Baruch & Bagatelle: Part 1: The Process

As a historian, I have done a lot of research on a variety of topics. Sometimes, I can come across a topic that surprises and engages me in a way I never expected.

That is what happened with this story, and so I have spent the last few weeks discussing it with friends, colleagues and family.  I realized that when I talked about this, people were interested not just in the story itself, but in the process the research took as well. 

And so I have decided to do something different this week and not just tell you the story of Herman Baruch and his Dix Hills estate, but also tell you how this story came together and grew, and continues too.  I thought it might inspire some of you to embark on some research on your own!

Trying to decide on a topic for this column about a month ago, I decided on writing something up on the Madonna Heights School, which I knew had once been an estate.  As I often do when writing about old estates, I first took a look at the 1979 Historic Structure Inventory Form, which has some very basic information, but is usually just a starting point. 

I got very hopeful when I saw the source listed for the information as "Archives of the Huntington Historical Society."  I headed over to the Research Center at the Historical Society in the hopes of a big folder full of all the information I could want. 

Instead I found a thin folder with a few pages photocopied out of a book called Deer Park-Wyandanch History.  The information on these pages gave more detail than the Inventory Form, but basically the same information.  Not exactly enough information to write a whole article on, but the librarian was hopeful that there was more somewhere and that I should check back with the archivist later in the week.  So I held off on pursuing it any further.            

(On a side note, while I was there going through all the files, I came across a folder called "Kalbfleisch Research Center, Dix Hills."  I had no idea what that was and had never heard of it so I photocopied the information from the file to research at a later date.  Later that day when I realized that I would have to wait to work on the Madonna Heights article, I went to the Long-Islander archives and began doing research on the Kalbfleisch Estate, later Research Center, and found myself lost in another interesting story of Dix Hills history.  And so my article for that week ended up being all about that instead, but that's a whole other research story!  Let me get back to Baruch and the task at hand.)

The next week I returned to the Huntington Historical Society to see the archivist in the hopes again that she had more information on the Madonna Heights estate, but again we came up empty handed.  At this point, I knew that a Herman Baruch owned the estate, that it was supposedly an old Vanderbilt estate, and that at some point the Sisters of the Good Shepherd obtained it and opened it as the Madonna Heights School in 1963.  So with those few leads I set out to see what I could find out about the estate.

I began with the Long-Islander archive, one of the best resources for local Huntington history.  Normally when it comes to these estates and the wealthy people who own them, there is no end to the information available—details on visitors, vacations, home improvements, etc.  In this case, there was far less.  I assume that this must be because the estate, though in Dix Hills, was very close to the Babylon town line. 

The articles I found did provide some interesting facts, though.  For starters, the account of the real estate transfer in 1924 referred to the property as "the old Vanderbilt place."  They placed the home in Wyandanch or Half Hollow, depending on the article, and called it "Bagatelle" and his adjoining nursery as "Bagatelle Nurseries."  Additionally, the obituary for Herman Baruch, told me that he was a former ambassador to Portugal and the Netherlands and that he was the brother of Bernard Baruch, often referred to as "Advisor to the Presidents."  There were also a few articles about his second marriage in 1949.  I printed out all these articles and started to read through them to assess how much of a story I actually had.

I felt that while I had enough for short, pretty standard article on the estate, there were nagging questions that I just couldn't answer but that I thought should be answered.  First, I had found no actual concrete proof that William K. Vanderbilt really owned the estate.  Second, I had found information on the dedication of Madonna Heights School, but nothing regarding how they came to own it. 

It was time to search The New York Times archives.  Here I found a lot more information on Herman Baruch's diplomatic career, his early stock market career, and several more articles on his second marriage.

Still not satisfied with what I had, I decided to send an email to a contact I found for the Madonna Heights School, but unfortunately received no response.  So I did what everyone does when they want to find out something: I Googled it!

On numerous sites I found the same recycled information that I already had, and everyone cited the Deer Park-Wyandanch History book as their source.  It seemed that this was the only source that truly wrote up the estate.  I found conflicting reports about whether or not the estate was purchased by or donated to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.  Similarly, there was no consensus on whether it was Baruch's son or widow who was involved in the transaction.

I was unable to locate an obituary for Herman Baruch's widow in the Long-Islander or The New York Times, so again I Googled her full name to see what I found.  On a genealogy webpage I found her and saw that she had married again, and so had a different last name, and died in 1997 in Florida.  With the new name, the date of her death, and the city, I tried to find an obituary, but to no avail.

Frustrated and feeling like I was at a dead end, I turned to the Town Historian, Robert Hughes, who suggested something that I never thought would work. While relaying to him the information that I found I mentioned something about Herman Baruch's second wife becoming a U.S. citizen and her three children automatically becoming citizens as well.  Mr. Hughes asked what exactly it said about the children, and I relayed their names and ages.  He did some quick math and realized that the boy, Herman Baruch's stepson, was likely still alive and unlike his sisters, would likely still have the same last name.  And here's where he made the suggestion I—the stereotypically Facebook-addicted 20-something, never thought would work—he said to see if Herman Baruch's stepson had a Facebook page.  Completely convinced that this would never pan out, I did it anyway, and found two people with the right name.  I sent messages to both of them and low and behold I found him!

To find out what happened, stay tuned for part two of this story next week...