{"id":15202,"date":"2018-08-21T16:23:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T20:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15202"},"modified":"2020-04-30T11:04:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T15:04:21","slug":"flights-of-fancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/flights-of-fancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Flights of Fancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"colin-sargent-final-xs\"We\u2019ve told you that the first airmail flight from Maine took off from Gooch\u2019s Beach in Kennebunk and almost hit the Narragansett Hotel while climbing out. [See \u201cInventing the Campbells\u201d<\/a>]<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve told you that a Mainer stowaway hid aboard an early transoceanic flight from Old Orchard Beach and made it to Comillas (in northern Spain, on the Bay of Biscay) to experience the cheers with the rest of the plane\u2019s crew. The stowaway\u2019s picture was flashed across the globe in newspapers\u2014the ultimate selfie. [See \u201cThe Pier.\u201d]<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, here\u2019s another clue for you all.<\/span><\/p>\n

In February, 2004, the Dirigo Flyer<\/em>, a newsletter published by the Maine Aviation Historical Society, teased its readers by venturing these two black-and-white snapshots: \u201cMarquis Lippo Gerini\u2019s Loening amphibian at Kennebunk Beach, in front of the Sagamore.\u201d [In one image, the Narragansett Hotel looms in the background. The other shows the Sagamore Hotel\u2013later the Sea Spray, now razed.<\/em>] \u201cDoes anyone know who the Marquis was\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourteen years later, here\u2019s the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early in the 20th century, it was all the rage for children of wealthy merchant princes in Newport, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut, to marry European nobles with titles (it was such a clich\u00e9\u2014one day, you\u2019re Consuela Vanderbilt, the next you\u2019re the Duchess of Marlborough sitting below a giant John Singer Sargent painting of yourself)\u2013instantly conferring old money cache on the nouveau riche.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a German archive, we\u2019ve run into this: \u201cDaughter of Theatre King Weds Italian Nobleman. Their Wedding a Gay Event. Photo shows the Marquis Lippo Gerini [of Florence, Italy] and his bride, the former Lillian Madelyn Poli, on the steps of St. John\u2019s Roman Catholic Church [in New Haven] after the wedding ceremony. It is reported that the bride\u2019s father, Sylvester [Z.] Poli, vaudeville king, gave his daughter a $2,000,000 dowry.\u201d There was a \u201clavish reception at Villa Rosa, Woodmont, Connecticut,\u201d where the Polis lived.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Against all odds, the waterfront mansion Villa Rosa survives! See here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sylvester Poli\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cPoli\u2019s Palace\u201d vaudeville and movie theaters drew crowds all over cities and mill towns in New England. (He sold out to 20th Century Fox.) For many new citizens, these early movies were the footlights to a new Nation. Many a Loew\u2019s Theatre was formerly a Poli\u2019s Palace. As a child, jazz great Artie Shaw used to sneak into the Poli\u2019s in his native New Haven. That\u2019s where he caught the bug for show business\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

A Maine beach is a place of converging narratives, washed away by the tides. Beauty, survival, curiosity. The mysterious force that brought Marquis Lippo Gerini to Maine is what brought you here. File all of this under: footprints in the sand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Click here to\u00a0view past\u00a0Letters from the Editor.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[228],"class_list":["post-15202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-september-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15202"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18496,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15202\/revisions\/18496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}