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Broadway actor turned Wall Street financier Hartwig Baruch, who
owned Bay Tree Lodge in the Roaring Twenties, poses with son, Harty Jr.
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THE WALL STREET ACTOR
After James Viles passed away in 1919, his widow Anna Underwood
Viles decided to sell. A well-known New York lawyer
named Phelan Beale, who at one time was married to an aunt
of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, bought the property in April of
1923. But Beale was only a middleman for a famous client named
Hartwig “Harty” Baruch, to whom he transferred Bay Tree Lodge
the very next month.
Baruch was a colorful character. Born in South Carolina, he
was the son of a Jewish Confederate Army surgeon, captured at
Gettysburg and imprisoned by the Union. As a young man, Baruch
enjoyed an impressive acting career in New York. His stage
name was Nat Hartwig. But the limelight of Broadway was never
bright enough for his mother’s sense of prestige. She persuaded
his younger, more famous brother Bernard — a powerful Wall
Street financier — to give him a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
Even after a 20-years absence, Baruch pondered a return
to the stage, according to a 1921 story in The New York Times.
After making Bay Tree Lodge his winter home, Baruch added
an electric light plant. Prior to that, illumination came from a
carbide lighting system. He and his wife, Arline, lived large and
did lots of entertaining at the lodge, according to Hosford, the
caretaker. But as the Roaring Twenties waned, the Baruchs spent
more time at a 200-year-old mansion in Virginia, where Hosford
was recruited to bring them tubbed palms by boat. A few years
after the stock market crashed, Baruch sold Bay Tree for a song.
Then his wife divorced him.
BACKWOODS COFFEE BARON
Coffee money came next. Robert S. Cheek, a beneficiary of the
Maxwell House fortune, bought Bay Tree Lodge in 1932, but not
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GLOBAL M ARKETING A ND P ERSONAL S ERV ICE
ANGEL A GELLER, Realtor
ABR, GRI, CRS, CDPE
772-418-4420
AngelaSGeller@gmail.com
AMANDA G ELLER, Realtor
www.TheGellerGroup.com
772-332-3298
AGeller18@gmail.com
Specializing on North and South Hutchinson Islands, Fort Pierce, and Port St Lucie | Luxury, Waterfront, and Residential Real Estate
Atlantic Shores Realty Expertise | 200 N Second Street, Fort Pierce, FL 34950 | 125 HHHHH Recommendations
/www.thegellergroup.com
/www.TheGellerGroup.com
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