Eleanor Fitchen
Eleanor Beach Fitchen was an American conservationist, preservationist and philanthropist. From her earliest years until her death in April 2009, Eleanor led a rewarding and memorable life and left a legacy that included the founding of several not-for-profit organizations, the conservation of hundreds of acres of open space, the creation of two historic districts, the restoration and preservation of half-dozen century old structures and the respect and admiration of hundreds of individuals.
Parents
Eleanor's father was renowned sculptor Chester Beach and her mother, acclaimed nature artist Eleanor Hollis Murdock Beach. The couple met in France where Mr. Beach was studying sculpture and Miss Murdock was studying painting. They married in 1910 and settled in Rome for two years where their first daughter, Beata, was born. The couple returned to America in 1912 moving into an apartment on West 96th Street where daughters Eleanor and Natalie were born. After Natalie's birth in 1913, the family moved into a brownstone on East 17th Street where Chester Beach established a large sculpture studio to practice his art.Early Education
Eleanor spent her formative years in Manhattan, where she and her sisters attended Friends Seminary for their early education. Eleanor's experiences at Friends Seminary helped to mold her character and values, profoundly influencing her; and through her, all those she touched.Summers in the Country
The family spent summers in the upstate New York towns of North Salem and Southeast where Eleanor developed an attachment for rural communities that she would cherish and protect for all of her days. It was at this time that Chester Beach met Erastus Tefft, a Wall Street financier with a country estate on Starr Ridge Road. Tefft wanted portrait busts of his daughters and, in 1915 he traded the artist a parcel of his Starr Ridge property for the sculptures. That year, Chester Beach began construction of a garage and studio on the property and the next summer the family moved to it."Oldwalls"
Using that structure for a base of operations, the Beach family began construction of the main house that would become the family home for the rest of the century and beyond. Construction materials came from the stone walls that crisscrossed the property's old farm fields with the huge foundations stones being dragged into place by a team of oxen. The property was named Oldwalls to memorialize its construction materials and it stands today as an integral part of the Starr Ridge/Starr Lea Historic district.Europe
Eleanor went through the tenth grade at Friends Seminary before the family returned to Europe in 1927. The three girls attended boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, while Chester and Mrs. Beach settled again in Rome for two years. Chester needed to be near the marble quarries of Carrara, Italy that provided the raw materials for a large fountain and zodiac statues group for the new terrace at the Cleveland Museum of Art.During the summer of 1929, the family walked through Switzerland and Germany, staying in small inns along the way. Two walking canes on which they carved the names of the towns they visited are cherished Fitchen family treasures. Around the top of each one is carved "walk, climb, live."
Vassar College
The family returned to America in time for Eleanor to start at Vassar College in the fall of 1930. She was the first Beach or Murdock to attend college, graduating in 1934. Her degree in Archeology proved valuable to her avocations of preservation and restoration. While at Vassar, Eleanor met Paul Fitchen.The Woman's Prison Association
In NYC she had a long-term involvement with the Women's Prison Association and was on the board of its Hopper Home, a half way house for recently released offenders, for which she created a fund raising thrift shop. Her involvement with prisoners here helped establish her credentials for a work release program she would establish later, in Putnam County.Early Married Life
Eleanor and Paul were married in the Beach's 17th Street brownstone on December 29, 1934, which was their primary residence until Paul retired in 1967. Their first home was an apartment overlooking Gramercy Park where their first child, Douglas, was born in 1936 and their second, Ellen, in 1939. In 1940, accommodations in the brownstone were rearranged for the growing family. Chester and Mrs. Beach moved into an apartment on the top floor and the Fitchens took over the lower floors where their third child Anne, was born in 1943.Following in the footsteps of the three Beach children, the three Fitchen children attended Friends Seminary for their early education. The family spent weekends and summers at Oldwalls in Southeast where three generations worked side by side from 1945 to 1947 to build a small stone cottage that would become home to the Fitchens when in Southeast.
Burma
In 1951, while an officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Paul Fitchen was invited by the Union Bank of Burma to live in Rangoon for a year to help establish decimal currency and a central bank law for that newly independent country. He flew directly there in July while Eleanor led the children, aged 15, 12, and 8, through Europe and Egypt from where they took a freighter for a slow voyage on to Burma.Upon her return from Rangoon, Eleanor Fitchen was active with the Asia Society in New York City. She worked to welcome artists and writers to America, helping them with exhibitions and tours and finding studio or living facilities. Eleanor went to great lengths to locate and catalog old Burmese manuscripts which were held by American universities.
The Fitchens at Oldwalls
Chester Beach died in 1956 and, following the death of his wife Eleanor in 1965, occupancy of the Oldwalls property fell to the Fitchens, who continued to use it as a weekend and summer residence. On Paul's retirement as Executive Director of the New York Clearing House in 1967 they relocated to the main house at Oldwalls, where they lived for the remainder of their lives.Eleanor's Boys
Eleanor and Judge Tuttle established a work release program of court designated community service for youthful offenders though an arrangement made with the Putnam County Sheriff's office. "Her boys" worked alongside her every weekend for twenty years maintaining old cemeteries, creating pocket parks and restoring buildings. Although Eleanor retired from the program at the age of 80, it remains an active and rewarding component of the Putnam County Sheriff's convict rehabilitation program.At Eleanor's memorial, one of her granddaughters related that "when working in Boston as a catering manager, I was sitting with clients at a menu-tasting making small talk. One of the men mentioned that he was from Brewster, New York, so I said 'Oh, my grandmother lives there.' He asked who she was and I said 'Eleanor Fitchen.' He stopped eating, put down his fork and said with awe 'Your grandmother changed my life.' He had been one of 'her boys' and after his time working with her, decided that his life was going to be more than picking up garbage and went on to work many years with American Airlines."