Princes, Millionaires and Musicians: The Many Loves of Fanny Ronalds

Before she was Fanny Ronalds, she was Mary Frances Carter. And as a young girl in 1850s Boston, Mary – Fanny to her friends (and enemies) – had a problem. Her family lacked the funds to support her in the manner to which she hoped to become accustomed.

So, Fanny developed a habit of finding a young man to escort her on a walk to C.F. Hovey and Co., a popular department store, where she would select some items to purchase. Upon reaching the cashier, she would ‘discover’ she had left her money behind.

The pliable young Boston swain would generously pay for the purchase, with the promise that Fanny’s father would repay him. There would be no repayment. Fanny would keep her purchases. All the boy had left to show for his generosity was the memory of a goodnight kiss.

Fanny Ronalds

As her reputation grew, even the more slow-witted offspring of Boston’s Brahmin set would begin giving Fanny a wide berth. That just meant she needed to begin chasing bigger fish.

Before she finished, Fanny’s record of conquests would make her bamboozling of the Boston boys look like child’s play.

As a child in Boston, Fanny was mainly notable for her beauty, charm and a natural soprano voice.  As word of her talents spread, Fanny decided to seek out greener pastures. She found them in New York, in the person of Pierre Lorillard Ronalds.

Mary Frances (‘Fanny’) Ronalds (née Carter) as Euterpe by Lafayette (Lafayette Ltd), photogravure by Walker & Boutall (1897) National Portrait Gallery, London.

Pierre was eccentric. Born in 1826, he was 13 years older than Fanny when the two met and married in 1859. She was just 20. Pierre and Fanny Ronalds had a family together and lived in New York for eight years.

Pierre’s mother came from the Lorillard family that owned the Lorillard Tobacco Co. Pierre had little need to work. Instead, he collected – art, suits of armor, horses and more. Proud of his Scottish heritage, he eventually built a castle to house his collections atop a hill in Newtown, Conn.

Moving On

He spared no expense on the Ronalds Castle, his new family seat. The stone walls were two feet thick. The front was 110 feet long, with two wings, each 108 feet long. The lavish castle had countless rooms for guests, servants and the Ronalds family. Pierre had a gymnasium built in the castle, along with a wine cellar, indoor swimming pool, bowling alley and billiard room plus banquet halls.

The house required 15 bathrooms, and they contained trap doors that covered sunken bathing pools. A windmill supplied water to the hilltop castle. The building contained a system of speaking tubes and remote bells to summon servants. Outbuildings included stables, an ice house, cow barns, carriage houses and housing for farm hands. A tennis court and gardens completed the property. It all sat atop a hill with commanding views of Newtown.

At one point the entire castle was virtually destroyed by fire (during which Pierre’s wine cellar was looted). He rebuilt. And when Pierre finally moved in, he shocked the town of Newtown. Instead of meeting Fanny Ronalds, his wife, townspeople met Elizabeth Blake, Pierre’s young secretary and mistress. Elizabeth would be the lady of the house. The presence in the house of Elizabeth’s aunt as a chaperone did little to quell the gossip. But it’s doubtful Fanny cared. She had long ago moved on from Pierre.

Competition

After marrying, Fanny Ronalds took little time in mesmerizing two of Manhattan’s wealthiest men with her beauty – Leonard Jerome, a wealthy stock speculator, and August Belmont, a financier. If it bothered her that both men were already married, she concealed it well. The two men, much older than Fanny, competed to satisfy her every wish.

Leonard Jerome, an admirer of Fanny Ronalds

At the end of the Civil War, Fanny Ronalds shocked New York Society by her behavior at a costume ball she hosted. The city had been held spellbound by newspaper exposes of brothels run by a former minister, John Allen. Allen lured many of the women to his establishment from well-to-do New England families. He held them as virtual slaves. Allen’s trademark costume for the women was a pair of red boots with brass bells attached.

For Fanny’s costume party, she chose to go dressed as “music,” wearing an elaborate headpiece illuminated by gas-fired flames. But on her feet she wore red boots with bells, which became the talk of the city. True to her nature, Fanny managed to profit on the venture. She double-billed both Belmont and Jerome to pay for the party.

August Belmont, another admirer of Fanny Ronalds

Jerome built a 600-seat theater in his Manhattan mansion and Fanny Ronalds performed there often. August and Leonard both filled Fanny’s rooms with flowers, and for a time she managed to juggle both men. Fanny was a frequent guest in Newport and would travel there aboard Jerome’s yacht, often with his family.

In fact, Fanny Ronalds became something of a second mother to Jerome’s daughter Jennie (the future mother of Winston Churchill). Jerome’s wife Clarissa at one point told Fanny she wasn’t upset by the affair with her husband, because she realized how irresistible he was.

Fanny Ronalds, Moving On Again

By 1867, Clarissa had grown tired of her irresistible husband Leonard and decided to move to Paris. Fanny opted to join her. For a time the women were celebrities and welcome additions to the court of Napoleon III. But his empire was waning, so Clarissa and Fanny moved across the channel to England in 1871. Here, Fanny Ronalds would finally settle – at 7 Cadogan Place in London.

For a time she was one of the many mistresses of Prince (and future king) Edward VII, known as Bertie. But her most prominent affair of the day was with Arthur Sullivan of the famed theatrical team, Gilbert & Sullivan.

Arthur Sullivan, Fanny Ronalds’ true love

Arthur Sullivan and Fanny Ronalds would host Sunday soirees at her London home, where he would play piano and she would sing. They were royalty in London society. Fanny’s chief influence in Sullivan’s life was to help patch up the stormy relationship he had with his partner, W.S. Gilbert. Sullivan would leave Fanny $250,000 when he died in 1900 – one third of his estate.

When Fanny’s husband Pierre died in 1905, Fanny was finally free, but apparently had lost her taste for acquiring wealthy men. Pierre had threatened divorce, but had never carried through. He willed his castle to his mistress, but not the funds to maintain it. The building had a run as a health sanitarium and a school before it was finally torn down in 1947.

Pierre left his eight Manhattan buildings, and the income derived from them, to Fanny and the children. In 1916, in death, Fanny Ronalds finally declared her true love. She had directed the manuscript to Arthur Sullivan’s The Lost Chord be placed in her coffin. The haunting melody was Sullivan’s masterpiece, written at the bedside of his dying brother Fred.

A Lovely Voice

Despite her scandalous behavior by uptight Boston standards, Fanny’s charms never quite failed her.

Samuel Eliot Morison noted in his memoir, One Boy’s Boston, “My mother recalls one of the Otis ladies called on Fanny in London and was invited to one of her song recitals. When she related this on her return, one of her friends remonstrated, “How could you call on that awful woman?” To which Miss Otis gallantly replied, “I shall never believe a word against Fanny’s reputation – she has such a lovely singing voice!” – surely a non sequitur if there ever was one.

This story about Fanny Ronalds was updated in 2023. Image of Versailles By Photo: Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15781169.