Robin McLaurin Williams (b. July 21, 1952) is the only child of Laurie and Robert Williams, a senior car executive in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. After he attended rather straightlaced Detroit Country Day School, his family moved to looser Marin County, north of San Francisco, which changed his outlook forever. Williams went to Claremont McKenna College in southern California and was accepted to the competitive graduate acting program at Juilliard, run by imposing actor John Houseman. There, rooming with Chris Reeve (see Christopher Reeve), Robin developed his “Mork” character. If you look carefully enough, within his portrayal of Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society, there lurks the inner Detroit Country Day student. Williams is the best known William F. Buckley impersonator in the world (see William F. Buckley Jr.).
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (b. March 2, 1931) Born in Richmond, Virginia, Tom Wolfe graduated from Washington and Lee University and earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale. He began his career as a journalist, first in Springfield, Massachuetts, then at The Washington Post and the New York Herald Tribune, which spawned New York magazine. Thanks to his incredibly colorful, dialogue-as-sound-effect style, Wolfe was considered more or less to be the first and the principal practitioner of the “new journalism” (see Leonard Bernstein). He has subsequently written essays about it and his role in shaping it. Wolfe moved into book-length reporting, including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, about Ken Kesey and his “band of merry pranksters,” and The Right Stuff, about the Apollo 7 space launch and the very soul of the space program, which won the National Book Award. Wolfe has turned to fiction in more recent years. His reportage often reads like fiction, and his fiction includes dense reportage (see Master Reading List).
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867–April 9, 1959) Born in rural Wisconsin, Wright decided as a young boy that he wanted to be an architect. A high-school dropout, he went to work in the engineering department of the University of Wisconsin, where he also attended classes for a while. At twenty he moved to Chicago, where he became a draftsman and assistant in the flourishing world of high-profile American architecture. Wright vowed to become the greatest architect of all time, and got a head start by working as the chief draftsman of influential architect Louis Sullivan. By 1893, Wright had established his own practice, and he married Catherine Tobin. With a loan from his former boss, Louis Sullivan, the two moved to Oak Park (now a historic neighborhood, in fact, due to all the houses Wright designed there). His office and staff were downstairs, his growing family of six children lived above. He was considered a pioneer of the Prairie School, which favored low unpainted buildings, natural materials, and many windows and skylights to enhance their natural settings. In 1919 Wright walked out on his family and moved to Berlin with his lover, an intellectual and early feminist who left her family as well. The scandal made it impossible for Wright to get commissions in this country. The couple lived in Europe for a few years, while monographs of his work were published there. They returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where his mother’s family owned land, and there he established Taliesin, his first academy for aspiring architects. While it was being finished, an employee set the compound on fire, killing several people. Wright rebuilt Taliesin, married two more times, and also built Taliesin West, in Arizona, when the Wisconsin weather proved too harsh. He insisted that all applicants design and build their own shelters, know how to prepare a fine dinner, and, in their own formal clothes, be able to entertain guests. In this way, they would also learn how to comport themselves with future clients. Wright died before the Guggenheim Museum, his final work, opened. The AIA declared him to be the finest American architect of the twentieth century. Of the 1,141 buildings he designed, 532 were completed, 409 of which still stand. More than one-third of them are considered national landmarks.
John Adams
Cleveland Amory
Frank Boyden
William F. Buckley Jr.
McGeorge Bundy
George H. W. Bush
Dick Cavett
Archibald Cox
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Edward S. Harkness
Katharine Hepburn
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Noor Al Hussein
(née Lisa “Buck” Halaby)
Grace Kelly
Caroline Kennedy
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
John Vliet Lindsay
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Clare Boothe Luce
Charles Follen McKim
William Rutherford Mead
Barbara (“Babe”) Cushing Mortimer Paley
George Ames Plimpton
Cole Porter
Elliot Richardson
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Sargent Shriver
Adlai Ewing Stevenson
Garretson Beekman Trudeau
Stanford White
Gloria Vanderbilt
Louis Stanton Auchincloss, who died on January 26, 2010, occupied a special place in the private-school universe. His novel The Rector of Justin (1964), based on the life of Groton’s Endicott Peabody, is to the American prep school what Tom Brown’s School Days is to the British public school—the defining text, our best fictional account of the schools of the Anglo ascendancy and the values they embraced.
In many ways Auchincloss himself personified the man these schools hoped to turn out: navy officer, devoted husband and father, East Side society fixture, civic leader (president of the Museum of the City of New York, etc.), white-shoe lawyer (specializing, of course, in trusts and estates)—the life, in short, he was brought up to live. But what hadn’t been expected was the range and productivity of his literary life—more than sixty books of fiction and nonfiction—or the sharp, often satirical eye he would cast on the rector’s students.
The right address or a lucky inheritance gets no dispensation in an Auchincloss novel. He was interested not only in what people make of their circumstances, but also what they make of themselves. Readers were enticed by the trappings of his privileged world—the Park Avenue apartments, the clubs—but then found themselves in a novel of moral inquiry. How should we live? What are our responsibilities to one another?
In a literary culture that prizes the outsider, even the outlaw, Auchincloss was the consummate insider. The corporate boards, the law firms, the parties that make up his fictional world are drawn with a knowing intimacy. But he doesn’t celebrate them; he sees them for what they are, with all their human failings. He was part of the establishment but was never taken in by it, both insider and critic, a literary misfit in a tailored suit. Auchincloss went to Wall Street every working day, but he took the subway. For years a sight familiar to commuters with folded tabloids on the Lexington Avenue line was Auchincloss with his patrician nose in a book—Flaubert, often, in the original French. What would the rector have made of that?
— (BA, Harvard; MA, Trinity College, Cambridge), was Louis Auchincloss’s editor and publisher at Houghton Mifflin
It is not for lack of funds that preppies hew strongly to the concept of thrift, though it can be. Remember that the original preppies are descended from Pilgrims: we are sturdy, nature-loving puritans who enjoy the tradition of passing our used garments and silver down the ancestral line. We prefer modest discretion to the outward manifestations of wealth that are the signs of the new hordes. We are also cheap.
Is it better to inherit your money or make it on your own? Depends on the original source. If your money comes from something fundamental, like steel or oil, then your money is clean and pure. Or look at it this way: The dirtier a worker gets unearthing this substance—with the exception of coal—the cleaner the fortune of the well, mine, or quarry owner. If your money comes from other people’s money, it is still honorable, as long as you don’t own a pawnshop. Let’s review: steel, oil, gold. And land. That requires getting dirty, too.
If your money came many generations ago from something a little iffy, such as bootlegged
hooch or sanitation services, guns, or pork sausages, you can still be very well off, but you are sensitive when people whisper about the source of your money.
If your money is new (also a relative term, meaning that your daddy earned it, or that it is spent or expressed as if it’s new, i.e., too many new cars in the driveway, too many plaques with your name on them at your alma mater, local hospital, library, and the museum), people might presume your money is newer than it is.
If, on the other hand, your money has just always quietly been there … if it is a fact of your family’s life … if you take regular vacations but stay in rooms, not suites … if you have a family retainer who has always been with your grandmother and then with your mother … if somehow your checking account is never quite empty, never overflowing with funds, then your inheritance is dull enough that it won’t cause conversation or jealousy. We can then say it is old enough.The media are responsible for distorting the truth about us. We’ve all seen the misleading movies and TV shows (see). Those people with the faux lockjaws emerging from a stretch limousine are not preppies; they are actors. We do not engage stretch limousines. We spend our money in more covert ways: education, a country or beach house (peeling paint and the aroma of off-season mildew are entirely acceptable), and travel.
As you get acclimated, you will understand our logic.
Worth it. Worth every penny. You don’t have to spend your entire precollegiate life in private school, and in fact, after the first three suspensions or “misunderstandings,” you may not have that choice. But preppies believe in the opportunities afforded by a competitive, historic, and tradition-filled school that cannot be found elsewhere. Here is the guarantee that you will be surrounded by other preps. Here is the comfort of knowing that the Field House was paid for in part by Great-grandfather’s little oil business when you are late again for curfew. Here is the security of seeing Mummy’s maiden name on the wall of the Great Hall. Here is your path to future successes and prosperity. Here is the feeder school to the Ivy League. Here is a great crest you can wear on your pinkie or on your sweatpants. Here is a provenance you can use your entire life (as your children will eventually do themselves), that gives you that certain patina of knowingness. Must we go on?
If compromises need to be made, make sure your parents live in a town or city with remarkable public schools. This may mean a Chicago or Boston suburb. Move. If there is no appealing day school in your neighborhood, apply to boarding school. Take advantage of the generous financial-aid grants offered. Otherwise, living remotely from the East Coast in a college or university town is the closest thing you have to a guarantee of Eastern Liberal Arts College placement.
A second house isn’t a trophy. It is a guarantee ensuring you are at ease in the ultimate playground of prepdom, Nature herself. Depending on where your place is, you will learn skills indigenous to your community: sailing, tennis, golf, skiing, snowboarding, antiquing, gardening, biking, bartending, snowshoeing, swimming, hiking, squash, surfing, Nordic skiing, tailgating, soccer, touch football, softball, golf-cart polo, sunbathing, drinking at bonfires—these are all useful talents to cultivate in your youth. We especially value any recreation that uses specific equipment; tennis is more prep than a spin class because it requires you to own a tennis racquet. Equipment is important, because like your dogs, it stays in the back of the car or in the mudroom. It is important because it makes you a desirable guest for weekends at other people’s houses.
This second house can be bought, or you can live on a compound with your parents or grandparents. There is always the chance, especially if you are an only child, that you will inherit the property or lose it to taxes. Let your elders know how much you love their summer place; how you feel so much more alive there than you do in your city railroad flat with illegal cable that you rent with a roommate who pays you off the books. If you have siblings who move far away, say, to Colorado or Portland, Oregon, you also have a good chance of inheriting the old pile, since you love the region more than your brother does. It is never too early to start working this angle. We recommend you bring it up at Grandparents’ Day at nursery school.
There is practically no such thing as a too-shabby beach house. If the paint peels, if the furniture is scraped, if the fridge is old, if the bathrooms predate “spa bathrooms,” so much the better. (Remember: Old is preppier than new.) You can always throw sheets over the couches, add a nautical print or some framed photographs … It looks exactly like it always did, only now you’ve personalized it. The shells used to hold candy and keys; you found them yourself!
Although preppies favor bright colors, you might see that the interiors of your second house are beigey and colorless. That is because your upholstery fabrics and wallpapers are old and sun-bleached. Excellent! Do not rush to redecorate. This is authentic prep. You couldn’t buy properly aged furnishings as beautifully made as the old odds and ends that come with the house.
Unless the house or its land is substantial enough, do not name your house. However, if it comes with a name, by all means order letterpress stationery with that name on it, and use it for your many correspondences.
You can keep an old car there, the one you would never take on the highway, the one that somehow remains sandy, with years and years of beach permit stickers on the rear left window that block visibility. It will always have an errant flip-flop in the back, a golf umbrella, and a golf ball or two, perhaps a dead tennis ball.
We travel, and we’re rather good at it. Some of us travel from a very early age, even if it’s just back and forth from Princeton to Newport. We may travel to see relatives, to take a semester away, or to go to rehab. We go to Europe because it’s there, and there is so very much to learn from Europeans.
In Europe, we learn how to kiss people on both cheeks, how to do math when we convert the dollar to the euro, and how to make ourselves understood in adverse conditions. We get to practice the little bits of foreign languages we’ve retained from school and to see that Italian men can carry off the sweater-around-their-shoulders look easily. While we do not encourage smoking, when in Budapest and all that.
1. Thou shalt not fly first class.
2. Thou shalt use thy frequent-flier miles whenever possible.
3. Thou mayest fly business class if thy destination is more than five hours away.
4. On board, the wine will not be fine; therefore, drinkest beer or spirits.
5. Naturellement, thou never wearest shorts, sweatpants, or flip-flops on an airplane, and thou shalt attempt not to sit next to a miscreant in such garments.
6. If thou takest a sleeping pill, thou must try not to snore, Pookie.
7. Thou must not complain about jet lag.
8. Thou must take loads of photographs.
9. Thou art encouraged to rent cars in strange places and get into colorful misunderstandings with local drivers.
10. If there is a Harry’s Bar at thy destination, thou should eat there. (Try the carpaccio and the cannelloni.)
11. Exotic locations are to be encouraged.
12. Thou must tryest not to lose thy passport, but, indeed, it could happen and will provide dinner-table fodder for many happy years to come.
13. Although thou art traveling in order to “broaden thy horizons” and meet different kinds of people, thou will prefer looking up friends of friends who are also traveling.
14. Thou shalt tryest the tonic water in other lands, as it tastes different from thy domestic tonic water.
15. Thou willst always have (had) a wonderful time.
Our private economic code is again useful when on the road. We do not waste money on first-class travel. Unless McKinsey or Aunt Toot is footing the bill, we fly coach. (On the other hand, it would be rude to turn down a no-expense upgrade.) It is consistent with everything we’ve been talking about. Why spend a fortune on first-class air travel? On the other hand, we have been known to splurge on luxury hotels. Wouldn’t it be better to apply those savings to a wonderful room in
a wonderful hotel? (Or at the very least, a small room facing a wall in a wonderful hotel?)
If you cannot stay at the wonderful hotel with the famous bar, you must at least drink at the famous bar. Lunch is also lovely there. During holiday, we always drink at lunch, and of course, we “walk it off.” Lunchtime drinking is not an obligation, but, well, yes it is. You’re on vacation, the ultimate in prep experiences! We try to squeeze some work or school time in between vacations if we can.
Luggage: You do not need to invest in designer luggage. What you carry should be made by a manufacturer of suitcases, not, say, a fashion runway designer. (Do you think Diane von Furstenberg or Nicole Miller or even the current Burberry spends any time whatsoever personally designing the luggage line that bears its logo?) What you carry should be sturdy, no uglier than all the other black nylon bags on wheels, and be properly marked as yours. Rather than spell out your name in duct tape, a colorful luggage tag should suffice. If you spend year after year vacationing at the same wonderful resort and your luggage generally has an easy shelf life, you might consider looking into the canvas and leather-trimmed pieces made by T. Anthony.
They may not last a whole lifetime, but they are TPFW (too prep for words). They are expensive but can be imprinted with your initials for free.
Until the 1940s in the United States, if you went on a trip (no Disney or Las Vegas then!), you bought luggage at department stores. There was some ready-made, but most likely, you ordered it bespoke. In the era before populist air travel, the well-heeled flew, sailed, or took trains with piles and piles of suitcases, hard-sided hat boxes, and matching pieces of all shapes and uses.
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