Spreckels [née de Bretteville], Alma Emma
Philanthropist, Socialite, and Patron of the Arts
After the exposition, Alma dove into charity work, focusing
nearly five years on rummage sales and high-society raffles
to raise money for war-torn France and Belgium. Her five-limousine
garage at 2080 Washington became a constant garage sale, and
a much-publicized relief raffle at the Palace Hotel drew gift
donations from US presidents and renowned figures in the arts
and sciences. She even raffled off "The Genius of War,"
one of her most prized Rodins.
 With
some convincing, the reluctant Adolph agreed to fund Alma's
museum project, which she envisioned not only as a cultural
gift to the city, but also as a tribute to the 3,600 soldiers
from California who were killed during World War One. She
made a return trip to Europe, and secured financial support
and art donations for her museum from the French government.
She also met Loie Fuller's close friend, Queen Marie of Romania,
who agreed to donate a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room.
Alma Spreckels ca 1960: Photo ID#AAD-3011
Photo by Harold Robbins
Photo used with permission from San Francisco Public Library
Near the end of her trip, President Harding cabled Alma and
asked her to go on a fact-finding mission about working conditions
for women in post-war Europe for the US Labor Department's
Women's Bureau. She obliged his request and returned to the
United States with a well-documented and well-received report.
She then retained the services of her trusted architect George
Applegarth to work on designing her new museum to be located
in Lincoln Park. His design, a three-quarter scale-adaptation
of the original Palace of the Legion of Honor in Paris, was
accepted, and after five years of construction, the French
neo-classical structure opened to much fanfare in 1924, with
a grieving Alma presiding at the opening ceremony without
her husband, who had died of pneumonia six months earlier.
[3]
During the dedication of the California Palace of the Legion
of Honor, on November 11, 1924, the Counsellor of the State
of France, M.Albert Tirman, made a public announcement:
"The French government has not failed to acknowledge
the worth and the moral significance of such a work. I am
exceedingly pleased to inform you that the President of the
French Republic has bestowed upon Mrs. Alma de Bretteville
Spreckels the Cross of the Legion of Honor."
Adolph's death had been a devastating blow to the former
laundry girl and artist's model, who now found herself one
of the richest widows in the West. Alma had truly adored her
husband, who was one of the select few in her ambitious life
able to understand, appreciate, and adapt to her fiery nature
and robust energy.
With the Jazz Age in full swing, Alma shrewdly liquidated
some of her business holdings, notably the Oceanic Steamship
Company and the San Diego Union and Tribune newspapers, and
was able to enjoy the rest of the exciting decade in relatively
unfettered excess. Throughout the mid-to late 1920s, Alma,
and sometimes her children, moved between the Washington Street
mansion, her late husband's newly remodeled ranch in Napa,
California, the Ritz-Carlton in New York City, and a newly
purchased summer chateau in Neuilly, France.
Somehow, amidst mood swings, screaming matches with her demanding
children, and martinis and high-stakes poker games with the
celebrity elite, Alma was able to balance her extravagant
lifestyle and also keep sight of her philanthropic responsibilities.
She secured one million dollars and the extensive art collection
of Harry and Millie Williams for her museum, funded San Francisco
drama advocate Reginald Traver's "Little Theater Movement,"
and organized an exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of
Honor featuring the works of more than 300 American sculptors.
As the Great Depression rolled in, Alma returned to the rummage
sales and charity benefits she had spearheaded a decade and
a half earlier. Her brainchild "salvage shops" for
Depression relief, once sufficiently organized and funded,
were later given over to the Salvation Army for administration.
She also spent considerable time and money purchasing and
redecorating Sobre Vista, her vast country estate in Sonoma,
California, which provided a stable paycheck to an army of
local construction workers during the desperate years of the
early 1930s. It also proved to be a splendid environment for
entertaining such celebrities as boxing champ Gene Tunney,
San Francisco banker A. P Gianinni, and film stars Billie
Burke, Bing Crosby, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie
Chaplin, and John Barrymore.
Other major expenditures at this time were a lavish coming-out
party for her daughter Dorothy, which reportedly rivaled the
extravagant debuts of both Barbara Hutton and Elsa Armour,
and a generous financial donation to Maryhill Museum in Washington
state.[4]
On a trip to Santa Barbara, Alma became intrigued by the exotic
and costly Samarkand Hotel, a Persian-themed five-star money
pit, which she later purchased and remodeled into a neo-classical
repository for overflow from her expanding art collection.
There, the 56-year old Alma was introduced to local Santa
Barbara celebrity Elmer Awl, a successful manager for Armour
ranches dubbed "Uncle Elmer" by the locals.
She fell in love with the 47-year old cowboy businessman who
had co-founded the Rancheros Visitadores in 1929. Known for
their annual chuck wagon camping trips, the Rancheros Visitadores
became popular with the likes of Will Rogers and other Hollywood
celebrities, and businessmen craving the smell of a horse
and the nostalgia of the Old West.
In 1939, Alma married the flamboyant rancher she had found
to be the life of the party. The two enjoyed a brief period
of idle domestic bliss, but soon the restless Alma sent her
new husband to Santa Barbara, to run the Samarkand Hotel for
her and put his business skills to use while she attended
to her activities in San Francisco. Eventually she realized
that the Samarkand Hotel was not going to be the money-maker
she envisioned, and sold the hotel and land at a loss. Elmer
and Alma then resided briefly at Sobre Vista before the outbreak
of World War Two, when Elmer was called to active duty in
the Coast Guard reserves.
During the war years, Alma once again rose to the occasion
and formed the San Francisco League for Servicemen, which
provided musical instruments, sports equipment, toiletries,
wheelchairs, and crucial hospital and medical supplies to
the Army and Navy. She also converted her garage at 2080 Washington
into a recycling center, and donated Sobre Vista to the Army
as a recreational center. Towards the end of the war, Alma
learned that Elmer had been having an affair with her niece
and personal secretary, Ulla. Alma was granted a divorce in
1943 while Elmer was still stationed in Central America. Elmer
and Ulla would later wed and settle in Santa Barbara.
Alma's next project involved extensive funding for the establishment
of a maritime museum for the city of San Francisco. She had
purchased a comprehensive collection of model ships assembled
by maritime historian Edward S. Clark, founder of the Pacific
Model Society, which were a popular exhibit at the Golden
Gate International Exposition of 1939-40. The museum opened
in 1951, with Alma's model ship collection exhibit as its
core. In the late 1950s, Alma developed a feud with the museum's
founding director Karl Kortum over who should be credited
with the museum's founding. She was hurt over not receiving
due credit for her funding or exhibit donations which had
helped the fledgling museum get started.[5]
In 1961, Alma's son Adolph Jr. died of a heart attack, which
upset her greatly. Her son had been a pleasure-seeker throughout
his life, drinking to excess and persuing women, six of whom
he had married and divorced. The violent-tempered Adolph never
became the pillar of society Alma had hoped for, and perhaps
she felt guilty for not being firm with him when he was a
child. The later years of Alma's life were spent in near seclusion
at 2080 Washington. She settled into a routine of morning
nude swims in her backyard pool, mystery novels, and drives
out to visit her two daughters, and especially her six grandchildren,
who had all taken a fancy to the crusty eccentric.
Alma de Bretteville Spreckels died on August 7, 1968, of pneumonia.
Her initial fortune of 14 million dollars had by the time
of her death dwindled down to nearly 1 million, which she
bequeathed to her grandchildren, with her two daughters receiving
joint ownership of the mansion at 2080 Washington Street.
Footnotes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3] The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is
located at Land's End in Lincoln Park and opened on Armistice
Day, 1924. The museum houses more than 70 Rodin sculptures
acquired by Alma Spreckels and later donated to the Legion
of Honor. She also donated a large portion of her collection
of French furniture, silver, ceramics, antiquities, and a
large group of objects associated with the art of the dance.
[4] Maryhill Museum is located in Goldendale, Washington
and was designed by architects Hornblower & Marshall as
a private residence for wealthy entrepreneur Sam Hill. After
his death in 1931, Alma Spreckels assumed responsibility for
overseeing the completion of the museum which opened to the
public on May 13, 1940.
[5] San Francisco Maritime Museum is located at the
west end of Fisherman's Wharf and is part of the San Francisco
Maritime National Historical Park, a unit of the National
Park Service.
Bibliography
Scharlach, Bernice. Big Alma: San Francisco's Alma Spreckels
Publisher: Scottwall Associates, 1995
|
Born: March 24, 1881