Kate Macy Ladd

Catherine Everit Macy Ladd (April 6, 1863 – August 27, 1945), known as Kate Macy Ladd, was an American philanthropist who founded and endowed the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation in honor of her father.

Biography Kate was born in New York City, a descendant of Thomas and Sarah Macy, Massachusetts settlers in the late 1630s. She was a granddaughter of Captain Josiah Macy, originally of Nantucket, who founded a firm that became New York's first oil refinery in the 1860s (later sold to the Standard Oil Company).

Kate's father died in 1876 at only 39 years old, when Kate was still a teenager. Upon her father's death, she inherited an estimated $15 million . She was plagued by some disease or condition; she was described as "an invalid" since her early twenties.

At twenty years old, she married lawyer and yachtsman Walter Graeme Ladd (1857–1933) on December 5, 1883. Walter won several yachting prizes, including some with his schooner, the Etak ("Kate" spelled backwards).

In 1925, she received an honorary Master of Arts degree from New Jersey College for Women.

She died in 1945 in Far Hills, New Jersey, and left a further $2.5 million to the Macy foundation.

Natirar estate Beginning in 1908, Ladd provided a convalescent facility at “Maple Cottage,” a large residence on her Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey estate, Natirar, where “deserving gentlewomen who are compelled to depend on their own exertions for support shall be entertained, without charge, for periods of time while convalescing from illness, recuperating from impaired health, or otherwise in need of rest.” Following Ladd's death in 1945, title to Natirar was conveyed to the Kate Macy Ladd Fund, and the convalescent facility was relocated from Maple Cottage to the renovated main residence on the estate.

In 1983, fifty years after Walter Ladd's death and in accordance with his will, Natirar was sold and was purchased by King Hassan II of Morocco. On the king's death in 1999, it was inherited by his son, Mohammed VI. More recently, Natirar has reopened as Pendry Natirar, part of Montage Hotels portfolio with a spa, second restaurant, and 68-room hotel.