Bedford Royalty
PHOTOS: ANDREA CERASO & NICHOLAS VENEZIA
Paul Bluhdorn and Anni de Saint Phalle are something of a throwback to the European nobility of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Popular amongst the Martha Stewart set, but relatively unknown - until now - by most others, they live in a residence ‘fit for a king’, and queen, on one of Bedford’s finest estates, called Blue Meadows. Paul is the son of famed Gulf + Western CEO Charlie Bluhdorn, and the brother of Dominique Bluhdorn - who has more than renovated the former William Louis-Dreyfus estate and was the Cover Feature in the 2023 Homes Issue of B&NC MAG. And Anni actually is from a very old aristocratic French family. To be sure, Paul and Anni are Bedford royalty!
While The Life and Times of Paul Bluhdorn is yet to be written, such a tomb would include one stupendous story after another about what it was like when his dad was running Paramount and making The Godfather, Ordinary People, and Terms of Endearment, and developing Casa de Campo, and building the Gulf & Western conglomerate to include holdings such as Simon & Schuster and Madison Square Garden. Telling one such story Paul recalls, “Like the time I accompanied my father on the corporate jet from the D.R. to Havana to meet Fidel Castro – with special permission from Cyrus Vance, then United States Secretary of State, and a family friend. My father’s greeting to Castro was something like: ‘I am pleased to meet you, but I must tell you I hate communism.’ …And with that established they got on famously, discussing sugar production, prices and quotas.”
Paul grew up in Manhattan, attending the Trinity School, and spent weekends and summers on what he describes as his parent’s “idyllic” estate in Ridgefield. “I understood that we had exceptional circumstances and that we were getting to experience things, like our trips to the south of France with the likes of Baron Edmond de Rothschild and Sir Richard Attenborough, that were unusual to say the least. My dad used to have these hibachi barbeque banquets up at the house in Ridgefield and invite folks like Kirk Douglas, Costa-Gavras, Milos Forman, and Henry Kissinger. But my father did everything he could to make sure we inherited no arrogance of wealth. When my dad was on the ‘Millionaires Under 40’ December 3, 1965 cover of Time magazine, he didn’t show it to me or tell me about it. After the kids at school showed me a copy, my dad said he didn’t want me getting the idea we were rich or, worse, privileged.”
Paul describes that, “I was a teenager when my dad was starting to really go strong, and when he was developing Casa de Campo. When I decided to go to Harvard and to major in History and Economics, my dad thought it more a folly than a feat. He had no use for academia, and thought business was life and life was business. He did attend Columbia, where he was exposed to the value investing concepts of professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, but after that he had no more use for routine courses and was off on his investing career. While he was still in school, he was so successful that professors would ask him for stock tips! I did inherit my father’s ‘Don’t Ever Allow Anyone To Pass You’ work ethic, and went to work after college at Goldman Sachs, trading options. My dad died when he was only 56, in February 1983, and, despite that I’d done some work for him, including overseeing production on Terms of Endearment, I think he would have laughed to find out that I ended up having a decades-long career at Paramount and then as an investor in independent films.”
Anni grew up on an estate in Armonk, the youngest of six children, “...in the days before 684 existed and when you could still get a hot donut from Schultz’s Cider Mill on Sunday mornings,” she describes. “My love for gardening blossomed when I was really young, on crisp spring days sowing vegetable and flower seeds with my mother and grandmother. Each day I would visit the garden to see what was happening and what had changed. I’ve always loved watching plants grow! …And I’ve been in love with everything equine since I was a toddler. My first ride was sitting on a pony with my older sister at a county fair…and that was it for me! From the very first ride, I only wanted to be on a horse. When I was 8, my mother introduced me to a friend’s Shetland Pony named Zippy, and I was immediately smitten. On the weekends and during summer break I would walk about a mile through the woods to collect Zippy and ride him back to our house, where I would spend all day riding and playing with him. It was a great time to be a kid! I was free, and felt safe and happy making those walks in the woods all alone.”
“I met Paul in 1986, when he’d moved back to New York from Los Angeles,” Anni recalls. “We really hit it off and had so much fun together! We were – and still are – kindred spirits. I remember meeting his mom, Yvette, in this very house. She was elegant and beautiful and warm and welcoming. We got along, and shared our love of horses and dogs. I would make these big flower arrangements for her entry hall. She was always delighted, and had this sparkle in her blue eyes.”
But Paul and Anni’s love story is one of patience and timing…as Anni explains, “When we met, our eight year age difference felt too big. I was in my 20’s and Paul was in his 30’s. I wasn’t ready for a relationship. We remained close friends over the years. Fast forward to my 50’s and the eight year difference meant nothing. We married in 2019, after living together for several years, and we’re still having a great time and laughing a lot.”
Paul and Anni took over Blue Meadows in 2014.
Telling the history of the house, Paul says, “My mom sold the Wetmore Estate on Pea Pond Road and purchased this house just after my father died. This house was much smaller then. It was built in 1929 for Hobart Lewis, the Editor of Reader’s Digest, and I’ve always loved the property. Lewis was a great friend of Richard Nixon and part of the provenance of the house was that Nixon would land his helicopter on the grounds when he came to visit and boys from Rippowam were invited over to come watch the spectacle. My mother put-on a 10,000 square foot addition in 2000 to make room for my sister Dominique and her family to spend the summers, up from the Dominican Republic. After my mother’s death in 2006, the house sat empty for several years, and was in need of some serious tender loving care.”
That’s when Anni took over! “I was happy to take on the project of making renovations to the house and gardens, and delighted to decorate!” Anni says. “When I was fourteen, my French grandmother, Jacqueline, took me to spend the summer with her in France, and I spent a lot of time visiting the fabulous chateaus that had been in my family for centuries. I was mesmerized by the architecture, the furniture, the fabrics, the paintings, and of course the gardens. We spent time with my aunt, Niki de Saint Phalle, who designed the fountain in front of the Pompidou Center in Paris. I could not believe how many de Saint Phalle’s I met and I was really impressed by the fact that we were all part of this one big family. …That’s when I developed my love of French style.”
Anni continues, “The renovations have been a challenge but I’ve loved every minute of itI I taught myself how to use SketchUp, a program for creating 3D rendering, so I could put all the plans together for our carpenter. And with respect to the decorating, I had the advantage of living in the space before making changes. I believe, if you take your time, a house tells you what needs to be done.”
“My vision was to make the separate wings of the house more cohesive, while giving each room its own personality,” Anni explains. “I guess you could say the style is French Empire, but with a focus on functionality and comfortability.” Much of the grand residence’s decorating features the couple’s astounding collection of art. Paul is a student of art and art history and has been a collector his entire adult life, and Anni has a keen eye and an encyclopedic knowledge of their collection and the artist who did each piece. About all the art work, Paul says, “My dad was a big collector and I bought a bunch of his paintings from the estate, like the Dufy hanging over the mantle in the front sitting room. I’ve added continually over time. I love the Hudson River School and am particularly proud of a couple of William Louis Sonntag works and Hermann Herzog’s Nature’s Majesty that I have hanging in the front hall. And I love the Fauvists. I also used to collect alongside a business partner of mine who was the President of the Getty Museum for a while, who had a great eye for Modern art. …Let’s put it this way, they know me at Christie’s.”
…And then there are the gardens and grounds! As Paul reports, “We’ve acquired some adjacent properties as they’ve become available, and the total estate now measures over 100 acres. Even Martha Stewart says this place looks more and more like Versailles every time she comes over!” The main residence is surrounded by a checkerboard of courtyards and formal gardens, staff quarters, a gardening center with a multiplex of vegetable beds, a large greenhouse, a pool, hot tub, and pool house, a couple of gazebos, an absolutely exquisite fountain and reflecting pool with four large tropical plants dramatically potted in the pool, and a newly installed fountain in the East courtyard - meant to outdo the fountain already located in the West courtyard - that’s fenced-in for their 4 dogs, Beanie, Sophia, Sassafras, and their new puppy Winston, after Churchill of course.
Anni is a master gardener and horticulturist, and takes a personal hand in every aspect of the landscape and floral design, and in maintaining the extraordinary formal and informal gardens. While looking out over tumbling blossoms of roses, she says, “The gardens are ever-changing, they are living, growing things. And I’ve felt Yvette looking over my shoulder throughout the whole process, which is a very nice feeling.”
As over-the-top as the whole thing is, Anni has the esteemed botanist and grower Max Apton, who formerly held the prestigious post of Vegetable Field Manager at Blue Hill Stone Barns, and is the new owner of Bedford Farms - the gardening center located at 235 Greenwich Road in Bedford, overseeing the vegetable and other growing gardens. Apton comments, “There’s simply no one with higher standards than Anni…and no one nicer!” …And none other than the Executive Chairman of Sav-A-Tree, Daniel van Starrenburg, who’s a neighbor, has served as arborist for the property since Yvette acquired it in the ‘80s. Daniel comments, “I used to personally tend to that property and can tell you it has one of the most spectacular collections of specimen trees in the area. Anni maintains the entire property in impeccable condition!”
“Quite frankly, keeping the house looking the way it does is a little like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill, or the way they never stop painting the Golden Gate Bridge. We’ve just limewashed the entire exterior of the main residence! But, bottom line, no matter how spectacular this property is,” Anni remarks, “it’s being in Bedford that makes it really great! The community is thriving, and we really appreciate what seems to be a real environmental conscientiousness in the area! We have lots of old friends here…and plenty of new ones too! …Even if we decide to sell-off the existing residences and the bulk of the property, as it all simply and inevitably becomes just too much for us to manage, we’ll keep some choice acreage and build ourselves a French Chateau…and we’ll be Bedfordites forever!”
