Biography of Marjorie Post and the Designers

Marjorie Merriweather Post is the daughter of C. W. Post (1854-1914), who founded the prepared food industry. She was a noted businesswoman, philanthropist, and collector of art and decorative arts. Her collection of French and Russian art objects, housed at her Washington, D.C., home, “Hillwood,” has been willed to the Smithsonian Institution, as has the collection of Native American artifacts in her Adirondack Mountain retreat.

Dina Merrill on her wedding day with her mother Marjorie Merriweather Post

Mrs. Post began coming to Palm Beach in 1909. She occupied another house in the city before the construction of Mar-a-Lago which has been her winter residence since 1927. Since its completion, Mar-a-Lago has been a center of social life in Palm Beach, a city which is still, as it was in the 1920’s, a winter resort for the country’s wealthiest and most socially prominent families. Mrs. Post has, over the years, entertained frequently and lavishly, and extended her hospitality to a vast number of prominent friends. Architecturally the structure was designed to accommodate this type of entertainment and many house guests.

Henry M. Flagler, the man almost solely responsible for developing the resort economy of the State, introduced the Spanish Revival to Florida. In 1884, he sent the fledgling architects, John Carrere and Thomas Hastings, to Spain for two years to gather impressions and ideas before beginning the design of the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine. Flagler’s commission launched an important architectural firm and established a style that was to dominate Florida resort architecture. Palm Beach was the most exclusive of the Florida resort communities in the early 20th century.

Addison Mizner made the Spanish Revival style de rigueur for palatial building there. For their wealthy clients, he and Marion Sims Wyeth designed numerous Mediterranean villas with patios to take advantage of the winter sun and spacious rooms for lavish entertaining. Mar-a-Lago is one of the grandest of these mansions, and the only one on Palm Beach that remains in almost identical form as when it was first constructed. All of its elaborate decoration and fine furnishings remain intact. It is still surrounded by its landscaped grounds including a golf course on the shores of Lake Worth and a bathing beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Together the house and grounds provide an excellent picture of winter resort life in Palm Beach prior to the Depression.

Architect Marion Sims Wyeth, FAIA (1889-1982) received his architectural training at Princeton University and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, where he was a student from 1910-1914. He was employed by the New York firms of Bertram, Grosvenor, Goodhue and Carrere & Hastings before going into practice alone in 1919. Since 1932, he has been a partner in the firm of Wyeth & King in Palm Beach. Besides Mar-a-Lago, Wyeth’s other important works include the Philip T. Sharpies and Philip Armour residences in Palm Beach, the Worthington Scranton home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, Florida. Although Addison Mizner is the name most closely associated with the Spanish Revival style in Palm Beach, Wyeth is also noted for his work in that milieu.

Interior designer Joseph Urban (1872-1933) was a Viennese who had a distinguished and prolific career in Europe and the United States as an illustrator, architect, and a designer of stage sets, gardens and expositions. He was educated at the Art Academy and the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. He first came to the United States in 1901 to begin building and decorating the Austrian pavilions for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. His work there received the Grand Prize. Urban was the architect for a number of villas in the vicinity of Vienna for which he also designed the interiors and furnishings. Among his most notable commissions in Europe were the interiors of the Rathaus (City Hall) in Vienna, the Czar Bridge over the Neva in Leningrad, and the Palace of Count Carl Esterhazy, near Pressburg in Hungary, He also designed the palace of the Khedive of Egypt.

Urban’s illustrations of fairy tales and children’s books drew the attention of theater managers and he began his career as a scenic designer with the Hofburg Theater in Vienna. He did operatic sets for the Opera Astroe in Paris and Covent Gardens in London before coming permanently to the United States in 1911 at the invitation of the Boston Opera Company.

He is best known in this country for his association, through the 1920’s, with the Metropolitan Opera Company as scenic designer and architect. Although he drew plans for the Met’s new opera house, it was never built. He practiced architecture in New York where he built the Ziegfeld Theater and in Palm Beach where he designed the Paramount Theater and the Bath and Tennis Club which is adjacent to Mar-a-Lago. Urban was particularly noted for the use of color in his set designs and architecture. At the time of his death, he was serving as color and lighting consultant for the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition. A large collection of Urban’s papers and drawings, dealing particularly with his association with New York theater and opera, have been donated to Columbia University. ((Joseph Urban Stage Design Models | Columbia University))

Sculptor Franz Barwig (1868-1931) was born in Senov (Moravia), Austria, Hungary, and early showed a talent for woodcarving. At age 20 he went to Vienna to study at the School of Arts and Crafts. He was later associated with this school for many years as a professor. He became a member of the “Hagen,” one of the foremost confederations of artists in Vienna. His first major showing, at the 1904 “Hagenbund” exhibition, earned him critical praise. Through this association, he also met Joseph Urban, who as president of the “Hagenbund” was responsible for staging a number of exhibitions of “Seccessionist” art, as the modern art nouveau movement in Vienna was called.

The firm of Lewis and Valentine was responsible for the original landscape architecture. Cooper C. Lightbrown of Washington, D.C., received the construction contract. Most of his workmen were recruited from the greater Palm Beach area where the building boom had caused a cadre of skilled workmen to assemble. Because of the vogue for the Spanish style in palatial resort building, firms which manufactured the pottery, tile, and ironwork needed for this style had sprung up in Palm Beach. Consequently much of the material for the house was purchased in the area.