Grey Gardens

In 1923, Edith persuaded her husband to purchase Grey Gardens, a beautiful 28-room mansion overlooking the ocean in East Hampton, NY (a wealthy vacation town on Long Island). At first, the family continued to live most of the time in their home in New York City, but eventually Big Edie and the children began spending increasing amounts of time at Grey Gardens.

Although Phelan Beale did not lose all of his money in the Depression, financial issues were difficult after that. The couple began living separately in the 1930’s, with Big Edie and the children remaining at Grey Gardens.

In 1946, Phelan Beale notified Big Edie by telegram from Mexico that he had obtained a divorce from her, and shortly after that he remarried. (Little Edie referred to this as a “fake Mexican divorce,” pointing out that that it was not recognized by the Catholic Church.)

Little Edie graduated from Miss Porter’s School in 1935. Her debut, which was covered by The New York Times, was held at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

She then spent the next 17 years dating wealthy men (reportedly Joseph Kennedy Jr., J. Paul Getty and Howard Hughes were among them) and modeling, with the hope of achieving a career as an actress and dancer. For a number of years she lived at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City.

As Little Edie became older, her father stated that he did not have the money to continue to support her and – since she did not seem inclined to get married – encouraged her to pursue a business career. Little Edie tried working in offices a few times, but things did not work out.

(In one interview, Little Edie stated that earlier in her life, both her father and Joseph Kennedy Jr. had urged her to become a lawyer but that she had decided she didn’t want to do that.)

In 1952 (the year that Little Edie turned 35), she moved back to Grey Gardens to live with her mother.

Phelan Beale died in 1956. He did not leave any substantial amount of money to his daughter or former wife, and the trust fund of $65,000 that Big Edie had inherited from her father was gradually depleted as a result of taking care of expenses for the house.

Both of Big Edie’s sons attempted repeatedly to persuade her to sell the house and to move somewhere more affordable, but she refused.

Little Edie continued to live with her mother, moving into her 40’s and then her 50’s and losing her hair along the way. Although she attended the Washington D.C. inauguration of President John F. Kennedy (her cousin Jacqueline’s husband) in 1961, over the years she and her mother became increasingly isolated.

By late 1971, Big Edie and Little Edie had been living together in the house for nearly 20 years and the overgrown property had become an eyesore in the neighborhood.

As a result, a team of public servants from the Town of East Hampton broke into the house, stating that they had found dilapidated conditions, large accumulations of garbage and cat feces, no heating, almost no running water, and many cats and raccoons in residence.

The Beales were given an ultimatum of cleaning up the house or being evicted from it.

When contacted by the Board of Health, Bouvier Beale reportedly stated, “You’ve described it very well, but it’s nothing new – Mother is the original hippie.”

Phelan Beale Jr. was said to have commented later that there had been a trust fund but that “trying to keep up that white elephant Grey Gardens is what ruined it.”

Although both brothers had fairly successful careers, they were of the position that they could not possibly afford to keep the mansion in good repair and that the solution to the problem should be for their mother to sell the property and move elsewhere.

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