Adobe, Palm Springs, 1917. Photo by Will Connell. Lloyd Wright Archive, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. I am grateful to architectural historian Luke Leuschner for sharing this photo.
Pole related in his oral history,
"Three years after I first came to Palm Springs, in 1917, I decided I needed a residence in Palm Springs where I could work and invite my Los Angeles friends. That year I started to build an adobe house on three lots that I bought from the McManuses. I got the adobe bricks from Indians, Lee Arenas and Ramon [Manuel] and a couple others who made them, 50 pound bricks. We had a great time building that house in 1917. We built it during the summer, and didn’t have gas or electricity. We built an L-shaped adobe house with two bedrooms and a living room, and Tibett brought a Steinway piano from Los Angeles and we built a little platform for it to perform recitals. John Galsworthy (dramatist/novelist), John Maysfield (poet laureate of England), and John Cowper Powys all visited. I built the house myself, and Lawrence Tibbett helped build it for a couple months. I paid Tibbett $3 a day and Tibbett says those were some of the happiest days of his life. (Reginald Pole Oral History, Palm Springs Historical Society graciously transcribed by historian Luke Leuschner. Author's note: Lloyd Wright designed houses and furniture for Lawrence Tibbett in Beverly Hills and for Grace Tibbett in Bakersfield in 1937. John Cowper Powys visted Pole and his pregnant wife Helen in Palm Springs for a week in the spring of 1918.).
John Cowper Powys by Edward Weston, 1918. From Sarah Bixby Collection, Rancho Los Cerritos Historic Site.
Lois and canteen ca. 1921. From PSHS.
Pole went on to describe Lois Kellogg as a:
"Very strange character. When she first came to Palm Springs she was most interested in Russian ballets. She was graceful herself, had graceful charm and emotion. Great character around the village. Always wore very charming knickerbockers, tight knee britches, which were quite unusual at that time." (Ibid.)
MacCallum Adobe, 1915. From Palm Springs Historical Society.
Of Pearl McManus, nee MacCallum, Pole reminisced,
"Pearl McCallum (McManus) was living there at the time, and I spent many evenings in her adobe. And then I would go onto Ms. Stevenson’s which was two or three houses down and she would reminiscence about her time with Robert Louis Stevenson." (Ibid.).
Reginald Pole from 1926 article "Two Little Theaters in Prospect for Hollywood" by H. O. Stechhan, California Graphic, 1926.
It was most likely through Reginald Pole's largesse that Lloyd Wright got the commission to design the stage settings for the 1926 production of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" at the Hollywood Bowl. They made a perfect team for this production based on Lloyd's Hollywood movie studio stage set experience and Pole's lifelong training as a Sheakespearean actor, teacher and Broadway producer. Pole assisted stage manager Steve De Grasse while Lloyd's stage settings were considered unique in that they would
"Use the complete Bowl stage and extend into the surrounding hills of Hollywood, 400 ft. across, and running back and up to the rim of the skyline. Since the bowl seats 20,000, everything is planned on the biggest scale possible so that all may see and enjoy." ("Two Little Theaters in Prospect for Hollywood" by H. O. Stechhan, California Graphic, 1926).).
Hollywood Bowl with Lloyd Wright's stage setting design for the September 1926 production of Shakespeare.
Night view of Lloyd Wright's stage setting design for the September 1926 production of Shakespeare at the Hollywood Bowl.
Bowl to Stage Tragedy on Magnificent Scale, Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1926, p. 1.
Florence True passport application attested to by Ellen True, August 21, 1921. From FamilySearch.
Ellen True Rookery Tents, Palm Springs, 1924. Lloyd Wright, architect. From "Lloyd Wright, Architect" p. 17.
Shortly after Lloyd Wright started work on the Oasis Hotel for Pearl McManus he received in 1924 a commisssion to design some rookery tent houses for Lois Kellogg's best life-long friend Florence True's sister Ellen. Ellen was a librarian in the prestgious John Crear Library in Chicago. She also vouched for Florence's 1921 passport application which she used to travel to Europe with Lois. True perhaps envisioned a small motel of sorts on a mountain-side site somewhere near "Fool's Folly" in Palm Springs and asked Lloyd to design five rookery-tent houses. Only one was eventually built and no longer survives. (Lloyd Wright, Architect by David Gebhard, UC-Santa Barbara, 1971, p. 85. Author's note: The mountain-side tents perhaps inspired the hillside sets for Julius Caesar at the Hollywood Bowl that Lloyd collaborated with Pole on two years later.).
Rookery Tents for Ellen True, Palm Springs Club, Lloyd Wright architect. Lloyd Wright Archives, UCLA via Luke Leuschner.
Plan for a Tent House and Oasis, unknown client, North Palm Springs. Designed by Lloyd Wright, architect. Lloyd Wright Papers, Online Archive of California.
Lloyd Wright playing piano at Ocotilla Desert Camp, 1929.
The rookery tent-houses with their wood frames and canvas roofs were possibly a precursor to the above Ocatilla Desert Camp tent houses which Lloyd Wright helped his father establish in Chandler, Arizona in 1929. Lloyd worked on the studies and working drawings for the camp in 1927. (From "Lloyd Wright, Architect" by David Gebhard and Harriete von Breton, p. 71-73. Author's note: Lloyd also provided canvas awnings on the Oasis Hotel in 1924 and likely could have provided the canvas awnings for the other buildings at "Fool's Folly". Lloyd would have consciously built upon Schindler's idea for outdoor sleeping porches at his Kings Road House in 1922.).
Prototype House for Pearl McManus designed by Lloyd Wright, 1925-6. From Lloyd Wright, Architect, p. 22.
Lloyd Wright also designed an unbuilt prototype Palm Springs house for Pearl McManus in 1925-1926 as part of Pearl’s vision for a subdivision of "modern" houses, perhaps intended for her land which she in 1930 commissioned R. M. Schindler to prepare a preliminary subdivision map. (See earlier above). Lloyd went further with the walled courtyard in his unbuilt house for McManus which could easily be converted to a living-room by partially covering it in canvas. (City of Palm Springs Citywide Historic Context Statement and Survey Findings, p. 67).
"Part of McManus’ vision for the development of Palm Springs during this period included the idea for the first residential subdivision in Palm Springs utilizing modern architecture. In 1925, she approached Lloyd Wright whom she had engaged to design the Oasis Hotel to design a “prototype house” for a subdivision that McManus, herself, described as “very modern.” Wright’s designs for the model house reveal the expressive modern, yet pre-Columbian influenced forms and decoration he used in the Samuel-Navarro Residence in Los Angeles (1926-1928). Yet, it is unclear from the drawings if the geometric decoration was intended as textured concrete block or stenciled detailing. Regardless, the plan for “prototype house for Palms Springs” features rooms organized around a walled-in and covered patio integrating interior and exterior space. Whether it was due to construction costs or other factors is unknown, but the homes were never built." (Ibid. p.66).
Barker Brothers Demonstration House for Pearl and August McManus, Tahquitz Park Acres, 1938. Charles O. Matcham, architect. Desert Sun, January 28, 1938.
The McManus's were seemingly not enamored by Lloyd's 1926 design but instead commissioned a "demonstration house" collaborating with Barker Brothers to help market the lots in their Tahquitz Park Acres subdivision they referred to in their period real estate ads as "old Palm Springs." The house was sold with much publicity in 1939 for $35,000. (Desert Sun, January 20, 1939).
Miriam Lerner wrote to Schindler from New York in early 1936 with the purpose of unloading her Walcott Way lot.
"Dear Michael
At various times I have talked about you here in New York and inquired into the state of your health from visiting Californians. And I have followed such of your work as has been exhibited here in New York at the Museumof Modern Art and elsewhere. But perhaps you do not need this assurance of the greenness of your memory.
A month or so ago I was talking to Margaret Legere, on the eve of her departure to Los Angeles. And what do you think we were talking about? Our respective lots in California - not in life but what is known as real property. Do you remember my lot in Edendale, unobstructed view forever, full-grown wild oaks, wild floweres in the spring?Barbara gave me an idea. She said architects sometimes just love to know of such places where they could build houses for prospective clients.
I remember once you told I could or rather you could build me a charming house with a balcony on my lot for next to nothing. I don't own the house any more, but I do and have owned the lot next door since 1922. And I never seem to come back to California to live. So I believe with Henry George that someone else ought to live there. And I believe it so thoroughly now, that I would practically give the lot away. It's 50 x 125 and reached via Alessandro Blvd. and Whitmore Street to El Moran Street. Next to 2228 El Moran. I think if someone offered me $300. for it, I'd take it on terms, too.
I hope you build a lot of houses in the new year and that you want to build on my lot too. (The lot, by the way, is clear of mortgages. The taxes are $9.00 per year, all paid up, and there is a yearly assessment which has four more years to run, at about $25.00 a year.).
Don't you ever come back to New York?Very Best Greetings. Miriam Lerner" (Miriam Lerner to R. M. Schindler, January 5, 1936. Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara).
Schindler replied a few weeks later.
"Miriam LernerN.Y.C.
My neglect in answering you should be a proof that I am still a friend of yours. These past few weeks have been filled with business, leaving no thought for other things.
I remember your lot and I shall try to find a buyer for you. Times are looking up and I think it will be easy to dispose of in the near future.
Why should you abandon California for ever? I do not see how anyone can permanently live in N.Y. My last visit there in 1931 has remained a bad memory.
Greetings" (R. M. Schindler to Miriam Lerner, February 8, 1936. Schindler Collection).
Miriam Lerner letter to R. M. Schindler, Aprl 29, 1939. From Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
Nothing materialized after this initial exchange of letters. Miriam finally moved back to Los Angeles in 1943 upon marrying a former Schindler client Louis Fisher. Betty and Brandy also married in 1943.
Miriam wrote Schindler again about the possibility of building a house for herself and her new husband
"Dear Michael
I have just moved back to Los Angeles to make my home here, with my husband, and should very much like to talk to you about the possibility of you building us a house on my Edendale lots. Or if not a house, a temporary shelter out of non-priority materials, glass or cobwebs or whatnot. I am sure that, by this time, you have already thought up some substitutes. And since you are the one hillside artist, I would let no one but you touch it." (Miriam Lerner to R. M. Schindler, September 7, 1943. Schindler Collection).
Miriam continued offering ideas on how to possibly scrounge some building materials in those times of war shortages. Schindler drew up some plans (see below) but materials were apparently still too tight to progress into the construction stage and the house was never built.
Fisher (Lerner) House, 1951 Walcott Way, Edendale, R. M. Schindler, architect, 1943-1945. From Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara.
The Salvation of Pisco Gabar by Geoffrey Household, Chatto & Windus, London, 1938.
In 1939 Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male was serialized in four installments in the Atlantic Monthly in New York and in one volume by Chatto & Windus in London.
The Atlantic, August 1939 containing the first of four installments of Geoffrey Household's first adult novel "Rogue Male."
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, Chatto & Windus, First English Edition, London, May 1939.
The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories by Geoffrey Household, First American Edition, Litle-Brown, Boston, 1940.
Betty left England in 1939 as the war buildup began and Geoffrey, with his command of languages, qualified as an officer in the British Army in Field Security. Betty came back to Los Angeles to negotoiate the contact for Geoffrey for the movie rights to Rogue Male. Household was sent back to Romania with a plan for destroying the oil fields before the Nazi invasion. From there he was shifted to Greece, Syria, Palestine and Persia. Betty was eventually successful in selling the movie rights to Twentieth Century Fox. In 1941 the book was adapted into a screenplay for the movie "Man Hunt" directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pigeon and Joan Bennett.
Man Hunt movie poster, 1941.
Back in Los Angeles with plenty of time apart from Geoffrey due to the war, Betty realized that their marriage had finally run it's course. She decided that her only remaining task was to ensure Geoffrey's hard work remained alive. She was quoted by Hollywood reporter in an article reprinted in the Daily Alaska Empire,
"If I can help to keep the work he's already done alive here then he will come back to a living career - he will have wonderful work ahead because his best writing is out of strife and action. He is stimulated by it rather than shocked into silence, as many sensitive writers are..." (Hollywood: Sights and Sounds by Robin Coons, Daily Alaska Empire, May 16, 1941, p. 3.
Manola Court Apartments, 1815 Edgecliff Ave., Los Angeles, designed by R. M. Schindler for Herman Sachs, 1926. Photographer unknown.
The Manola Court apartment building was designed in 1926 for Schindler's Chicago friend Herman Sachs. Upon returning from England Betty moved into Manola Court where Sachs had been living with Wyn Ritchie. After Sachs' untimely death in 1940 Betty and Brandy pooled their resources and purchased the building. Shortly after this Harriet Cody commissioned Schindler one more time to create an officer's club out of her property known as Cody Corner at Indian Canyon Road and Indio Highway. (Palm Springs History: Architect Rudolph Schindler's Strange and Varied Clients in the Desert by Tracy Conrad, Desert Sun, February 29, 2022.).
Palm Springs Officer's Club for Harriet Cody, 1942. Architect R. M. Schindler. Schindler Collection, UC-Santa Barbara, via architectural historian, Luke Leschner.
On May 31, 1943 Geoffrey signed over all his future royalty rights from Little-Brown to Elisaveta Kopelanoff as acknowledgment for alimony for the length of their marriage since 1930. Betty and Brandy were married in 1943. Miriam Lerner married the same year to Louis Fisher. (Geoffrey Household letter to Elisaveta Kopelanoff, May 31, 1943. Betty Katz Papers).
After living at Manola Court for 13 years, Brandy designed a house for himself and Betty at 3701 Landa in 1953. The new house was less than a block north of their apartment building.
Take posing in front of the Brandner House, 5701 Landa St. Los Angeles. Alexander "Brandy" Brandner, architect, 1953. Photographer unknown. From the Betty Katz Papers.
Betty and Brandy for two years had a live-in Japanese cook and housekeeper, Take (see above), who had two small sons and a husband who all lived in their downstairs guest apartment. (Aunt Betty bio by Martin Lessow. Betty Katz Papers).
"Brandy" on his patio, 3701 Landa, ca. 1960. Betty Katz Papers.
Brandy died in 1962 after which Ward Ritchie Press posthumously published a book of his poems titled Zoologistics in 1963. This places Brandner within the circles of Jake Zeitlin, Kem Weber, Lloyd Wright, and the Zamorano and Rounce & Coffin Clubs. Betty continued to live in their Landa Avenue house until 1977 when she made one last move to Leisure World where she passed away in 1984.
Zoologistics by Alexander Brandner, Ward Ritchie Press, Los Angeles, 1963.
In 1947 Betty recieved a letter from The New Leader managing editor Liston Oak, an old friend from her time in New York with Miriam in the early 1930s. Liston fondly reminisced,
"Dear Betty
Going through my desk looking for something else I came upon your letter written last April. I reread it and felt glad all over again to hear from you. It was a good letter. So much is betrayed or understood by a phrase, and all your phrases were good.
When I think of California sunshine, and the fertility of the earth there, and all the other qualities that the State in which I was born possesses, I am occasionally filled with nostalgia. But then I realize sunshine and flowers and the fruitfulness of the earth do not induce serenity, or peace of mind. I have just seen the play "No Exit," by the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, in which he says, in effect, that there is no escape from -- ourselves. We create our heaven or hell. His characters could not find an exit from hell because they were completely selfish, intoleran or were unwilling to help each other escape. Sunshine doesn't help, nor flowerse or fruit.
I am very glad that you find love and companionship with your husband. I wish I had a wife of whom I could write about in those terms. I am also happy that Miriam has found some measure of satisfaction, an anchor in a terror-tossed world. Give her my love. New York is not the same since she is gone.
I find a decent manner of satisfaction in my job, because I think The New Leader is the best magazine in the world, but I am terribly afraid that what we stand for is on the retreat in this our terror-torn earth. I have a feeling of the futility and the frustration of the whole liberal-socialist-labor-anarchist movement. It is getting nowhere fast. Soviet imperialism still sweeps ahead and in opposition there is nothing but British Labor Government bungling in Palestine and Greece and American bungling in Germany. And the reactionaries are in the ascendency in the USA. I prefer British and American imperialism but who can be enthusiastic about such a choice of lesser evils?
I shall always remember hours spent with you; they are precious. You are a lovely person and I shall hope that you shall come to New York or I shall come to Los Angeles and we shall see each other once again.
With love,
Liston" (Liston Oak to Betty Katz, January 4, 1947. Betty Katz Papers).
After congratulating Betty and Miriam on their good fortune in finding mates, Liston Oak presciently previewed the political problems that we are still faced with today.
Miriam Lerner ca. 1940. Photographer unknown. From Betty Katz Papers.
Elisaveta Kopelanoff at Fool's Folly ca. 1939.
Betty and Miriam were close lifelong friends who shared a passion for witing which was evident in their lifelong correspondence. Betty in particular, was very involved in the early development of many famous people including Eva LaGallienne, Rex Stout, Rockwell Kent, and Geoffrey Household. The 1920 portraits of Betty and 1925 portraits of Miriam played an important role in the evolution of the career of Edward Weston while R. M. Schindler also designed houses for both women. Being deeply intertwined with the lives of Edward Weston, the Schindlers and their circles, Betty and Miriam added greatly to the bohemian avant-garde fabric of Los Angeles.
Elisaveta Kopelanoff, 1941. Photographer unknown. Betty Katz Papers.
Afterward:
Lois Kellogg eventually exhausted her inheritance and in 1937 sheriffs
seized "Fool’s Folly" because of her indebtedness.
Once again in 1939, at forty-five years of age, she inherited the principle
of her grandmother’s estate, paid off some of her debts, and continued working with Lloyd Wright on her Nevada ranch development plans. In less than three years she was broke again and
the sheriff' seized her ranch. This time she had to resort to selling her mother's home in Chicago as a 1942 letter from Betty to Lloyd Wright revealed.
Betty had joined Lois and a herd of her Borzois then in hiding from the bill collectors in Peekskill, New York where she was considering what to do after her Nevada ranch was seized. She was contemplating building a modest house on Long Island and asked Betty to contact Lloyd to begin planning while she traveled to Chicago to investigate the legalities of selling the house she had inherited from her mother. In an excerpt from the letter Betty wrote,
" ... She went over to Chicago last week to see the bank with regard to letting her sell the Chicago house and reinvest the capital here[Long Island]. ... However the bank gave her no answer as yet. They would have to take it up with vice-president and let her know if her particular trust fund allows such a transaction. I am hoping that it does, and that Lois will go out west and get to-gether with you and work out the plan. You will grasp what she wants as soon as you talk to her. I feel that Lois needs a change from these kennels and ought to take a trip to the coast. I am willing to stay and play nursemaid to the wolfhounds, if she will do it.... Meanwhile accept my apology for not having written this much sooner, and here is hoping that the bank will see fit to let Lois have the money to build." (Typed letter signed, n.d. ca. 1942, from Betty Kopelanoff in Peekskill, NY to Lloyd Wright from Lloyd Wright Archive, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA via architectural historian Luke Leuschner.).
Judging from the course of events the last two years of Lois's life, she ended up being allowed to sell her mother's house and used the proceeds to pay enough bills to continue to make a go of it in Nevada instead of building a modest house on Long Island.
Kellogg died in 1944 in a Reno, Nevada hospital, reportedly due to tularemia contracted from a dog bite. A year after her death, all of the assets in her estate, which included many of the elegant articles inherited from her mother and grandmother, were sold at auction in Chicago. Her longtime intimate friend, Florence True, inherited Kellogg’s ranch property in Nevada, and the abandoned "Fool’s Folly" in Palm Springs became a Sunday school.
In 1955 Edward Weston summed up his relationship with Miriam Lerner,
"... How far away our era seems in light of all that has happened. We must be the tough ones. So many have gone - Ramiel, Tina, Margrethe - no use, they played their part, and well."
Gregory Ain to Betty and Brandie, July 5 1963. Betty Katz Papers
Reflecting on many glorious Sunday evening salons and get-togethers at Kings Road in the 1920s and 1930s Gregory Ain, Betty and Brandy were certainly among the regulars who forged lifelong friendships. In the above letter referencing his new position as Head of the Arts and Architecture Department at Penn Stae University Ain mentions fellow Schindler apprentice Eddie Lind who was also seemingly among the favored Schindler's coterie.
Brandner-Kopelanoff House, 3701 Landa, Los Angeles. From Google Maps, 2023.
After Brandy's death in February of 1965 Betty traveled to France one last time. Upon returning in October to the house Brandy proudly designed at 3701 Landa she found that many magazines and letters had piled up. In opening and processing the mail she ran across a photo of Rex Stout in the Saturday Review of Literature which caused her to write a four-page missive reminiscing and marveling on the beauty of Paris and rueing not looking him up while she was in New York. Since the quite literary letter was still among her papers upon her death, she seemingly wanted to keep their erstwhile romance a thing of the past. (4-page handwritten letter from Betty Kopelanoff in Los Angeles unsent to Rex Stout in New York, October 15, 1965. Betty Katz Papers.).