Rawlins Lowndes Cottenet

Rawlins Lowndes Cottenet or Rollie[1] (November 23, 1866 – March 29, 1951)[2] was a prominent socialite, composer, and member of the Metropolitan Opera Association's board of directors for forty-two years.[3][4]

Rawlins Lowndes Cottenet
Born(1866-11-23)November 23, 1866
New York City, U.S.
DiedMarch 29, 1951(1951-03-29) (aged 84)
New York City, U.S.
Other names"Bard of the Bulldags"
Occupation(s)Florist, clubman
Board member ofMetropolitan Opera Association
Parent(s)Edward Laight Cottenet
Marie Huger Lowndes
RelativesFrancis Cottenet (grandfather)

Early life

Cottenet was born at the family home at Fifth Avenue and 10th Street in New York City,[3] on November 23, 1866.[2] He was the youngest son of six children born to Edward Laight Cottenet (1825–1884)[5] and Marie Huger (née Lowndes) Cottenet (1835–1915).[6] His siblings were Frances, Franklin, Sabina Elliot, Charles Lowndes, and Fannie Laight.[7][8] His brother Charles, the designer of The Meadows, James Kernochan's house in Hempstead, New York, died in the hunting field of Meadow Brook Club.[9]

His paternal grandparents were Francis Cottenet and Frances (née Laight) Cottenet.[10] His grandfather came to the U.S. from France in 1822 and started an import-export business, Cottenet & Co., in New York.[11] His grandfather built a grand country home, known as Nuits, in Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York.[11] His paternal aunt, Anne E. H. Cottenet (1825–1907), was married to William Colford Schermerhorn (1821–1903),[12] a cousin of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor.[13] Through them, he was the first cousin of Annie Schermerhorn, who married John Innes Kane, in 1878, and Fanny Schermerhorn, who married Samuel Willard Bridgham, in 1869.[13][14]

His maternal grandfather was Charles Tidyman Lowndes,[15] who founded C.T. Lowndes & Co.,[16] an insurance agency in South Carolina.[17] Through his mother, he was a descendant of Thomas Lowndes, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rawlins Lowndes, who served as the Mayor of Charleston and the President of South Carolina.[7] His grand-uncle, also named Rawlins Lowndes (1801–1877), was married to Gertrude Livingston (1800–1883), the daughter of Maturin Livingston.[18]

Career
Enrico Caruso in the role of the Duke

In 1893, with his inherited wealth dwindling, he opened a florist shop called "The Rosary" in New York City,[19] which became very successful.[8] William "Willie" Tiffany was a business partner of his before he joined the Rough Riders.[8] Upon Tiffany's death, Cottenet and Henry Worthington Bull served as pallbearers at his funeral in 1898.[20][21]

The flowers were grown in the nursery of his estate in Old Westbury, which he bought from the estate of Belmont Purdy.[19] The Rosary provided floral arrangements for many prominent weddings, including the wedding of Consuelo Vanderbilt to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, in 1895,[22] and Gertrude Vanderbilt's wedding to Harry Payne Whitney, in 1896.[8] In fact, Cottenet was not only the florist at the Whitney wedding, but an usher to Harry, one of his closest friends.[8][23]

He provided the flowers for Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd's third marriage to William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1903, and was hired to "create evening musicales for the reopening celebration of the Vanderbilt mansion on Fifty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue."[8]

Cottenet sold The Rosary in 1906.[8]

Metropolitan Opera

In 1902, Cottenet heard Enrico Caruso singing at La Scala, and in November 1903, Caruso debuted as the Duke in Rigoletto at what was then known as the Conried-Metropolitan Opera Company, the precursor to the Metropolitan Opera.[3] Cottenet was also an amateur composer.[24]

From 1908 until his retirement in May 1950, he was a member of Metropolitan Opera Association's board of directors. He played a leading role in the development of singers and was credited with bringing Caruso, Arturo Toscanini, Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Diaghileff in coming to the United States to work.[3][25] He served alongside Marshall Field (grandson of Marshall Field) and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney.[26]

Among his friends were Fritz Kreisler, Josef Hofman, Efrem Zimbalist, and Jascha Heifetz.[3][27]

Military service

During World War I, he served as a Lieutenant on the staff of Gen. William M. Wright. He was named an Officer of the Imperial Crown of Italy in 1919.[3]

Personal life

Neither Rawlins nor his sister Fannie married, but together they hosted many parties featuring prominent musicians at their apartment, which was featured in House and Garden magazine in 1922.[8]

Cottonet died at his home, 555 Park Avenue in Manhattan, of bronchial pneumonia in March 1951.[3] His sister died several years later in 1956.[28]

Society life

Due to his family history and connections, Cottenet was prominent in New York and Newport society.[29] In 1892, he was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred" (along with extended cousin Clement March), purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[30] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[31] He was also listed on the Ulta-fashionable Peerage of America, compiled by Charles Wilber de Lyon Nicholls, in 1904.[32] The Cottenet's had a place in Lenox, Massachusetts that they used in the summers.[33]

Cottenet was a member of the Meadow Brook Polo Club (where he was thrown from a horse in 1899),[34][35] Knickerbocker Club,[36][37] and was a founder of the Coffee House at 54 West 45th Street in Manhattan.[3]

Notes
  1. Patterson, Jerry E. (2000). The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age. Random House Incorporated. ISBN 9780847822089. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  2. The National Cyclopædia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time. J. T. White. 1954. p. 583. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. "R.L. COTTENET, 85, OPERA EXECUTIVE; Member of 'Met' Board for 42 Years Dies--Induced Caruso, Toscanini to Come Here". The New York Times. March 31, 1951. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  4. Mahler, Gustav (1989). Gustav Mahler's American Years, 1907-1911: A Documentary History. Pendragon Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780918728739. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  5. "DIED. Cottenet". The New York Times. 20 September 1884. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  6. "DIED. Cottenet". The New York Times. 9 March 1915. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  7. Prioleau, Horry Frost; Manigault, Edward Lining (2010). Register of Carolina Huguenots, Vol. 1, Bacot - Dupont. p. 96. ISBN 9780557242634. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  8. Tabler, Judith (2016). Foxhunting with Meadow Brook. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 73–75. ISBN 9781586671525. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  9. "KILLED IN THE HUNT.; FATAL FALL OF CHARLES L. COTTENET OF THE MEADOW BROOK CLUB". The New York Times. 14 October 1892. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  10. "Francis Cottenet". The New York Times. 9 August 1884. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  11. Risk, Sharon Clay. "National Register of Historic Places nomination, Nuits". Retrieved 2008-06-14.
  12. "W.C. SCHERMERHORN DEAD; Passes Away in This City After a Few Hours' Illness. Was a Member of One of New York's Oldest Families, and a Patron of Letters, Science, and Art". The New York Times. January 2, 1903. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  13. Cutter, William Richard (1915). New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis historical publishing Company. p. 614. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  14. Madrazo y Garreta, Raimundo de (1898). "Sarah Schermerhorn". arcade.nyarc.org. Frick Art Reference Library. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  15. Chase, George Bigelow (1876). Lowndes of South Carolina: An Historical and Genealogical Memoir. A. Williams & Company. p. 41. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  16. "About Us". www.ctlowndes.com. C. T. Lowndes & Company Insurance Agency. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  17. LeClercq, Anne Sinkler Whaley; Sinkler, Emily Wharton (1996). An Antebellum Plantation Household: Including the South Carolina Low Country Receipts and Remedies of Emily Wharton Sinkler. University of South Carolina Press. p. 32. ISBN 9781570031298. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  18. Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. p. 1344. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  19. "R.L. COTTENET NOW A FLORIST.; Society People Liberally Patronize "The Rosary" and Approve of His Venture". The New York Times. 2 November 1893. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  20. "LIEUT. TIFFANY'S FUNERAL.; Rough Riders to Serve as a Guard of Honor -- Plans for the Cortege". The New York Times. 29 August 1898. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  21. "LIEUT. TIFFANY BURIED.; Body Accompanied to Its Last Resting Place in Newport by an Imposing Military Escort". The New York Times. 30 August 1898. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  22. "SHE IS NOW A DUCHESS; Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt's Marriage to the Duke of Marlborough. GREAT CROWDS CHEER THE BRIDE Thousands of Women Besiege the Young Woman's Home and St. Thomas's Church. GIVEN AWAY BY W.K. VANDERBILT Guests at the Wedding Breakfast -- Departure of Bride and Bridegroom for Oakdale, L.I." The New York Times. 7 November 1895. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  23. "WEDDED AT THE BREAKERS; GERTRUDE VANDERBILT BECOMES MRS. HENRY PAYNE WHITNEY. The Number of Guests Limited, but the Marriage One of the Grandest Ever Celebrated in America -- Cornelius Vanderbilt, Seated in a Reclining Chair, Gives the Bride Away -- A Magnificent Floral Display. WEDDED AT THE BREAKERS". The New York Times. 26 August 1896. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  24. "Rawlins Lowndes Cottenet (composer)". www.prestoclassical.co.uk. Presto Classical. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  25. Colby, Frank Moore (1952). The New International Year Book. p. 407. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  26. "PUT 2 YOUNGER MEN ON OPERA CO. BOARD; Marshall Field and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Made Directors of the Metropolitan. TO AID AMERICAN TALENT Stockholders Adopt Another Innovation at Special Meeting, Marking Change in Policy". The New York Times. 25 June 1925. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  27. Berenson, Bernard; Gardner, Isabella Stewart; Berenson, Mary; Hadley, Rollin Van N. (1987). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887-1924, with Correspondence by Mary Berenson. Northeastern University Press. p. 198. ISBN 9780930350895. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  28. "MISS F. M. COTTENET, PHILANTHROPIST, 85". The New York Times. 13 February 1956. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  29. "THE NEWPORT CASINO DANCE. Wearers of Expensive Jewelry--Some of the Guests Who Were Present". The New York Times. 14 August 1894. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  30. McAllister, Ward (16 February 1892). "THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED | WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  31. Keister, Lisa A. (2005). Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780521536677. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  32. Nicholls, Charles Wilbur de Lyon (1904). The Ultra-fashionable Peerage of America: An Official List of Those People who Can Properly be Called Ultra-fashionable in the United States. G. Harjes. p. 12. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  33. Social Register: Summer. Social Register Association. 1900. p. 65. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  34. "MEADOW BROOK HUNTERS HURT.; R.L. Cottenet and C.A. Stevens Thrown While Hunting". The New York Times. 19 November 1899. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  35. "MEADOW BROOK HUNT SPILLS". The New York Times. 20 November 1899. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  36. Social Register, New York. Social Register Association. 1908. p. 125. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  37. Club Men of New York: Their Clubs, College Alumni Associations, Occupations, and Business and Home Addresses, with Historical Sketches of Many Prominent New York Organizations. Republic Press. 1902. p. 202. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
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