Rachel Lambert Mellon

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Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd Mellon (born August 9, 1910 in Princeton , New Jersey , † March 17, 2014 in Upperville , Virginia ), also known as Bunny Mellon , was an American philanthropist , art collector and landscape architect .

biography

Rachel Lowe Lambert, nicknamed Bunny by her mother, was the eldest child of Gerard Barnes Lambert and his wife Rachel Parkhill Lambert née Lowe. Gerard Barnes Lambert was the president of the Gillette Safety Razor Company and one of the founders of the pharmaceutical company Warner-Lambert. Rachel's paternal grandfather, the chemist Jordan Lambert, one of the developers of the mouthwash was Listerine , which was later sold by their father.

Rachel married Stacy Barcroft Lloyd Jr. in 1932.They had two children, Stacy Barcroft Lloyd III and Eliza Winn Lloyd. The marriage ended in divorce in 1948. In the same year she married the bank heir and art collector Paul Mellon , whose first wife had died in 1946. Mellon brought two children into the marriage, Timothy and Catherine.

Rachel and Paul Mellon collected over 1,000 works of art, mainly European paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries, most of which they donated to the National Gallery of Art and the Yale Center for British Art founded by Paul . The couple also bred racehorses.

White House rose garden

Rachel Lambert Mellon built an important collection of landscaping books. She was considered an expert in the field of landscape architecture, although she had no formal education. She designed gardens for the family's own estates, including the Oak Spring Farms family home in Upperville, Virginia . At the request of her friend, President John F. Kennedy , she began to redesign the rose garden of the White House in 1961 . The work was not completed until after Kennedy's murder. Rachel Mellon then worked for Jackie Kennedy , the American Horticultural Society and Hubert de Givenchy, among others . The Royal Horticultural Society recognized her horticultural work by awarding it the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1987.

Paul Mellon died in 1999 at the age of 91. In 2000 Rachel's daughter Eliza was hit by a truck in Manhattan . In 2008 she died completely paralyzed as a result of the accident. In 2008 Rachel Lambert Mellon supported the Democratic candidate for presidential nomination John Edwards .

Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd Mellon died at home on March 17, 2014 at the age of 103.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Robert D. McFadden: Rachel Mellon, a Heiress Known for Her Green Thumb, Dies At 103 . The New York Times , March 17, 2014 (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Dan Alexander: Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, Banking Heiress And Jacqueline Kennedy Friend, Dies At 103 . Forbes Magazine , March 17, 2014 (English)
  3. ^ A b c Adrian Higgins: Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, arts patron and confidante of Jackie Kennedy, dies at 103 . The Washington Post , March 17, 2014 (English)
  4. ↑ Melissa Breyer: Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, the heiress with a green thumb, leaves a lasting legacy. on the Mother Nature Network homepage, accessed April 13, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Mellon, Rachel Lambert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mellon, Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd (full name); Mellon, Bunny; Mellon, Mrs. Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philanthropist, art collector, and landscape architect
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Princeton , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH 17th March 2014
Place of death Upperville , Virginia