When you’ve got 26 family members scattered across the
country and you last held an extended family get-together nine years ago, what
location do you settle on for a reunion this summer?
Easy. You come to the hotel your ancestors once owned and
operated more than 100 years ago.
Lately we’ve been lucky to receive visits from descendants
of some of the most influential figures in the history of French Lick Resort:
the granddaughter of Harrison Albright, the architect who conceptualized West
Baden Springs Hotel; and the great-granddaughter of Ed Ballard, the shrewd
businessman who expanded West Baden’s hotel brand during its heyday in the
1920s.
Now, the Taggart descendants are the latest to make a visit
here for a firsthand glimpse at what their predecessors created.
Their group of more than two dozen came last week from all
corners of the country — Massachusetts to Illinois to California. It doubled as
another special observance for one member of the family, Lou Loutrel:
celebrating both his 70th birthday and 50th wedding
anniversary. Two of Lou’s three siblings, Betsy and Bill, were also here to see
the legacy left behind by the Taggart branch of their family tree.
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| Lou, Bill and Betsy are the grandchildren of Emily Taggart Sinclair and William Richardson Sinclair, who are second and third from the right in the back row of this Taggart family photo from 1928. Emily was the sister of Thomas D. Taggart (third from left in top row) and the daughter of Tom Taggart (seated in front row), who both owned French Lick Springs Hotel at one point. |
“I got to know Tom Taggart a whole lot better this week,” Betsy beamed. “Just his love for people and his love for the hotel, and the work he did to establish building out the whole addition to the hotel.”
Tom Taggart took ownership of French Lick Springs Hotel in
1901 and went to work making upgrades, adding two stories to the existing three
and installing the trademark yellow brick on the exterior (which you still see
today).
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| The "Four Toms" portrait: Tom Taggart, Thomas D. Taggart, and two other children from the Taggart line both also named Tom. |
As business boomed, Taggart kept building on to his hotel. A
sixth floor. New wings of guestrooms. A Pluto Water bottling plant to
capitalize on the popularity of the healing mineral water that lured guests
here. He added a golf course, built spring houses and planted hundreds of trees
to make the hotel’s exterior as luxurious as the inside.
After Taggart died in 1929 his son, Thomas D. Taggart, then
owned the hotel from 1929 through ’46. It was in the Taggart name for 45 years
until the family sold it. Thomas D.’s youngest sister was Emily – who was the
grandmother of Lou, Bill and Betsy. “Nini,” as they remembered calling her.
The current-day Taggart crew was able to spend part of their
visit on a personal tour at Mt. Airie. Today, Mt. Airie is home to The Pete Dye
Course, Golf Shop, and The Pete Dye Mansion where guests can be treated to a
special lunch or Sunset Dinner. Back then, it was the personal living quarters
for Thomas D. Taggart. The elder Tom Taggart built a home for each of his adult
children, and Thomas D.’s home was this mansion that was nearby French Lick
Springs Hotel yet private and secluded.
The amazing thing is that this mansion is a miniaturized
version of another family home.
As the Taggarts were a wealthy and influential family of the
early 1900s not just locally but nationally, they owned an enormous family home
(and a few smaller ones) in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. You’ve probably heard
of it — the Kennedy family owns homes there. But the Taggarts were in Hyannis
Port first. The Kennedys didn’t move into the exclusive Cape Cod community
there until later.
Many people used to mistake the Taggart home in Hyannis Port
as the Kennedy home, since it was so grandiose. The Taggart mansion in French
Lick was actually built as a smaller-scale version of that family home in
Massachusetts. The family sold that home in 1938, though Lou, Bill and Betsy
spent childhood summers in Hyannis Port at some of the family’s other property
there. (Lou even recalls a brief chat with John F. Kennedy and one of his children one day
when he was closing up the local ice cream shop a few years before JFK became
president.) Touring the inside of the restored Taggart mansion revealed a
little something different than they expected from the outside.
“Incredibly handsome house,” Bill says. “I was surprised, it
was more intimate feeling on the inside. From the outside it looks very
imposing. But the inside felt far warmer. The scale was not grandiose.”
“It’s got the elegance of the gilded age, and the detail is
amazing,” adds Betsy.
Adds Lou: “Wonderful to be able to go into the house and
know that it belonged to my great-grandfather. It was very special to be able
to tour the place and really appreciate that opportunity. It helped me to appreciate
some of my heritage even more.”
Lou’s doing his part to extend another family tradition.
With he and his wife celebrating their 50th, it
makes four straight generations in his family that reached their 50th
anniversary, starting with Tom Taggart and his wife, Eva. Longevity runs in the Taggart blood, right down to the French Lick Springs
Hotel that first reigned supreme under the Taggart name 118 years ago.