Nancy Lancaster

Nancy Lancaster (10 September 1897 – 19 August 1994) was a 20th-century tastemaker and the owner of

Nancy was first married, on February 7, 1917, to Henry Field, a grandson of Marshall Field, the wealthy founder of the Chicago department store. He died five months later -- on July 8, 1917 -- at age 22 at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City following an operation.

Second marriage

In 1920 Nancy married journalist and investor Ronald Tree (1897–1976), a cousin of her first husband. After moving to England in 1927, they had two sons, Michael Lambert Tree (1921-1999) and Jeremy Tree (1925-1993), and a daughter, Rosemary, who died at birth in 1922. Michael married Lady Anne Cavendish, a daughter of Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire.^[2]

At first the Trees took a 10-year repairing lease on Kelmarsh Hall near Market Harborough in Northamptonshire, which Nancy redecorated with help from Mrs Guy Bethell of Elden Ltd. In 1933, the Trees bought Ditchley Park near Charlbury in Oxfordshire, and it was the decoration of this house which earned Nancy the reputation of having "the best taste of almost anyone in the world."^[3] She worked on it with Sibyl Colefax (Mrs Bethell having died) and the French decorator Stéphane Boudin of the Paris firm Jansen.

In November 1933, Ronald Tree became the

Nancy married, thirdly, in 1948, Lieutenant Colonel Claude Lancaster (1899–1977), a former military officer, country squire and member of Parliament who owned Kelmarsh Hall near Market Harborough, Northamptonshire. Renowned today for its gardens, it is a popular tourist site and said to be Nancy Lancaster's favorite home of all, despite their divorce after only five years in 1953. The couple had been having an affair for years prior to their marriage. Nancy Lancaster later claimed that it was the suffocating, day-to-day intimacy of marriage that made her realise why they were successful as lovers and ill-suited as husband and wife.

In 1950, Nancy was forced to sell her beloved Mirador and in 1954 she bought Haseley Court near Oxford. She renovated and decorated the house with the help of her business partner, John Fowler (1906–1977). They also created the famous Yellow Room at Avery Row, Mayfair. After a fire in 1971, she sold the main house at Haseley and moved into the coach house, where she lived for the rest of her life. The garden she created at Haseley was particularly famous for its sense of style. The renowned British interior designer

Nancy Lancaster died in 1994 and is buried in Virginia, between her first husband and the infant daughter from her second marriage.^[citation needed]

Obituary from Independent, August 24, 1994^[7]

References

Further reading

• Lewis, Adam (2010). The Great Lady Decorators. New York: Rizzoli.
• Becker, Robert (1996). Nancy Lancaster: Her Life, Her World, Her Art. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.