In 1907, Edward and Mary Harkness bought a
summer cottage at Waterford, Connecticut, on the shore of Long Island Sound. They named it “
Eolia,” after the Greek god of wind, appropriate since the sea breezes and gales were ever whistling though their
porch.
Edward S. Harkness was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, Mary Emma Stillman Harkness the granddaughter of Thomas Greenman, prosperous shipbuilder of Mystic, Connecticut. Their principal residence was in New York City, but they spent their summers at Eolia, where Mary had landscape architect Beatrix Jones Farrand design extensive gardens. The Harknesses were quiet, unassuming people, and very philanthropic, contributing some $120 million to various causes during their lifetimes. Edward Harkness died in 1940; his widow left the 200-acre Eolia property to the State of Connecticut upon her passing in 1950. It is now Harkness Memorial State Park.
Although Eolia,
the mansion, is the centerpiece of the park, it is not a museum, per se. The grounds are open year-round, for walking, picnicking,
kite flying, enjoying the
restored gardens. One day each year, however, the Friends of Harkness, a volunteer support association, holds Harkness Family Day, giving tours of the mansion and outbuildings. It is then that the true nature of early Twentieth Century understated elegance can be seen. The
carriage house (which, given that it was built in 1906, must have soon become a motor house) is fitted with a
turntable made in Canton, Ohio, so that neither carriages nor automobiles had to back out into the yard. The
tools left behind by the Harknesses are carefully preserved, along with certain machinery, such as a
gasoline-powered water pump. A feature that would give today’s fire marshall a fit is the gas pump carefully concealed in a closet.
The Harknesses’ automobiles are long gone, but the estate’s
1932 Ford Model BB truck is there, in much the same condition as when it plied the Boston Post Road (aka U.S. Route 1) to New York, taking Connecticut-grown produce to the house “in town.” It has a
platform stake body, a type once common but seldom seen today. Its garage mate is a
McCormick Deering 10-20 tractor, a series built by International Harvester between 1923 and 1940. In ingenious Connecticut Yankee fashion, it has been fitted with a
winter cab and an attachment for plowing snow.
Family Day is held the second Sunday of September every year. It’s a rare opportunity to see how modest millionaires lived.
