George Beach de Forest Jr.

George Beach de Forest Jr. (October 15, 1848 – July 1932) was an American capitalist, bibliophile, and art collector who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.

He was the grandson of Benjamin and Mary (née Burlock) de Forest and the great-grandson of Elihu de Forest, who was a Lieutenant in the 16th Connecticut militia during the American Revolutionary War.

Career De Forest was a graduate of Columbia University in 1871. His father and family were involved in the dry goods business trade, between the U.S. and the West Indies, with the firm of B. DeForest & Co.

He was a sportsman and noted book collector (selling his library of rare volumes for $300,000 in 1907). In 1892, George and his wife Anita were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times. The de Forests were known for their extensive entertaining at their cottage in Newport, Rhode Island (Train villa near Bailey's Beach) and their townhouse in New York City. de Forest was married to Anita Hargous (d. 1932) at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan. and the sister of Robert L. Hargous and Sallie Hargous, who married Woodbury Kane. She was born in Mexico City and her grandfather, Jean Illion Hargous (who resided in Bayonne, France and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania),

After the death of their only child in 1907, the de Forests sold their New York City home and traveled abroad for several years. Upon their return to New York in 1917, they resided at the Drake Hotel, located at Park Avenue and 56th Street. After their deaths, they were buried in the Hargous Mausoleum at Trinity Church Cemetery in Manhattan.