Mrs. Astor Regrets (29 page)

Annette de la Renta, Brooke Astor, and Oscar de la Renta. Brooke's best friend for four decades, Annette would later be appointed her guardian.

Bill Cunningham/New York Times

Holly Hill, Brooke Astor's sixty-five-acre estate in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
Collection of Philip Marshall

The serpentine staircase at Holly Hill, decorated with paintings of dogs.
Photograph by Alec Marshall

Brooke Astor with her son, Tony, Charlene Marshall, and the star-crossed lawyer Francis X. Morrissey, Jr., at the Living Landmarks benefit, November 2002.

Ron Galella/Getty Images

Brooke with her longtime butler, Chris Ely. Fired by Tony Marshall in 2005, the devoted Ely was later rehired by Annette de la Renta and worked for Mrs. Astor until her death.
Collection of Philip Marshall

At Holly Hill, Brooke Astor with grandson Philip, who would later instigate the suit against his father to improve his grandmother's living conditions.
Photograph by Alec Marshall

November 27, 2007. Already in custody, Tony Marshall, accused of swindling tens of millions of dollars from his mother, arrives at court for arraignment on charges of fraud and larceny.
John Marshall Mantel/New York Times/Redux

The last photograph of Brooke Astor, American icon, at Holly Hill with family members and nurses. The shot was taken on July 17, 2007, a month before her death. Girlsie, her beloved dachshund, is nearby.
Collection of Philip Marshall

Brooke Astor in Maine, August 2000. Left: grandson Philip Marshall and great-granddaughter Sophie Marshall. Right: great-grandson Winslow Marshall and Nan Starr.
Collection of Philip Marshall

10. "I Didn't Know It Would Be Armageddon"

T
HE FIFTY-SIXTH FLOOR
at 30 Rockefeller Plaza has been occupied since 1933 by the family that built Rockefeller Center. The elevators open to reveal a glass foyer on the south side, featuring a bronze bust of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the dry goods clerk who founded the Standard Oil Company and eventually became the richest man in the world. A polite but firm security officer mans the desk, ensuring that no unwanted visitors intrude.

David Rockefeller, the grandson of the family patriarch and the last survivor of his generation of six siblings, operates out of a surprisingly small southwest corner office, albeit one with a panoramic view of the Empire State Building, the Hudson River, and the Statue of Liberty. Rockefeller Center was his father's crowning aesthetic achievement, but the influence of his mother, Abby, the artistic visionary who cofounded the Museum of Modern Art, is apparent on his walls. A Picasso cubist painting of a woman's head, a Gauguin (
Portrait of Jacob Meyer de Haan),
a large Signac of a man magically producing a flower, and a blue-and-yellow Dale Chihuly glass sculpture are among the $50 million worth of art in the office. Family photographs are scattered on the windowsills, including a picture of Rockefeller with Brooke Astor, beaming as recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This is where the opening scene unfolded of what would become Tony and Charlene Marshall versus the world. In late May 2005, when Brooke Astor was 103 years old, Rockefeller called Tony Marshall and asked him to come by his office to discuss what might be euphemistically called his mother's living situation but in reality was a joint effort by Rockefeller and Annette de la Renta to move Brooke back to Holly Hill. "I remember going to the Central Park Zoo with Brooke in May," Annette says. "It was hot—there were bus fumes in your face. I thought, 'What are we doing?'" Making matters worse was that 778 Park Avenue, for all its luxuries, lacked central air conditioning. Bob Silvers remembers accompanying Annette to see Brooke around the same time, on a day that Tony had told his mother once again that she could not return to Holly Hill. "Brooke was sitting there, all dressed up, wearing a hat, and she was crying," he says. "She looked up, tears coming from her eyes. She said, 'It's not right. I want to go.'"

Tony Marshall had recently received other pointed inquiries from Brooke's friends, who had heard that she had become a virtual prisoner of Park Avenue. Her care had been the topic of lunchtime gossip at the communal table at the venerable Brook Club. As John Richardson tells it, "I started saying that all the staff at Holly Hill had been fired. Then I looked up, and to my absolute horror, I saw Tony coming in. I realized, there's nobody next to me, and he's going to sit down." Trapped, Richardson asked directly for an update on Brooke and Holly Hill. As he recalls, "Tony went into this nauseating spiel—'Oh, poor darling Brooke, it was such a strain for her going every weekend, she is so old. We said to her, "Brooke, it's much better if we close down the house and keep you comfortable in New York, you'll be closer to your doctor and hospitals and your friends."'"

Viscount Astor had been troubled by a disconcerting recent visit to Brooke but had chosen not to confront Tony Marshall. "She didn't recognize me to start with," he recalls, "but halfway through, she squeezed my hand and said, 'I'm having a miserable time—please take me away.'"

All these tales eventually flowed back to Annette, in her role as Brooke's best friend and ultimate protector. Although she, David Rockefeller, and Tony Marshall lived within a few blocks of each other, she suggested that the meeting be held at Rockefeller's office, for its aura of power and authority. The two white-haired men, only nine years apart in age, had always gotten along reasonably well. "We had a perfectly cordial relationship, not a close one," says Rockefeller, the elder of the two, who hoped there was enough of a bond for him to be persuasive.

At the appointed hour, Tony showed up at Rockefeller's office with the uninvited Charlene in tow. Everyone was extremely polite, almost exaggeratedly so, and yet tension radiated as the four of them sat at the small white marble table. Rockefell er urged the Marshalls to reopen Holly Hill, stressing that he thought Brooke would appreciate the fresh air and countryside. "She always loved it out there in the spring—she loved to see the daffodils, she had a whole field of daffodils," says Rockefeller. "It seemed cruel that she was unable to go."