Edwin Booth's home ("Boothden") sold

[Harry]

When you drive down to Newport from Fall River you pass through Middletown. Edwin Booth died June 7, 1893, two days into Lizzie's trial.

"Providence Journal, Friday, December 29, 2006

By Richard Salit. Journal Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — The seaside mansion built for Edwin Booth, the famous tragic actor whose brother assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, will be sold for more than $5 million.

In addition to its ocean views and 5 acres on the Sakonnet River, the Boothden estate boasts a storied past, one that involves the Booth brothers, an ex-wife of Ernest Hemingway, the Oscar Award-winning movie The Sting and a renowned local sailor and businessman.

“The property is fascinating,” said Elena Wilcox, an agent for Lila Delman Real Estate. “There is so much romance and history.”

Not only that, she said, “It might be one of the most beautiful properties in Middletown and maybe Newport.”

Wilcox said Boothden is under agreement to be sold next month for between $5 million and its asking price of $5.39 million, about one half to one-third of what the most valuable properties have gone for on Aquidneck Island. The buyers are a Massachusetts couple who plan to use the 5,000-square-foot estate for a summer and vacation home.

Yesterday, a standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Newport County Auction Gallery, in Middletown, for the sale of furnishings from Boothden and some other estates. Boothden is being sold by Eleanor Seaman, widow of Avery Seaman, who died in 2001. He was president of Corps Brothers and a board member of the New York Yacht Club who completed more than 15 Newport-to-Bermuda races.

But it’s the infamy of the family of the original owner for which Boothden is best known. Edwin Booth built the house in 1883, after a long career as a Shakespearean actor of world renown. He won and lost his fortune several times and endured professional difficulties after his brother, John Wilkes Booth, also an actor, shot President Lincoln at the Ford Theater in 1865.

Booth had the house built on pastoral Indian Avenue, which slopes down to the Sakonnet River and offers views of Third Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. As early as the 1700s, the area was known as “Paradise.” Nearby are Norman Bird Sanctuary and Sachuest Wildlife Refuge.

The Queen Anne-style mansion was completed 18 years after Lincoln was slain and 10 years before Edwin Booth’s death. Booth, who maintained a home in New York City, spent just four summers there.

It’s said that his daughter, Edwina, would illuminate a windmill that survives on the property to help guide her father home when he was out sailing in the evening, said Wilcox.

In 1929, while the deed of the house was held by a mortgage company, flimflam artists used it as a setting for a sophisticated scam, according to research published by historian James Yarnell. He wrote that “a syndicate of self-described bookies rented the house, outfitted it with fake telephones and other apparatus to impart the illusion of a big-time gambling operation.”

Wealthy investors were lured from out-of-town by promises they could make huge sums of money on rigged horse races in Florida, according to Yarnell. But after making their wagers and returning to Boothden, they found the mansion empty.

The scam was the inspiration for the 1973 movie The Sting, which starred Robert Redford and Paul Newman and won seven Oscars.

The house was also owned by T.S. Matthews, editor of Time magazine, who married war correspondent and novelist Martha Gellhorn, former wife of Ernest Hemingway, in 1954. Matthews and Gellhorn divorced in 1963.

Today, the wood-frame mansion they all shared sits at the end of a long driveway and is painted white with a distinctive red roof. It has eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, a caretaker’s cottage, and a garage-barn with horse stalls. In many ways, it has been changed little since it was first built, said Wilcox.

“There weren’t too many changes by the other owners. All of the fireplaces are there, all the beautiful hardwood floors,” Wilcox said. “The library is in exactly the same condition it was in Edwin Booth’s time.”

Boothden was on the market for about a year before being placed under contract to be sold. Wilcox declined to name the couple purchasing the property.

[snokkums]

I didn't know that a Booth lived in Fall River. What type of problems did Edwin have after his brother shot the president? MOney problems or just life problems in general because of the brother shooting the president?

[Kat]

After reading the article Harry posted (Thanks Har!) I see that it is an area near Newport, Rhode Island to which they are referring. Newport is beautiful and has lots of big mansions.

If you ever get to go to Fall River, you can drive around the Newport, Rhode Island area and you will get to know the lay of the land and where everything is in relation to everything else.

I had no idea that Edwin Booth had lived in R.I. either.

[SteveS.]

What famous actress from the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth" also lived in Middletown,RI as a caretaker?

[SteveS.]

What famous actress from the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth" also lived in Middletown,RI as a caretaker?