Robert David Lion Gardiner
{{Short description|American war veteran}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Robert David Lion Gardiner
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1911|05|25|mf=y}}
| birth_place = New York, U.S.
| death_date = {{dda|2004|08|23|1911|05|25|mf=y}}
| death_place = East Hampton, New York, U.S.
| other_names =
| known_for = Heir to Gardiner's Island
| occupation =
| spouse = {{marriage|Eunice Bailey Oakes
|1961|}}
| education = St. George's School
| alma_mater = Columbia College
New York University School of Law
| relations = Alexandra Creel Goelet (niece)
}}
Robert David Lion Gardiner (February 25, 1911 – August 23, 2004), was the last heir to Gardiner's Island to have the surname "Gardiner". (His niece Alexandra Creel Goelet, was co-owner, until his death, and is now sole owner.) He was the 16th Lord of the Manor.
Early life
Gardiner was born in New York City on February 25, 1911 to Robert Alexander Gardiner (1863-1919) and Nora Loftus, a native of County Kilkenny in Ireland. She was the sister of Captain Francis Cochrane Loftus (1873-1899) who was killed in the Boer War.{{cn|date=March 2024}}
Robert Gardiner attended St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island. He attended Columbia College and graduated in 1934. He then attended New York University School of Law.{{cn|date=March 2024}}
Career
{{Moresources|section|date=March 2024}}
He served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy in the South West Pacific theatre during World War II.{{cite news | author = Robert F. Worth | title = Robert D.L. Gardiner, 93, Lord of His Own Island, Dies | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/us/robert-dl-gardiner-93-lord-of-his-own-island-dies.html | work = The New York Times | date = August 24, 2004 | accessdate = 2014-07-27}} Gardiner worked on Wall Street, for the Empire Trust Company and owned a 42-acre shopping center in Islip, New York.
=Gardiner family properties=
He and his sister Alexandra Gardiner Creel inherited Gardiner's Island from their aunt, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, when she died in 1953. Gardiner had long-running disputes with his sister, and her daughter, Alexandra Creel Goelet. Goelet and her husband were conservationists, while Gardiner was an enthusiastic hunter. From 1953, when Gardiner and his sister inherited the Island, until 1977, the Island's operating costs had been covered by a trust set up by the aunt from whom they inherited the property.
Due to their disputes, Gardiner refused to contribute to the taxes and other costs of maintaining the property–which, at that time, were more than $1 million per year. He didn't contribute for over a decade. They, in turn, went to court to bar him from visiting the property.
In 1971, Representative Otis Pike proposed a bill to expropriate Gardiners Island, to turn it into a Federal National Monument. Gardiner complained that the proposal to expropriate his family's property was unfair, when the Rockefeller family had been allowed to continue to own their Pocantico Hills estate.
Gardiner inherited Sagtikos Manor, a 10-acre heritage property on Long Island. Gardiner inherited the property, which had been in his family since the 18th century, in the 1930s. Gardiner and his wife Eunice used the property as their primary residence for several years, early in their marriage. In 1963, when the Sagtikos Manor Historical Society was founded, the Gardiners stopped using it as their primary residence, let the Historical Society use part of the structure, but insisted the Historical Society reserve a suite for him. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s. In 1986, Gardiner transferred ownership of the property to the nonprofit Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
Today, Sagtikos Manor stands as a small museum rich in historical value to the American Revolution and its era onward.
Personal life
In 1961, Gardiner married Eunice Bailey Oakes (1928–2011), a former British model, at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Eunice, who was previously married to William Pitt Oakes (a son of Sir Harry Oakes, William died of an overdose at 28),{{cite news|title=Nancy Oakes von Hoyningen-Huene|url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article2081919.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603083842/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/article2081919.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 3, 2015|access-date=13 August 2016|work=The Times|date=21 January 2005}} was significantly younger than he was, but the couple's marriage yielded no children.
In the 1980s Gardiner tried to adopt a distant relative, so he would have an heir who could continue inherit his share of the Island, and keep it in the Gardiner name. But those efforts failed, since he was looking for a relative who was already wealthy, who, nevertheless, would agree to his conditions as to how Gardiner's Island was managed, after his death.
His niece, Alexandra Creel Goelet, had already inherited his sister's half of the estate, and inherited Gardiner's half upon his death through court. Gardiner and his niece were estranged. They engaged in arduous litigation against one another over the Gardiner Estate's fund and ownership of equity such as Gardiner's Island and Sagtikos Manor which had originally been meant to be preserved for the family's history.{{Cite web|url=http://sagtikosmanor.org/history.html|title=Sagtikos History|website=sagtikosmanor.org|access-date=2019-04-12}}
In popular culture
The long running dispute between Gardiner and his niece formed part of the background to Chrystle Fiedler's 2015 mystery novel Garden of Death.
References
{{Reflist|refs=
{{cite news
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1971/09/12/archives/gardiner-fights-move-to-make-island-public.html
| title = Gardiner Fights Move To Make Island Public
| work = The New York Times
| author = Richard L. Madden
| date = 1971-09-11
| page = A3
| location = Washington DC
| accessdate = 2020-09-18
| quote = I certainly feel that as long as the Rockefellers can have Pocantico Hills we lowly Gardiners in the fourth century of ownership should be allowed to have our estate.
}}
{{Cite news
| url = https://www.americanheritage.com/manor-born
| title = To The Manor Born {{!}} American Heritage
| work = American Heritage magazine
| access-date = 2019-04-12
| author = Ellsworth S. Grant
| date = October 1975
| volume = 26
| issue = 6
| page =
| quote =
}}
{{cite news
| url = https://www.longislandpress.com/2014/10/03/sagtikos-manor-holds-3-centuries-of-long-island-history-under-1-roof/
| title = Sagtikos Manor Holds Three Centuries of Long Island History Under One Roof
| work = Long Island Press
| author = Spencer Rumsey
| date = 2014-10-03
| accessdate = 2019-10-15
| quote = {{'}}He was just an incredible character and full of himself—and he got fuller and fuller as time went by!{{'}} says Failey, who first met Gardiner 40 years ago when he began researching American antiques.
}}
{{cite news
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/realestate/in-the-region-long-island-a-bay-shore-manor-to-open-a-window-on-history.html
| title = In the Region/Long Island; A Bay Shore Manor to Open a Window on History
| work = The New York Times
| author = Carole Paquette
| date = 2002-12-22
| page = Section 11, Page 7
| accessdate = 2019-10-15
| quote = Sagtikos Manor had been in the Gardiner family for 230 years, and since 1986 it had been held by the nonprofit Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since the mid-1970s.
}}
{{cite news
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aOgCAAAAMBAJ&q=Eunice+Bailey+Oakes&pg=PA35
| title = The blue-blood feud over Gardiner's Island: Wasp's Nest
| work = New York Magazine
| author = Dinitia Smith
| date = 1989-06-05
| pages = 30–39
| accessdate = 2019-10-12
| quote =
}}
{{cite news
| url = http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/2/Gardiner-Feud-Comes-Home
| title = Gardiner Feud Comes Home
| publisher = East Hampton Star
| author = Stephen J. Kotz
| date = 2000-09-07
| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20160627051853/http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/2/Gardiner-Feud-Comes-Home
| archivedate = 2016-06-27
| url-status = live
| quote = In more recent years, the island has primarily made headlines for its strict no-trespassing policy and a contentious legal battle between two possible heirs. As of now, the island is unilaterally owned by Gardiner-descendant Alexandra Creel Goelet, who intends, predictably, to keep it in the family.
}}
{{cite news
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=R-F1BwAAQBAJ&q=%22Alexandra+Creel+Goelet%22&pg=PA183
| title = Garden of Death: A Natural Remedies Mystery
| author = Chrystle Fiedler
| publisher = Simon and Schuster
| date = 2015-03-24
| isbn = 9781476748917
| accessdate = 2016-06-27
| quote = Until 2004, Robert Charles Lion Gardiner, the sixteenth lord of the manor, as he liked to call himself, owned it with his niece, Alexandra Creel Goelet. Now that he's gone, it's hers.
}}
{{cite news
| url = http://www.nysun.com/arts/tea-for-two-three-or-5-million/7661/
| title = Tea for Two, Three, or $5 Million
| publisher = New York Sun
| author = Lindsay Pollock
| date = 2005-01-13
| accessdate = 2016-06-27
| quote = Gardiner's Island is now the great remaining legacy, and it has passed into the sole ownership of Robert Gardiner's niece, Alexandra Creel Goelet. She's married to the scion of another New York moneyed family and has promised to preserve the island.
}}
{{cite news
| url = http://wealthmanagement.com/estate-planning/no-standing-enforce-charitable-trust
| title = No Standing to Enforce a Charitable Trust
| publisher = Wealth Management
| author = John T. Brooks, Jena L. Levin
| date = 2015-08-25
| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20151110212630/http://wealthmanagement.com/estate-planning/no-standing-enforce-charitable-trust
| archivedate = 2015-11-10
| accessdate = 2016-06-27
| url-status = live
}}
{{cite news
| url = http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2016/02/02/gardiners_island_in_new_york_state_has_been_owned_by_the_same_family_and.html
| title = New York's Gardiners Island: Still in the Family After Almost 400 Years
| publisher = Slate magazine
| date = 2016-02-02
| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20160426053046/http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2016/02/02/gardiners_island_in_new_york_state_has_been_owned_by_the_same_family_and.html
| archivedate = 2016-04-26
| accessdate = 2016-06-27
| url-status = live
| quote = For roughly 30 years, Bob was embroiled in highly-publicized fights over the ownership and development of the island with his niece, Alexandra Creel Goelet, who eventually inherited her mother’s interest when she died.
}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardiner, Robert David Lion}}
Category:St. George's School (Rhode Island) alumni
Category:New York University School of Law alumni