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Talamore at Oak Terrace - Club
History
James W. Hilty
V. Scandal and the Declension of
the McKeans
Henry Pratt McKean,
 for
all his land and wealth apparently found little happiness at Pine Run Farms. His
wife, Marian enjoyed it even less. In 1910 scandal struck the McKean household,
which for many years had been the topic of Philadelphia gossipmongers. Marian
Shaw McKean -- a woman celebrated in newspaper accounts for her "beauty" and
"diplomacy" -- simply packed up one day and left her husband. That summer she
went to Boston ostensibly for the purposes of settling her two sons at Harvard
University, visiting her family, and vacationing at the McKean summer residence
at Price's Crossing, Massachusetts. Instead, Marian McKean and her sons took up
residence on Beacon Street in Boston, determined to remain.
In 1913 Henry Pratt McKean charged
his wife with desertion. A divorce decree was granted in June 1914. Four months
later, Marian Shaw McKean married Percy Haughton, brother of the Harvard
football coach. She lived thereafter in Boston, using her father's $2 million
inheritance (at least $40 million in 2003 after-tax dollars) to become, among
other things, a noted patron of the arts.
Not one to wither on the vine, Henry
Pratt McKean soon married
 Margaret
Moore Riker, a wealthy New York City socialite whose parents had left her a
considerable estate. Life with Margaret was evidently more pleasant than with
Marian, but McKean had only a relatively short time to enjoy it. He died in
April 1922 of a cerebral hemorrhage suffered aboard the steamship Intra France
while returning from a three months' trip to Turkey and Egypt. McKean's
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin obituary described him as a “financier” and a
"gentleman" -- meaning he had no real occupation. He was a director of the
Reading Company, a member of every prestigious Philadelphia club, and on the
board of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York. Following McKean's funeral
at Pine Ridge, his estate, which newspapers roughly valued at $1,000,000 (not
including Pine Run Farms) was divided between his wife and two sons.
McKean's sons, Henry Pratt McKean,
Jr. and Quincy Shaw McKean remained in Boston with their mother and settled
there permanently. For various reasons, then, by the mid-1920s the
 McKean
family name, a Philadelphia fixture since before the Revolution, was gone,
transplanted to Boston. The splendid McKean townhouses in Rittenhouse Square,
prime examples of turn-of-the-century townhouse architecture, passed from
private ownership when the McKeans departed and became the home of the
Philopatrian Society in 1926. Margaret Riker McKean sold off the bulk of her
husband's real estate holdings, including Pine Run Farms, which was soon
converted into Pine Run Golf and Country Club.
Henry Pratt McKean's death
effectively closed a chapter in Philadelphia's history, but it opened the way
for new uses of Pine Run, for a new place in golf history and for what would
ultimately become Talamore at Oak Terrace.
Chapters
I. Earliest History
II. Pine Run Farms - The McKean Estate
III. McKean Manor House - Pine Ridge
IV. Horace Trumbauer and Talamore at Oak Terrace
V. Scandal and the Declension of the McKeans
VI. Pine Run Country Club and Alexander Findlay
-- Brushing Against Golf Immortality
VII. Bankers' and the Great Depression.
VIII. Oak Terrace - The Wingel Years
IX. The “Old Oak”.
X. “Slammin' Sammy” Snead Comes to Oak Terrace.
XI. Location, Location, Location
XII. Oak Terrace - The “Bud” Hansen
Years.
XIII. Talamore at Oak Terrace - Realen and Bob Levy,
Jr.
XIV. Talamore at Oak Terrace: The making of a golf
course
XV. The switchover, 1993-1995:
XVI. THE END OF THE BEGINNING |
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