He became a judge--forever after known simply as the Judge--and used his income to invest in real estate. The estate of late millionaire heiress Rachel Lambert Mellon, known as “Bunny” to close friends as well as heads of foreign states, listed her apartment in the iconic Essex House in Manhattan for US$8.9 million on Wednesday.. Mellon, who died in 2014 at 103, purchased two adjacent units on the 28th floor in the luxury hotel-condo building for US$5.9 million in 2000, property records show. Then she adds, "I'm very busy. They married, and the Mellon genes soon had him dabbling, first with a Jimmy Choo men's line, then his own shoe brand, Harrys of London, with shoes cushioned like a sneaker and fancy like a wingtip. She was a self-taught and respected horticulturalist who from childhood had studied plant and gardening design. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. Bunny Mellon was tall with a long face, a light and almost coquettish voice, aristocratically narrow feet and small hands. He received a B.A. His view of his grandmother's relationship with Edwards? Subscribe. He was survived by his wife, Rachel (a.k.a. He gave her a life of infinite luxury—The Washington Post once pronounced Bunny the "Most Envied Hostess in the Country Today"—but at a cost. ", The events of the past five years—the death of her daughter, Ken Starr's betrayal, the indictment of Edwards—might leave less hardy souls reaching for Prozac. Who is Josh Groban? In March her longtime investment adviser Ken Starr received a seven-and-a-half-year jail sentence for running a Ponzi scheme and stealing $33 million from clients, including $5.75 million from Mellon and $3 million from her son Stacey Lloyd III. Bunny tolerated his paramours, even inviting one mistress to join them at their Antigua estate. In scanning FORBES' first-ever ranking of America's Richest Families, one thing that stands out is how many of the great fortunes of the mid-19th century have dissipated. Bunny Mellon Was the One Woman Jackie Kennedy Wanted to Impress. 3 Wife or Girlfriend, Married or Dating? Indeed. She laughs, saying, "Oh, you're bad. He said the $6.4 million donated directly to Mr Edwards' groups was "quite small" compared to the heiress' overall net worth. The Incredible Life Of 101-Year-Old Banking Heiress Bunny Mellon. There are always surprises. FEMAIL looks at the 49-year-old's lavish lifestyle after she announced her engagement to LVMH Fashion Group CEO Pierre-Yves Roussel, 50, over New Year's with a stunning ring picture. The family fortune originated with Mellon Bank, founded 1869. Judge Mellon had eight children, four of whom raised families, and there are doz ens of Mellon cousins scat tered around the country, many of them well‐to‐do and in prominent positions. To continue reading login or create an account. For a woman who spurns publicity, this has been a rough year. Prosecutors have charged that she gave $725,000 to former presidential candidate John Edwards in 2007 and 2008, which he used to conceal his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter and the existence of their child. Reach Abram Brown at abrown@forbes.com and Alex Morrell at amorrell@forbes.com. Write it nice, friendly, nongossipy. Mellon comes across as a woman with her faculties fully intact. With his new wife, Nicole Hanley, a former Ralph Lauren designer, he has started Hanley Mellon, with an e-commerce store selling chic women's clothing, with $3 million invested in the past year or so. She was born into a well-to-do Princeton family. ", Her birthday plans are uncertain but are likely to mimic last year's modest festivities—a lunch at the farm for family members plus Caroline Kennedy, Huffman, and Forger. I can't write, but I dictate, I talk to people. Bunny’s second marriage to Paul Mellon (1907–1999), the only son of industrialist Andrew Mellon (1855–1937), the heir to the Mellon Bank fortune, greatly increased her net worth and launched the couple’s foray in the art world as collectors and benefactors. Scarred by his parents' acrimonious divorce, Paul proved to be an emotionally remote husband with a wandering eye. Auction house Sotheby's is preparing Bunny Mellon's estate auction, which is expected to generate more than $100 million. She came from great wealth and her husbands came from equally wealthy and aristocratic families. The result of all that decentralized intuition has been numerous companies, from banking to media to metals to energy, that have altered the face of American business. A three-acre property on Half Moon Bay in Antigua, once owned by late Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon, is up for grabs for $25 million, according to its developer Half Moon Bay Antigua. Always emergencies. Tags. The more secretive America becomes, the more dangerous it is." $5 Million $588,235. "Those who did own large positions in the bank's stock have found better things to do with their money," says Matthew's uncle, James. In 1889 Andrew made a $25,000 loan to the Pittsburgh Reduction Co., an aluminum manufacturer, and subsequently purchased equity in the company. Until recently the philanthropist, whose net worth exceeds $400 million, was primarily known as a passionate gardener and discreet woman with a discerning eye. He partied, enjoying scotch on the rocks and developing an addiction to cocaine. Once the war ended, as Paul Mellon wrote in his autobiography, Reflections in a Silver Spoon, both men found it difficult to resume married life. Even now she is making improvements. "Bunny gave him validation, after all those ass-kissing socialites who mistreated him. * After this story was published in Forbes magazine, Richard Mellon Scaife died on July 4. Frankly, banking has been a dud business for a long time.". The solution, Mellon says, is Bitcoin, and he's invested $2 million to start an incubator for Bitcoin companies, convinced virtual currency will replace the dollar bill. Best known as the man who reportedly funded an ongoing effort to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton during the 1990s, Scaife is perhaps the most important media mogul in western Pennsylvania, with several local weekly newspapers and a stake in Newsmax, the conservative online newsmagazine. Other than that, there have been few covenants or restrictions, with nary a family office or annual meeting. Nearly a hundred years later Gulf Oil was sold to Chevron in 1984 for $13.3 billion; the Mellons appear to have held on to their shares after the sale, and their fortune was little changed at an estimated $2.5 billion. Bunny’s second marriage to Paul Mellon (1907–1999), the only son of industrialist Andrew Mellon (1855–1937), the heir to the Mellon Bank fortune, greatly increased her net worth and launched the couple’s foray in the art world as collectors and benefactors. Much stems from both. She had passed away in March 12, 2014 at the age of 103. Source. She's going to do what she wants, and that's the way it's going to be.". “Billionaire Matthew Mellon, 53, died suddenly in Cancun, Mexico, where he was attending a drug rehabilitation facility,” a family representative said in a statement sent to Page Six. Most distressing is her loss of vision. Biography. You could be the next Andrew Mellon in that space,' " Matthew recalls. Just plain bad." ", Her solace was her gardens, and she took enormous pleasure in designing gardens for herself and friends. Her ring size was 4, her bracelets a mere six inches in length. Although she was very private, we have had peeks at her gorgeous garden (you can see […] Robert Isabell, the talented New York floral designer who worked on Caroline Kennedy's 1984 wedding, became an integral part of Mellon's life. The voice on the phone was frail but clear, with a hint of Southern gentility. Today he's personally worth almost $1 billion. He left his fortune to his children in 1908. This is a picture of Bunny Mellon on the cover of a book about her that includes husband Paul Mellon's mistress, Dorcas Hardin, who was well known on the Washington, DC social scene at the time. Just as Thomas had broken from the farming future his parents had in mind, Andrew, the family's true empire builder, forged his own path: He became a turn-of-the-century venture capitalist. Most of America's Gilded Age fortunes have dissipated over time. Harrys got some traction, but it proved a decade ahead of its time. While the modern Mellons haven't had grand slams along the lines of Alcoa, Gulf Oil or the eponymous family bank, they've followed through on the Judge's request that they invest and diversify. It opened in December 1869 with $10,000 in initial deposits, according to Mellon: An American Life by Princeton professor David  Cannadine. Bunny made her debut in October 1929 and three years later married the socially connected Stacy Lloyd Jr. Mac Griswold says, "I think her view is that he's a cute guy and he's allowed to fool around if he likes. His affairs were an open secret. Lloyd, her grandson, says, "I don't think there's ever going to be a moment for her to sit back and reflect. The life she's led was all about that kind of thing. He also invested in the next generation: Andrew's nephew William Larimer Mellon was as eager to prove himself as his uncle and grandfather had been. One of her grandfathers, chemist Jordan Lambert, invented Listerine, but it was her father, Gerard Lambert, an advertising innovator, who turned it into a hit product by marketing the antiseptic as a cure for halitosis. At 102 years old, Bunny is now the matriarch of the Mellon dynasty. Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, the heiress to one of America’s great business fortunes whose support of presidential candidate John Edwards had attracted … She quickly divorced her husband, and in May 1948 she and Mellon wed. It is a way to help our friend without government restrictions.'?" And you try to spend 1% of your income that comes in. 21 Aug 2018. ", The Edwards episode has baffled and upset Mellon's family. Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon was a well known name in the world of philanthropy and art, and horticulture. Mellon’s only two children, Alisa Mellon Bruce and Paul Mellon, used their father’s fortune to become among the nation’s most visible and well-known socialites and philanthropists. Lloyd, Bunny, and Paul Mellon’s son inherited the family’s collection when his mother passed away in 2014. The Astors and the Vanderbilts, the Morgans and the Carnegies, none make the cut. I don't mind being 100, I can cope with that, but not seeing is very scary." Old stone walls surround the sun-dappled rolling fields, which feature two enormous greenhouses and a football-field-size cutting garden with branches of fruit trees entwined in a not-seen-in-nature pattern. His mother, Anne, and stepfather, J. Reeve Bright, a once powerful GOP attorney and distant relative of Theodore Roosevelt, largely kept him in the dark about the Mellons and what he could expect in terms of inheritance. His wife, Rachel "Bunny" Lambert, was the daughter of Gillette President Gerard Barnes Lambert Sr. At 102 years old, Bunny is now the matriarch of the Mellon dynasty. A three-acre property on Half Moon Bay in Antigua, once owned by late Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon, is up for grabs for $25 million, according to its developer Half Moon Bay Antigua. Bunny Mellon, who died in March at 103, was the widow of Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon, the Pittsburgh industrialist turned financier who was one of … Of America's billion-dollar dynasties, only the Du Ponts are having a longer run, and they have a dominant family company perpetually generating the wealth. Julie Zeveloff . Seeded with $10,000 from the family coffers, he chased the Rockefellers into the oil business. Scaife  bought a small suburban paper in 1970, then grew it into today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. At one point he struck up a conversation with one of Bunny's advisors. Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 1, 1999) was an American philanthropist and an owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. She had been an admirer from afar, buying an ad in her local newspaper three years earlier trumpeting Edwards's candidacy. And then the scion of America's most enduring banking family lets it fly: "I feel like citizens are fed up with banksters," using a term the Occupy Wall Street crowd would surely approve. 1 Who is Josh Groban? Not so with the Mellons, who have flaky heirs like Matthew plowing millions into fashion labels and Bitcoin startups, yet have nonetheless maintained a $12 billion fortune, the 19th-largest family net worth in America, one greater than the Rockefellers and Kennedys, combined. Christopher Mellon was born to the Mellon family.He is the son of Karl Negley Mellon and Anne Stokes Bright. "I'm going along on very weak wheels." ", Mellon and her late husband Paul recommended Starr to friends, and she is mortified that they have suffered, saying, "The worse thing is the people he stole money from." While Mellon is leaving bequests to her family, the bulk of her estate will go to a foundation, financing a library and school for arborists. According to the indictment, Huffman signed over the checks to Young. In May 2000, Bunny's daughter from her first marriage, Eliza Lloyd, was crossing the street in Manhattan when she was hit by a truck, suffering a severe brain injury. The aide used the money to pay expenses for Rielle Hunter and his own family, as they lived together during much of Hunter's pregnancy to maintain the charade. Amid this peer group, however, the Mellons stand out. Knight Rider (2008) as Miscellaneous Crew. Some of it decades upon decades of wastrel heirs. "He's done a very good job of maintaining the sense that 'Bunny, I want to be your friend; Bunny, feel sorry for me in this predicament, we'll get through this together,'" says Lloyd. A key issue: did Edwards solicit the money to salvage his presidential campaign, or was this an attempt to prevent is cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, from learning of the romance? Yet Bunny Mellon cheerfully carries on. And given his fashion chops (besides Jimmy Choo and Harrys, he dated Tory Burch in college), he's at it again. Mellon, now blind, lives in luxurious seclusion on her 2,000-acre Virginia farm, cosseted by a staff of 120 loyal retainers. Filmography. ("You never touch the principal. Amount donated in 2014: Approximately $411.3-million. "It's a crush." "I wish I could have 10 minutes in a room with John Edwards to explain that he's doing nothing but tarnish her legacy and really taking advantage of her," says Thomas Lloyd, her grandson, who testified before the grand jury. The indictment quotes a note from Mellon: "I was sitting alone in a grim mood, furious that the press attacked Senator Edwards on the price of a haircut. But unexpectedly he asks the waiter to take away his cellphones, fearing Snowden-style eavesdropping. So it came as a shock at age 21 when he inherited 14 trust funds worth an estimated $25 million. In October 1946, as the Mellons were riding home together after fox hunting, Paul's wife, Mary, suffered a severe asthma attack, dying hours later. One weekend in June, she beamed as her 3-year-old great-granddaughter, Fiona, put stickers all over her arms. The former first lady would go into a "near-tizzy" when Bunny came over. Novelist Jane Stanton Hitchcock, who with her mother, Joan Alexander, alerted authorities to Starr's scam, explains, "The Mellons were the gold standard of integrity, and my parents felt that Ken would live up to their trust. The last time the do-it-yourself Mellon clan actually got together, a once-a-decade occurrence that happened four years ago, they went back to the roots of their success: a patch of land in County Tyrone, Ireland. 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