Helen Huntington Hull

Helen Dinsmore Huntington Astor Hull (April 9, 1893 – December 11, 1976) was an American socialite, arts patron, and political hostess.

Early life Huntington was born in Manhattan, on April 9, 1893, to Helen Gray Dinsmore and Robert Palmer Huntington, an architect and tennis player.

She grew up in Rhinebeck, New York, at both her paternal mansion, Hopeland House, a 35-room Tudor Revival mansion designed by her father, and her maternal mansion, Staatsburg on Hudson.

Arts patronage

Huntington was a lover of music and opera (she attended her first opera when she was two) and, therefore, helped to found the New York City Center and the New York City Opera.

She was a patron of the Metropolitan Opera on Broadway. She owned two boxes at the opera house, one she used herself and one she kept for her guests. In 1966, she was among those who attended the closing gala at the Met on Broadway and helped found its re-opening at Lincoln Center. She attended the inauguration gala night at Philharmonic Hall, directed by her friend Leonard Bernstein.

Among the Sierra Nevada, California is an 1868 oil painting by Albert Bierstadt. It was acquired in 1873 by William Brown Dinsmore, Huntington's grandfather; when Huntington inherited the painting, she had the canvas glued directly to a curved wall on the second floor of her new mansion, Locusts on Hudson.

Huntington was a good friend of Elsa Maxwell, Cole Porter, and Maury Henry Biddle Paul (aka Cholly Knickerbocker).

Political hostess When, in 1913, Astor was asked if his future wife, Helen Huntington, believed in suffrage for women, he replied that she was far too sensible for that.

In 1924, Huntington was an alternate delegate for New York to the Republican National Convention and in 1926 and 1927 she co-chaired the Women's Republican National Committee for New York. She was a guest at the United States presidential inaugural balls of four different U.S. presidents: Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. She was a good friend of Nelson Rockefeller and his wife, Happy Rockefeller.

In 1941, Helen inherited Staatsburg on Hudson from her maternal grandfather, William Brown Dinsmore II, head of Adams Express Company, a railroad and shipping concern. She demolished the previous mansion to build a much lighter house, known as Locusts on Hudson, that was designed by architect John Churchill in the Neobaroque style. Her family had deep roots in politics. At Locusts on Hudson, she held her gala fundraising events and raised her six dogs, and at Hopeland House, she hosted her Republican political fundraising events, attended by the likes of former U.S. presidents Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge.

Personal life

On April 30, 1914, Huntington, age 21, married William Vincent Astor (1891–1959), son of Lt.-Col. John Jacob Astor IV and Ava Lowle Willing. The couple had known each other since they were children; the Astor family mansion, Ferncliff, was located just a few miles from Hopeland House. The press described her as "a charming American girl". Helen asked Astor to choose as their main residence the Hudson Valley mansion, Ferncliff, because she did not care for society life. The wedding took place at Hopeland House and the nearby little country church. After the marriage, they went on a cruise on the Noma, Vincent Astor's yacht that was later loaned to the U.S. Army during World War I.

The couple eventually divorced at the beginning of 1941 after which she moved south to 60th Street, New York City.

Sexuality Huntington was bisexual. Even while married to Astor in 1914, they mostly led separate lives until their divorce, with Huntington preferring the company of her female friends. Glenway Wescott once called her "a grand old lesbian".

Ancestry