June 2012 Volume 25 Number 8 - Our Town | St. James, NY

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H I S T O R I C A L L Y S P E A K I N G
Alice Throckmorton McLean
This is the view of the back of Mrs. McLean’s home after the 1930 renovations.
Much of the front of the mansion still looks the same as it did in
1930, but the back has been greatly modified by the additional wings
that were added for the gymnasium and the library.
The house that William Minott built on Three Sisters Road in St. James in
1910 to serve as a summer house. This was the way the original home
looked before Mrs. McLean remodeled it in 1930 transforming it into a
brick English country home.
continued from page 34
March 8, 1886,” alice was the
youngest of the three daughters of
an american millionaire, James
Mclean, and his wife, Sara
Throckmorton. (Barbara Van liew,
head-of the-harbor: a Journey
through time, published by Main
Road Books, inc., laurel, N.Y.,
2005, p.162.) James Mclean was
vice president of the Board of the
Phelps dodge Corporation, then
“one of the three biggest american
copper companies,” and he
amassed a considerable fortune.
Since the Mcleans did not have a
son, James Mclean treated alice
as the son he never had, and arbitrarily
decided to make his third
daughter heir of the fortune he acquired
through the copper industry.
For alice, this meant that she
would learn to do many things
that young girls would not normally
be expected to learn. (“Profiles:
ladies in uniform,” the
New yorker, July 4, 1942, p.21-
29.)
a wealthy man, Mr. Mclean
was an avid horseman. he loved
to ride and play polo, and as his
daughter grew up, he taught her
to do the same. alice became
such a “dedicated rider,” she not
only played polo, but learned “to
drive horses in tandem and fourin-hand.”
alice displayed her polo
skills when she played with the
men of the Smithtown Polo Club,
and she displayed her horsemanship
skills as a participant in the
annual Smithtown horse Shows.
driving four horses abreast was
no mean feat for a woman but she
became an expert. (Barbara F. Van
liew, op. cit., p. 164.)
continued on facing page
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