How Rebekah Harkness Offended Watch Hill Society
It’s not every day a pop song inspires research into Watch Hill social circles, but Taylor Swift’s “the last great american dynasty” captures how Rebekah Harkness blew a $700 million Standard Oil inheritance from her second husband.
Rebekah, known as “Betty” to her friends, was born into a wealthy St. Louis family in 1915. Her grandfather had founded the St. Louis Union Trust Co., and her father, Alan Tarwater West, was a prominent stockbroker who co-founded a firm with George Herbert Walker—a grandfather of presidents George Herbert Walker Bush (41) and George Walker Bush (43).
When Betty was a child, the West family summered in the old-money enclave of Watch Hill, Rhode Island—a neighborhood to which the adult Rebekah Harkness would return with a flourish.
Betty elevated herself into new financial and social circles when she married billionaire William Hale Harkness in 1947 (the second marriage for both of them). Bill’s grandfather and great-uncles had been early investors in the firm that became Standard Oil, with his grandfather trailing only John D. Rockefeller’s shares.
Donations by the Harkness family’s philanthropy included Harkness Tower at Yale, Harkness Memorial State Park in southeast Connecticut, and numerous contributions to colleges and medical institutions.
In 1948, Bill and Betty purchased Holiday House, a large mansion (a “cottage” in the local parlance) in Watch Hill. The home, built in 1930, sat atop the highest cliff in Rhode Island and included a private beach with 700 feet of coastal access.
Living up to its name, Holiday House featured large and loud parties during summer weekends that weren’t always a hit with snobby Watch Hill neighbors.
Animosity with the neighbors increased after Bill died of a heart attack in 1954, making Rebekah a widow at the age of 39. Bill left her more than $700 million in today’s dollars, which gave Betty the time, money, and freedom to indulge her lifelong passion for the arts and to crank the volume on her desire for an outrageous lifestyle.
Betty was a sculptor and a songwriter who published more than 100 songs, and had loved ballet since taking lessons as a child. And she poured money into those interests with a vengeance.
Patron of the Arts
The parties continued, often with artists and writers including Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, J.D. Salinger, and other notables coming to town to enjoy the coast and Betty’s hospitality.
Betty also started an aggressive expansion of Holiday House, enlarging the cottage to include 42 rooms, eight kitchens, and 21 bathrooms.
Stories also emerged about colorful incidents such as Harkness dressing as a maid and serving drinks at her own party, swimming nude in a cruise ship pool, and ordering her pool be washed with champagne. She also started addictions to alcohol, painkillers, and vitamin injections that likely propelled her actions across a line beyond mere eccentricity.
She poured millions of dollars into supporting ballet companies. She sponsored the Jerome Robbins dance company and the Joffrey Ballet before a dispute about the Joffrey declining to assume her name. In 1964, Betty poached 14 Joffrey dancers and formed her own company that she called, not surprisingly, the Harkness Ballet.
She built rehearsal studios for the Harkness Ballet in New York and Rhode Island. In 1966, she installed an outdoor stage on the Holiday House grounds that was covered by a blue geodesic dome. Neighbors sued, she was forced to remove the dome, and she retaliated by dying a neighbor’s cat green.
Harkness was also interested in medical causes, donating $2 million to fund the William Hale Harkness Medical Research Building at New York Hospital, sponsoring research into Parkinson’s Disease, and funding the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York Medical Center.
After the dome and cat incidents, Harkness bought a home on the Hudson River in Sneden’s Landing. She left Watch Hill behind and divided her time between the new mansion, a New York penthouse, and a home in Switzerland.
Her last major investment in the arts was the 1974 conversion of a former vaudeville and movie house near Lincoln Center into the Harkness Theatre, a performance center dedicated to ballet performances. The theatre featured a stage designed to absorb the impact of ballet leaps, rehearsal space the same size as the performance stage, and ornate designs that included a mural depicting nude ballet performers. And a nude Harkness.
Unfortunately, the theater also faced limited seating, poor sight lines, and high operating costs. The theater closed in 1977 and was demolished the following year.
With her fortune all but dissipated, Harkness checked into a rehab center to battle her addictions. After she was released, she sold the Hudson River mansion and remained in New York City.
She died from cancer five years later at the age of 67.
Holiday House Changes Hands
Back to Rhode Island. In 1973, Harkness had sold Holiday House to the Watch Hill Association, a local partnership formed to protect the property from extensive development. The property was divided into three lots, with the family that purchased Holiday House promising to shrink the mansion’s size.
After a partial demolition and remodeling, the house—renamed High Watch—was reduced to 11,000 feet and the number of bathrooms declined from 21 to a mere 10. The family then purchased the two adjoining lots and unified the property.
High Watch changed hands twice before Taylor Swift purchased the house in 2013.
When Swift’s “the last great american dynasty” was released in 2020, fans immediately began analyzing the song for comparisons to Betty Harkness. Both Swift and Harkness offended neighbors by throwing large parties (which is kind of the point of buying a coastal mansion, but whatever).
In the song, Swift mistakes the green cat for a green dog, but most of the lyrics generally follow the colorful and, ultimately tragic, life of Rebekah Harkness.