The Three B's

Washington Life
Historical Landscapes
March 2009
by Donna Evers

How three formidable hostesses, Mrs. Truxton Beale, Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss and Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, ran Washington society for decades and left the city with three irreplaceable gifts.

For a period of thirty years or so from the 1920's to the 1950's, three ladies reigned supreme as the leading hostesses of Washington society. Because their last names all started with "B", they were referred to as the "Three Mrs. B's". A popular saying of the day was that when you went to Washington, first you dropped your card at the Three B's, and then you went to the White House. Of these three gatekeepers, perhaps the most formidable was Mrs. Truxton Beale, the former Marie Oge, a California heiress who was forever pruning and perfecting her guest list. It was accepted knowledge that "if you were invited to the Beales', you made it." In a Time magazine article from 1949, the reporter said, "Mrs.Truxton Beale entertains with a rigid selectivity at Decatur House, the only house in Washington still lighted by gas and candle light." Probably the most heralded function she gave was her party after the annual White House diplomatic reception, which took place, after all, just down the street from her home. Interestingly enough, even though this lady had an impeccable reputation, her name was associated with two serious scandals that never followed her to Washington. The first was when a writer in San Francisco slandered her good name, and her fiancé, Truxton Beale and a friend attacked the man in his own home and shot him! Charges were dismissed when the man recovered, but Marie and Truxton went all the way to Boston to have a small, quiet wedding and then took a long honeymoon in Europe to let the scandal die down. The next incident occurred some years later in Pittsburgh, when the Beales were guests of Harry Kendall Thaw, the night he shot and killed architect Stanford White, who was having an affair with his actress wife, Evelyn Nesbitt. Neither of these unfortunate events trailed after the Beales when they became prominent figures in Washington and Mrs. Truxton Beale, who was so discreet she would not allow her photograph to be published, remained beyond reproach.

When Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, the former Mildred Barnes, and her husband came to Washington from their years abroad in the Foreign Service, they bought a run-down estate circa 1802, in Georgetown, named it Dumbarton Oaks and spent the next two decades renovating the house and, with the help of landscape designer Beatrix Ferrand, laying out the sumptuous gardens. Mildred Barnes was an heiress to the Foster's Castoria fortune, which helped finance the couple's passion for collecting medieval, Byzantine and pre-Columbian art and giving the dazzling parties that came to characterize life at the Dumbarton estate. Paderewski entertained their guests on the piano and Igor Stravinski composed the Dumbarton Suite in honor of their 30th wedding anniversary. It is interesting to note that Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss were step brother and step sister, who became friends when her mother married his father. The younger couple married twelve years later and shared a lifetime love of travel, art and parties. When they died, their ashes were interred in their beloved gardens at the Oaks.