Huntington Hartford

With the death last week of Huntington Hartford, readers may be interested in a bit of history about his mother:

Henrietta Guerard Pollitzer’s mother was born a Guerard, a family of early Charleston, South Carolina colonists, while her father was an Austrian Jew who came to South Carolina in the 1860's. Their children were raised in the Episcopal Church but their patrimony prevented entry into Charleston society. Henrietta dropped her last name in favor of her mother's maiden name.

She met Edward V. Hartford, heir to the A & P fortune as well as an automobile inventor, on a ship from Palm Beach to New York. A & P was the first national grocery store chain, becoming number one in America by the 1930’s when it operated 16,000 stores with annual sales of more than one billion dollars. Henrietta and Hartford married in 1902 and had two children, including their son, Huntington Hartford, before her husband’s death in 1922. The estate was left entirely to his wife but the fortune was in a generation-skipping trust to benefit her late father-in-law's grandchildren (Edward Hartford's two brothers were childless). Thus Henrietta controlled millions of dollars through her two children.

Henrietta leased Chastellux, the Lorillard Spencer mansion in Newport, then King Cottage owned by Frederic Rhinelander King. Although her stock dividends totalled one million dollars per year, she petitioned the court in 1926 to increase her son's trust allowance from $100,000 to $150,000, as "I do not believe that he should come into his inheritance with desires ungratified and wishes thwarted." In 1927, she purchased Seaverge, the Newport home of Commodore Elbridge Gerry, on five acres adjoining the ocean next door to Doris Duke's home, Rough Point.

She met Prince Guido Pignatelli when he made an appointment to ask her to purchase corporate bonds from the New York firm for whom he then worked. She married at St. Vincent's Church in Reno, NV, 25 April 1937, Prince Guido Pignatelli, (and eventual Duke of Montecalvo, Marquess of Paglieta, Marquess of San Marco Locatola), born at San Paolo Belsito 23 June 1900, died at Palermo 5 February 1967, son of General Pompeo dei Duchi di Montecalvo and Princess Helene Pignatelli. Guido was created a Prince ad personam by royal decree on 14 June 1941. After her marriage to Prince Guido, the European society magazine Le Carnet Mondain pictured her on the cover although the caption incorrectly stated that she was born a Hartford - there was no inconvenient mention of her former marriage.

The couple left for a honeymoon boar-hunting in Czechoslovakia where they learned of legal actions filed by Prince Guido's American first wife, Constance Wilcox Pignatelli (whom he married in 28 August 1925; she copyrighted Egypt’s Eyes, a play she wrote as “Princess Pignatelli,” in 1924), daughter of George Augustus Wilcox and Mary Grenelle Wilcox, by whom he had a daughter, Marilena Pignatelli. At Guido's marriage to Henrietta, his Reno divorce from Constance was less than 24 hours old. Reno divorces were only in effect when both parties were represented and Constance was not. A trial was held in New York in 1938 where, on the stand, Constance testified of Guido's new wife, "All my friends called my attention to the fact that she was a grandmother. It annoyed me terribly." The judge found that the divorce was not legal in New York and Guido replied that it did not matter as he was a resident of Nevada and had no intention of returning to New York. He then received from the Archbishop of Los Angeles a document stating that his marriage to Constance was annulled but a subsequent court in Florence, Italy, refused to accept the finding. Finally, in July of 1939, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that his divorce from Constance was valid and an appeals court in Perugia upheld the decision.

In 1941 the couple brought a legal action against his cousin, Prince Ludovic Pignatelli (whose wife was American Ruth Morgan Waters), who was convicted of attempting to extort money from them by contesting Guido's right to the title. Prince Ludovic later died destitute in a New York City rooming house in 1956 having been critically injured when he hit his head in a fall. Henrietta and Prince Guido lived at Wando Plantation, her 32-room plantation home and gardens designed by Olmsted, near Charleston, which was destroyed by fire in 1942, and in Washington, DC, where he was attached to the diplomatic corps. She was diagnosed with leukemia and retired to Melody Farm, her home in Wyckoff, New Jersey, where she died on 3 July 1948 and was buried in Charleston’s Magnolia Cemetery.

Only months before her death she purchased the Joseph Manigault House in Charleston when it was being sold for back taxes and gave it to the Charleston Museum in memory of her mother. Her son received from her, separately from his large trust fund, more than $4 million in stocks as well as valuable property, while her widower was left $50,000 plus a living trust with an income of $10,000 per year - with the principal reverting to her son upon Guido's death. Her attorneys declared in court that "Her husband had virtually no property or income." That amount was not sufficient for Prince Guido, and, four months after his wife's death, Prince Guido married in Reno, NV, 14 October 1948, then in Palermo, socialite Barbara Eastman of New York City, a descendant of Massachusetts colonists.

Prince Guido's son by Barbara Eastman, Prince Paolo, born in Washington, DC, in 1949, is the current 14th Duke of Montecalvo, 15th Marquess of Paglieta, and Marquess of San Marco Locatola. Married to Margery Baker since 1981, he has a daughter but no son or brother and there are no males cousins in his line.