They Were More Than ‘Friends’: LGBTQ+ History at 5 National Trust Historic Sites
Queer preservationists have led many fights to protect national treasures that harbor our shared history within their walls. Preservationists who, because of the times in which they lived, could have scarcely foreseen that someday their stories would be safely told and considered worth telling.
Over the years the National Trust for Historic Preservation has worked to make its portfolio of sites safe spaces for LGBTQ+ visitors to seek out their history. In the Summer of 2024, as a post- doctoral fellow at the National Trust, I spent time understanding the history of National Trust Historic Sites that were either designed or saved by people who today would have likely identified in some way with the LGBTQ+ community.
Here is a glimpse of five of those stories.
Shadows-on-the-Teche (New Iberia, Louisiana)
photo by: Shadows-on-the-Teche Collection
A notice that William Weeks Hall issued to his gatekeeper at Shadows-on-the-Teche.
Long before William Weeks Hall ever opened his family home to the public as a National Trust Historic Site, he found it necessary to regulate the number of visitors who flocked to the Shadows-on-the-Teche. “I will notify you in advance of any appointments which I have made,” Hall told his gatekeeper, “ADMIT NO OTHERS WITHOUT PASSES FROM ME.”
Proving somewhat counterintuitive, issuing passes to only a select group made the neighbors whom Hall kept at arm’s length even more curious about his comings and goings. Described as an “eccentric” and “reclusive” person by those who knew only of him, had Hall lived beyond the mid-twentieth century, nosey neighbors and welcomed guests would have both likely more accurately described him as a ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’ man.
As someone who engaged in intimate relationships with other men at a time when doing so was largely considered simultaneously immoral and illegal, Hall had to limit the number of prying eyes who were familiar with the life he lived only when the literal shadows found along the Bayou Teche masked him.
Chesterwood (Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
photo by: Chesterwood Archives, Chapin Library, Williams College
Daniel Chester French and Ned Powers posing as cherubs after Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, 1875.
photo by: William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library
"The Awakening of Endymion", 1876 by Daniel Chester French.
Far from the bayous of Louisiana, in the hills of western Massachusetts, sits another estate that captivates every visitor who simply sets foot on its grounds. Chesterwood was the summer home and studio of Daniel Chester French, a late nineteenth and early twentieth century sculptor who was the mastermind behind the monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln found in the Lincoln Memorial.
Though French eventually married a woman, his first cousin Mary Adams French, some scholars of LGBTQ+ history see “queer whispers” in both his personal life and professional works. A more subtle example of this reading is found in his sculpture of Endymion, which greets every guest as they enter the Chesterwood visitor center.
In addition to being the first of French’s male nudes, The Awakening of Endymion was the first work he sculpted outside of a commission for a government or private body and, despite Endymion being a popular subject among sculptors for centuries, a piece for which French never found a buyer. His daughter later speculated that it would have sold “if the ladies had the money.”
In addition to his daughter’s belief that this piece would appeal largely to the female gaze, French’s father expressed his own opinion that “the unsuccessful, half-naked Endymion” alone was enough male nudes “for one sculptor’s resume.” Nonetheless, despite his father’s objections, French went on to sculpt another one for Science Controlling the Forces of Steam and Electricity.
The Glass House (New Canaan, Connecticut)
A mere two hours south of Chesterwood, in New Canaan, Connecticut, is a world-renowned modern historic site made almost entirely of glass. Designed by architect Philip Johnson, in 1949,the Glass House is now a site that includes 49-acres of pastoral landscape and boasts 13 additional structures.
The Glass House is situated directly across from another building made almost entirely of brick. Far from being a part of some odd adaption of The Three Little Pigs, the newly restored Brick House is a building of immense cultural significance and queer social history. Frank Lloyd Wright and Andy Warhol being just a couple of the many twentieth century icons who visited, the Glass House served as a canvas and salon for gatherings of artists, collectors, patrons, and creatives, and became even more of a salon once Johnson became acquainted with art curator David Grainger Whitney.
photo by: Glass House Archives
From right to left: David Whitney, Andy Warhol, Philip Johnson, Dr. John Dalton, and Robert A.M. Stern at the Glass House.
Beginning in 1960, Whitney would be known publicly as Johnson’s business partner and privately, until the end of both of their lives in 2005, as his romantic partner. Whitney, 33 years Johnson’s junior, brought not only passion and joy to his life, but also the perspective of a younger generation to Johnson’s art world.
Edith Farnsworth House (Plano, Illinois)
Roughly two hours south of Chicago is another glass box that also testifies to the many ways LGBTQ+ people negotiated their existence in the everyday life of the twentieth century, and it largely owes its existence to an openly lesbian couple.
If girlfriends Georgia Lingafelt and Ruth Lee refrained from introducing their friend Dr. Edith Farnsworth to architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in 1944, the world may have never known the first-rate example of modern architecture that is the Edith Farnsworth House.
Although Farnsworth likely would identify in some way with the LGBTQ+ community today, her relationships remain ambiguous and in need of greater research. Nonetheless, far from being isolated and alone, the LGBTQ+ community members whom Farnsworth welcomed into her glass house helped show the world that friendships with LGBTQ+ people were healthy, normal, and fun!
photo by: Castine Maine Historical Society
Edith Farnsworth and friends in Maine.
Kykuit (Tarrytown, New York)
A far cry from a glass box plopped down in the heartlands of the Midwest, Kykuit is a Gilded Age mansion built for oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. In addition to its outstanding architectural details and deep connections to US history, the ceramics, furniture, artworks, and other marvels that adorn Kykuit make it a true wonder to behold.
Ogden Codman Jr. was the interior designer who impressively curated the rooms of Kykuit. How Codman would describe his sexuality today remains a mystery, for he had intimate relations with other men before he married a woman in 1904, was widowed by 1910, and then spent the remainder of his life in the company of his male “secretaries.”
The ways Codman and these men took their relationships beyond the bounds of an employer and employee are unclear, but Codman’s widowed self certainly deserves a moniker other than the ahistorical, asexual one of ‘confirmed bachelor.’
photo by: Historic New England
Ogden Codman, Jr. the interior designer at Kykuit.
In addition to the five sites listed above, many sites across the National Trust’s portfolio have either fairly clear connections to LGBTQ+ history or ambiguous ones that need exploring. So, regardless of your affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community, the National Trust encourages you to explore a more complete version of US history at every site within the National Trust’s portfolio.
Because so many stories from LGBTQ+ history were forged in the shadows, your visit to a National Trust site may for the first time cast light on a story still in need of someone to tell it. These explorations into LGBTQ+ history are after all just the beginning of this work and, as the preservationists noted above demonstrated, the success of this work depends on community support.
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