Skip to main content

Item of the Week: The Maidstone Club’s Costume Bash

Thu, 10/27/2022 - 09:09

From the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection

For anyone trying to put together a last-minute Halloween costume, the Maidstone Club's 75th anniversary costume party in 1966, featuring 1890s attire, offers some procrastination-friendly inspiration. In this photograph taken by William Boone, we see members dressed in Victorian-era golfing, swimming, and tennis outfits.

From left to right, the photo shows: Isabelle Robertson (1901-1986) with Julian Myrick (1880-1969) in tennis costumes, Andrew (Peter) Connick (1930-2011) and Emma Pattison Skidmore (1900-1978) in bathing costumes, and Mary Lewis Hopkinson (1901-1986) and William N. Beebe (1903-1985) in old-fashioned golf attire. 

It is worth noting that Myrick's obituary mentioned his efforts to increase both the competitive nature of tennis and the Maidstone Club's stature in competitions. It is likely his costume reflected his passion for tennis.

The party took place in the Maidstone Club's ballroom on July 23, 1966, and was such a draw that the 400 plates for dinner sold out, and an additional 100 attendees came for the dancing alone. Not shown here but quite memorable was an old-fashioned waltz performed by Russell Hopkinson and Jane Alcott Holmes, who appeared in a sequined black gown with a bird of paradise headdress. Also memorable were the 75 birthday cakes paraded through the ballroom.

W. Dickinson Wilson acted as master of ceremonies, briefly honoring the eight Maidstone Club presidents (past and present) in attendance, along with Kenneth E. Davis, the longtime club manager. Rosalie Boalt chaired the event committee, which included William Beebe, Susannah Wood Amory, Mary Lewis Hopkinson, and Dorothy Sykes. 

Members danced to music by the Joe Carroll Orchestra, and the singer Conrad Thibault led a group through several numbers, including the club's "Maidstone's a Silver Lining," followed by Myrick singing his "standby" tune, "And Let the Rest of the World Go Dry."


Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is the head of the East Hampton Library's Long Island Collection.
 

Villages

Owl's Death Prompts Call for Bird-Friendly Building

Window strikes kill up to a billion birds annually and rank up there with cats and habitat destruction as the leading causes of recent steep declines. After the recent death of a much-watched Eurasian eagle-owl that was set loose from the Central Park Zoo, a bill calling for bird-friendly building measures has been revived in the New York Assembly and Senate.

Mar 28, 2024

Architect’s Descendants Visit East Hampton Gem

Michele L’Hommedieu Hofmann had no idea until retiring last fall and starting to research her family history how prominent a role her great-great-grandfather James H. L’Hommedieu had played in Long Island’s late-19th-century architecture. On a trip to New York that included a stop at an East Hampton house he designed for Robert Southgate Bowne, a founder of the Maidstone Club and first president of the Long Island Rail Road, she and her family got a crash course in L’Hommedieu’s work.

Mar 28, 2024

Item of the Week: Gardiner Family Gossip From 1889

On July 16, 1889, while staying in Lenox, Mass., Sarah Diodati Gardiner Thompson wrote to her daughter Sarah Thompson Gardiner, who was vacationing at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Family news was top of mind.

Mar 28, 2024

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.