Alexandra Gardiner Creel

Alexandra Gardiner Creel (February 7, 1910 - December 19, 1990)[1] was a member of the Gardiner family, who were prominent bankers and landowners, known for their ownership of 3,300-acre (13 km2) Gardiners Island,[2] located off the eastern tip of Long Island, New York.[3][4]

Alexandra Gardiner Creel
Born
Alexandra Diodati Gardiner

(1910-02-07)February 7, 1910
New York City, U.S.
DiedDecember 19, 1990(1990-12-19) (aged 80)
Glen Cove, New York, U.S.
Known forHeiress to Gardiners Island
Children2, including Alexandra Creel Goelet
RelativesRobert David Lion Gardiner (brother)

Early life and education

Creel was born on February 7, 1910, in New York City, to Robert Alexander Gardiner (1863-1919) and Nora Loftus, a native of County Kilkenny in Ireland. Her brother Robert David Lion Gardiner (1911-2004) co-owned with Alexandra Gardiner Creel Gardiners Island, New York, who died without leaving any biological children.

Her father's estate in 1919, was estimated at $1,000,000 in a trust to raise her and her elder brother.[5] In 1921, her mother went to court to challenge the terms of the trust, claiming she was not able to maintain her children with the funds the managers released.

Life

In 1932, Gardiner quietly married James Randall Creel (1904-1990), a judge of the New York City Criminal Court,[6] which was reported by The New York Times, without telling her family.[5] They reported her mother confronted the minister who performed the marriage, and she was so upset she had to be calmed by the Chief of Police.

Her aunt Sarah Diodati Gardiner, who had purchased Gardiners Island from her cousin Winthrop Gardiner Jr., in 1936, created a trust so she could leave the island to her and her brother, Robert David Lion Gardiner.[2] The trust would pay the taxes and costs to maintain the property, but the terms of the trust did not allow them to sell the Island. Alexandra and Robert became the beneficiaries of the trust upon their aunt's death in January 1953. The trust's money was depleted in the 1970s.

Alexandra's death left a long-running dispute between her brother and her daughter Alexandra Creel Goelet over the future of the island, which the Gardiner family first acquired in a manorial grant from the King of England in 1639.[3][4]

Personal life

Creel had two children with James Randall Creel;

  • James Randall Creel, III. (1934-1988), who married Diana Millicent, and had the following children;
    • Jamie Creel (b. c. 1965) Born James Randall Creel IV, who owns Creel and Gow, a curiosity shop in New York City and Millbrook, New York
    • Lawrence Gardiner Creel (b. 1963) Who is a partner at Edgewood Management Company in New York City
  • Alexandra Gardiner Creel (*1940), married Robert Guestier Goelet (1923-2019), a philanthropist of French origin, with whom she had the following children;
    • Alexandra Gardiner Goelet (b. c. 1977), who runs the family investment office along with her younger brother Robert.
    • Robert Gardiner Goelet (b. c. 1979), a former project manager for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

References
  1. United States Public Records
  2. "2 New Heirs Continue 4th Century of Gardiners As Owners of Island, Once Haunt of Captain Kidd: Miss Sarah Diodati Gardiner Bequeaths Historic Estate to Nephew and Niece Royal Grant of 3,300 Acres Held by Family Since 1639, When Indians Sold It". The New York Times. 1953-01-13. p. 29. Retrieved 2020-09-21. Gardiners Island, the historic, 3,300-acre piece of land that lies between the forked, eastern tips of Long Island, has been willed to a niece and a nephew of Miss Sarah Diodati Gardiner, the fifteenth proprietor of the island, who died last Monday at the age of 90.
  3. Dinitia Smith (1989-06-05). "The blue-blood feud over Gardiner's Island: Wasp's Nest". New York Magazine. pp. 30–39. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  4. "A. Gardiner Creel, 80, Island's Co-owner, Dies". The New York Times. 18 December 1990. p. D21. Retrieved 14 March 2022. Her death may send Gardiners Island back into the courts. Mr. Gardiner, the island's other owner, and Mrs. Creel's daughter, Alexandra Gardiner Creel Goelet of Manhattan, have been arguing for the past decade over zoning and other environmental issues on the island.
  5. "MISS A.D. GARDINER IS WED IN SECRET; Mother Protests Marriage of Park Av. Girl to James Randall Creel. VISITS GARDEN CITY CHURCH Dean Who Performed Ceremony Calls for Police Aid to Calm Society Leader". The New York Times. 1932-06-12. p. 14.
  6. "James Randall Creel; Judge, 85". The New York Times. 1990-07-24. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-05.
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