[From the Fall 2023 Showcase of Homes Magazine]
Written By Theresa St. John | Photos by Theresa St. John
The McCarthy Farmhouse sits back from the road, peeking out from the end of a long driveway marked by white fencing and a sign that welcomes guests to The Mountain Airstrip Farm. It’s been recently painted a snappy white with black trim and offers a warm invitation to come inside and sit a while, one I happily accept as I walk up the old stone staircase. At the moment, I only know the property was purchased in 1933 by Joseph McCarthy, a Hall of Fame lyricist and founder of ASCAP, who enjoyed entertaining family and friends from NYC’s Broadway at his sprawling summer home in Hadley, New York.
I’ve taken a leisurely morning drive from Saratoga to write a story about this fantastic wedding venue (to read more about that and how you can rent the farmhouse and enjoy all it has to offer, please see the 2023 Fall Issue of Saratoga Bride.) When I learned that the famed Florenz Ziegfeld, silent actress Billie Burke, and the dancing Ziegfeld Girls often spent time here, I was intrigued by the home’s history and wanted to know more.
Son Joseph A McCarthy was also a successful lyricist. He’s the man who penned the words to ‘Ramblin’ Rose’ for Frank Sinatra – one of my all-time favorite singers. Joseph eventually inherited the farm from his father and married the legendary Hollywood silver-screen movie actress Veronica Lake.
A few weeks ago, I went to visit a WWII vet friend of mine. He follows my travels, reads my stories and his eyes lit up when I told him I would be writing this for Simply Saratoga. “Veronica Lake!” he exclaimed. “She was my dream girl when I was a teenager! Her acting was so intense – with her golden tresses over one eye and cherry-red lips – she was hard to resist,” he laughs. “Did you know she was in, I think, 28 movies? They started in 1939 and ended in the 70s. I watched every single one of them – even though it made my wife mad.”
It’s surreal to imagine what the farmhouse must have been like when people like Marlon Brando, Debbie Reynolds, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney, and others stayed and played here. I stand momentarily in front of the long table on the home’s sunny wrap-around porch and notice the engraved name tags in front of each chair. “These are some of the guests who ate here with Veronica and Joseph,” owner Chandler Atkins tells me. I smile, thinking about the conversations that must have happened over dinner. “Even the international chess figure, Bobby Fischer, stayed with the couple for a time.”
We sit together at a table near the ‘speakeasy’ bar. I’m impressed to learn that it’s been restored, and it’s interesting to wonder who sat and enjoyed a drink there, chatting about this and that with their famous hosts.
There are several photos of the actress on the walls around me, a print magazine with her face on the cover sits on a side table in the living room, and her penned autobiography is displayed on the dresser in a bedroom named after her, as she’d slept there when residing in the spacious home. When I notice a vase filled with 13 bright red roses, then a stuffed panda bear resting in a big comfy chair in the corner of her room, Chandler tells me he’s been busy picking up things for the house that will somehow honor her life. “Her mother knew how much she loved panda bears and roses,” he says. “After every movie, she’d present Veronica with a bear, 13 roses, and even pennies to celebrate her daughter’s success.”
Chandler tells me he feels he’s not the owner of the property but the caretaker. He feels his responsibility is to honor the couple and their sometimes-volatile life together. “Joe was her third husband, and they divorced after only four years together.” I can feel their deep love for each other as I wander through each room in the house. Everything Chandler has done to bring the property back to life seems to hum with emotion.
“Veronica graduated from St. Bernard’s Catholic School in 1938. Later, when she lived here with Joe, people remember her driving through town in her convertible, waving to them.” When I ask why the sign reads ‘Mountain Airstrip Farm,’ Chandler chuckles. “Believe it or not, she was often flown here – eventually, she became a pilot herself and would land on that strip whenever she could take time away from Hollywood. She loved it here.”
Lake was honest and never sugar-coated her flaws. She suffered from alcoholism and schizophrenia, eventually succumbing to acute renal failure in a Vermont hospital on July 7th, 1973. She was only 50. She was both humble and critical of her talents on and off screen. For a time, after leaving the bright lights of Hollywood, she was a cocktail waitress – a job she states in her autobiography that she genuinely enjoyed. People said she was on a downward spiral and broke – some even sent her money. She never cashed their checks; she was too proud. “I took the job because I like people, I like to talk to them, not because I had nowhere else to turn.” When Marlon Brando sent her a check, she kept it, framing it as a memento of her Hollywood glory days, hanging it in her home to show friends who came to visit.
Although her ashes were scattered over the Atlantic Ocean off New York City by her son Michael so many years ago, you can still feel her larger-than-life presence here in the town of Hadley, in the memories of those who knew her, and on the farm where she found so much solace – the place where she could - be.
“My hair kept falling over one eye, and I kept brushing it back. I thought I had ruined my chances for the role. But Hornblow was jubilant about that eye-hiding trick. An experienced showman, he knew that the hairstyle was something people would talk about. He had a big picture, and lots of talk would bring people to see it.”
— Veronica Lake