By Barbara Bliss, Grandchild of Marshall Field III

To be a child visiting Caumsett was better than taking a trip to Disneyland today. As we would drive up the endless driveway my brother and sisters and I would feel our little hearts beating in anticipation. The trip from our house in Manhasset took a long time by kids’ standards, so the "When are we going to get there?"s and all the beer bottle songs were played out by the time we drew up to the courtyard in front of the main house. As we passed the stables my mother would always tell the story of how many of the guests at her coming-out party mistakenly drove up to the stables instead of the main house. The stable buildings were handsome enough to understand their confusion.

My grandparents would meet us at the steps, and after the obligatory kisses and hugs we would immediately run to ride the red-bugs, a group of electric cars which my grandfather kept on the estate. They ran on planks raised a foot from the ground, and their batteries were constantly charged by the chauffeur. They each seated two people and there was always a fight over who was going to get to drive. We would ride the red-bugs endlessly until we were rounded up for lunch. Imagine the freedom to go anywhere on 1,500 acres when we were years away from having a driver’s license.

While we were whizzing around in the red bugs the grown-ups would begin a game of croquet on the great lawn across from the front steps. My grandfather and his wife played serious English croquet with narrow wickets, and there was no fooling around. As we grew a little older we were allowed to join in their games.

After lunch, weather permitting, we would go down to the pool house and change into our bathing suits. On informal days we would eat lunch at the pool house which, besides changing rooms, showers and bathrooms, had a fully equipped kitchen. Before swimming, if one of the older kids were around (meaning my mother’s half sisters or their half brothers, Harry and Bobby Phipps), we would take a spin in the motorboat, which was tied to the dock near the pool house. Or we would hack away at our not-so-terrific tennis on the courts near the pool.

When I was fifteen I was included in such after-dinner games as charades or Twenty Questions. The Field family was highly competitive and it didn’t bode well for your popularity if you weren’t stellar at games. I wasn’t but luckily, I could sing and somehow I was able to redeem myself from my lack of gaming skills. Backgammon, Bridge, Canasta, and chess were great favorites also. Since I was a beginner at Backgammon and Canasta and didn’t know Chess or Bridge, I was not allowed to the inner sanctum. During one of the question games I remember how terrible I felt when fourteen-year old Frankie Fitzgerald, put me to shame by rattling off the names of all of Verdi’s early operas. I was supposed to be the singer and musician and I had never heard of most of them. Her stepfather, Ronald Tree, a cousin of my grandfather’s, used the winter cottage on my grandfather’s estate as a weekend home. Frankie, however, did later write Fire In the Lake, one of the early definitive books on Vietnam, so I feel better when I think back on my early humiliation.

Easter egg hunts at Caumsett were unforgettable. There were so many hiding places in the bushes and trees and especially in the rose garden to the side of the house, that we would return to the adults with baskets overflowing with multicolored eggs, small stuffed animals, and jelly beans that had been carefully and strategically hidden by members of in immense staff.

Occasionally, one of the grandchildren would be invited to spend the night, and in the morning you could look forward to fresh clotted cream and butter from the estate’s own dairy farm. (When my mother was a child she contracted brucellosis from unpasteurized milk from the farm.)

When it was my turn to spend the night I usually stayed with my mother’s younger half sister, Fiona. Fiona was a very good rider and we would take out her ponies in the professional ring. The ring was set up to practice for horse shows with all the required jumps and hedges. I wasn’t advanced enough to keep up, so I followed Fiona around on the outside path of the ring and watched as she took the jumps. Other times we would go to the kennels with the house Springer spaniels and let the hunting dogs out for a run. On one particular weekend I remember following the gamekeeper as he set up the blinds for the weekend pheasant shoot. He once even set up the skeet traps for me, but black sheep that I was in a family of cracker-jack shots, I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger and wasted a dozen clay pigeons before the gamekeeper gave up on me.

My personal favorite thing was to watch, not play, the tennis at the indoor court. There was an upstairs gallery with chintz-covered sofas and club chairs, gaming tables, and a complete kitchen and bar. A member of the staff was always there to serve us drinks and sandwiches or pastries. The echo of the plop, plop of the balls going over the net had a special sound that resonates in my memory even today.

I didn’t always enjoy these sleepovers because, as always, there was competition over everything. Who could write the best story or draw the prettiest picture? The governess would act as the judge. Fiona was nine months older than I was and I think she liked having someone to win against since her own sister, Phyllis, was two years older than she was and very good at games.

I remember the exact moment we were sitting in the bathtub together and Fiona told me that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I had believed in him for a very long time, being the first child and grandchild, and until that moment there had been no one around to prick my bubble.

When I was fifteen I was invited to Phyllis’s coming-out party. It was not held in a tent outdoors as my mother’s had been but inside the grand entrance hall with an orchestra that played on a platform in the right-hand corner. I felt very special being the only grandchild included. Now, suddenly, Phyllis was a sophisticated lady. I had never seen her so grown-up. She’d always had an easy rapport and she wasn’t competitive with me like Fiona. But that night I said good-bye to a piece of my childhood.

I was seventeen when my grandfather died and I saw Caumsett one last time a year later, just before Ruthie, my step grandmother, moved out and turned the pace over to Robert Moses to be preserved as a state park. Of course, since then, I have tramped around the grounds a few times. It saddened me that the indoor court had been torn down as was the pool house. I even found the spigot for the water supply to the pool has long since been filled in with dirt and surrounded by overgrown bushes.

I am happy to know that an active group of private citizens has decided not to let this magnificent place disintegrate and has taken the initiative to restore it to its former glory. Caumsett only existed in its ideal, fully realized state for ten years until 1932, when in the middle of the Great Depression the two wings were torn down, and the staff was retained at half salary. As a private home, Caumsett had a short life of only thirty-five years, but it represented the best of the Gold Coast homes for its elegant and refined taste, both inside and out. It was opulent but not ostentatious, and the Fields shared their good fortune with hundreds of friends and made their weekend visits a time to remember—that is, if you liked games.

 

1. A Grandchild Remembers Caumsett