What on earth does the Harkness family have to do with Taylor Swift you ask?
Well, in 1948 at the age of 46, William (Bill) Hale Harkness and his new wife Rebekah aged 31, bought the property named High Watch, located in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. They renamed it Holiday House. Bill was the grandson of Daniel M. Harkness, half-brother of Henry Flagler and Stephen V. Harkness who were 2 of the 5 original founders of Standard Oil along with JD Rockefeller. Confused? Click here to see how this all connects.
Rebekah had two children from her first marriage, a son Allen and a daughter Terry. There were no children from Bill's first marriage.
Bill and Rebekah then had a daughter, Edith who was born October 24, 1948. The children all loved Bill and he enjoyed them. Bill loved to play squash but that didn't work well with a heart condition. Even though doctors had warned him about playing, he kept up the squash. Unfortunately, after 6 years of marriage to Rebekah and one last squash match, Bill passed away from a heart attack at the young age of 54. That left Rebekah to her own whims with around $30 Million ($380 million in today's dollars) to play with, which had severe consequences. It also left the children with a less-than-attentive mother.
Rebekah was historically a wild child. She came from a somewhat wealthy St. Louis family. She grew up with a group of girls who called themselves the "Bitch Pack". Once Bill passed, Rebekah went back to her "Bitch Pack" ways and started partying and spending. She bought a Ballet Company and funded it for years....losing over $30 Million on just the Harkness Ballet in the end. She also became known for a myriad of eccentric antics such as dying a hanger-on's white cat green with food color, filling her pool with Dom Perignon champagne, riding around town in her "Harkness Blue" Rolls Royce, and redoing Holiday House so it had a bunch of "apartments" with 8 kitchens and 21 baths.
Taylor Swift bought Holiday House in 2013 for $17 Million. The house became infamous for some of the over-the-top Fourth of July parties Taylor had there.
In 2020 Swift paid homage to Bill and Rebekah on her Folklore album with a song titled “The Last Great American Dynasty”. Her depiction of Rebekah is simply that of a misunderstood eccentric. While that was true, her life was much more tragic than that. When she died she had few resources other than her real estate holdings. Her daughter Edith, who had battled mental illness all her life and had often tried to commit suicide, was unfortunately successful with that just a few months after Rebekah passed. Also, her son Allen had been convicted of murder. Want to know more about Rebekah? Click HERE.
Bill Harkness
William Hale (Bill) Harkness was the grandson of Daniel M. Harkness of Bellevue, Ohio. His father, William L. Harkness was also born in Bellevue, Ohio.
In addition to his large Standard Oil inheritance, Bill along with his mother, were initial investors, in 1922, in a fledgling publishing venture launched by two of Bill's Yale friends, Briton Hadden, and Henry R. Luce. The venture was Time, The Weekly News Magazine.
Bill Harkness lived at 740 Park Avenue 12/13d in New York from 1932-1947. His ex-wife Elizabeth obtained the apartment in the divorce and lived there until 1949. He self-published books and logs that he wrote to Edith about his travels. Copies of "Hold that Lion", "Ho Hum the Fisherman" and "Temples and Topees" can still be found for sale, but since they are so rare, they are quite expensive.
Trivia: Bills ex-wife Elizabeth Grant married the actor Robert Montgomery and had three children.
One of her daughters was actress Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha on the Bewitched TV series that ran 1964-1972.
The building at 740 is known as "The World's Richest Apartment Building," having had residents like Rockefeller, Chrysler, and more found here. Will's apartment 12/13D recently sold for $71 Million in 2014. It appears that Will also sold Dosoris on West Island in 1948 to Junius Morgan III (JP Morgan's grandson) possibly as a result of the divorce.
For more about Rebekah Harkness click here.
So many factual errors in this post. I hardly know where to begin. Some research into the names, instead of rehashing someone else’s factual errors would solve a world of problems.