We’ve told you that the first airmail flight from Maine took off from Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk and almost hit the Narragansett Hotel while climbing out. [See “Inventing the Campbells”]
We’ve told you that a Mainer stowaway hid aboard an early transoceanic flight from Old Orchard Beach and made it to Comillas (in northern Spain, on the Bay of Biscay) to experience the cheers with the rest of the plane’s crew. The stowaway’s picture was flashed across the globe in newspapers—the ultimate selfie. [See “The Pier.”]
Well, here’s another clue for you all.
In February, 2004, the Dirigo Flyer, a newsletter published by the Maine Aviation Historical Society, teased its readers by venturing these two black-and-white snapshots: “Marquis Lippo Gerini’s Loening amphibian at Kennebunk Beach, in front of the Sagamore.” [In one image, the Narragansett Hotel looms in the background. The other shows the Sagamore Hotel–later the Sea Spray, now razed.] “Does anyone know who the Marquis was…?
Fourteen years later, here’s the answer.
Early in the 20th century, it was all the rage for children of wealthy merchant princes in Newport, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut, to marry European nobles with titles (it was such a cliché—one day, you’re Consuela Vanderbilt, the next you’re the Duchess of Marlborough sitting below a giant John Singer Sargent painting of yourself)–instantly conferring old money cache on the nouveau riche.
From a German archive, we’ve run into this: “Daughter of Theatre King Weds Italian Nobleman. Their Wedding a Gay Event. Photo shows the Marquis Lippo Gerini [of Florence, Italy] and his bride, the former Lillian Madelyn Poli, on the steps of St. John’s Roman Catholic Church [in New Haven] after the wedding ceremony. It is reported that the bride’s father, Sylvester [Z.] Poli, vaudeville king, gave his daughter a $2,000,000 dowry.” There was a “lavish reception at Villa Rosa, Woodmont, Connecticut,” where the Polis lived.
Against all odds, the waterfront mansion Villa Rosa survives! See here.
Sylvester Poli’s “Poli’s Palace” vaudeville and movie theaters drew crowds all over cities and mill towns in New England. (He sold out to 20th Century Fox.) For many new citizens, these early movies were the footlights to a new Nation. Many a Loew’s Theatre was formerly a Poli’s Palace. As a child, jazz great Artie Shaw used to sneak into the Poli’s in his native New Haven. That’s where he caught the bug for show business…
A Maine beach is a place of converging narratives, washed away by the tides. Beauty, survival, curiosity. The mysterious force that brought Marquis Lippo Gerini to Maine is what brought you here. File all of this under: footprints in the sand.
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