Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [103]
With his combination of inquisitive mind and unlimited resources, Ned threw money at everything that interested him. In 1929, he paid $8,400 for a custom-made Rauch and Lang Electric Brougham, which he ordered through a Boston car dealer. The car had an extra-tall passenger compartment—it stood a full six inches higher than Ned’s head, with tall doors that made it easy for him to get in and out without stooping. He rode about the estate in this car, greeting visitors and checking on various operations. But his fascination with cars was already giving way to a new passion: aviation. Though not a pilot himself, he built a large airstrip and hangar near the beach. He set up a training school for pilots and for years operated one of the most modern and well-equipped airports on the East Coast. It was among the first airports with lit runways for night landings. Round Hill attracted visits from aviation luminaries ranging from Charles Lindbergh to the original Goodyear blimp. He built a hangar capable of sheltering the blimp and several airplanes at once.
Ned built large greenhouses to provide his mansion with fresh flowers and exotic plants. He invited scientists to the estate and funded experiments in aviation, radio, and early television. Engineers used WMAF’s powerful transmitters to communicate with Admiral Richard E. Byrd during his Antarctic expedition of 1928–30. From 1925 until Ned’s death eleven years later, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lived and worked at Round Hill. In the early 1930s, MIT professor Robert J. Van de Graf built a prototype “atom smasher” at Round Hill. The device couldn’t, as it turned out, split the atom, but it did generate prodigious electricity. On November 27, 1933, a large crowd gathered to watch as the machine generated 7 million volts of electricity. “No Fourth of July fireworks exhibit ever approached this in spectacular, indescribable splendor,” the New Bedford Standard-Times gushed the next day*
When Ned learned that the famous whaling ship Charles W Morgan was falling into disrepair, he bought it, restored it, and put it on display at Round Hill. Launched in 1841, the Morgan had been owned by his great-grandfather, Isaac Howland Jr., proprietor of the whaling company. During its storied, eighty-year career, the Morgan had completed thirty-seven voyages. Ned opened the ship to tens of thousands of tourists each year. Five years after Ned’s death, in 1941, the Morgan would be towed to Mystic, Connecticut, where it remains a featured attraction of the Mystic Seaport Museum.
The great Round Hill circus, with its endless cacophony of sound and light, airplane motors, atom smashers, screaming bathers, floodlit runways, music, the thwack of boxing gloves amplified by a dozen loudspeakers and made audible for miles around, was all too much for the wealthy owners of nearby summer estates. They had come for the peace and quiet of shore summers, for sanctuary from the heat and noise of Boston and New York. And, it must be said, they were accustomed to seeing local residents mainly when they arrived to trim the hedges, paint the portico, or deliver groceries—not as hot dog-eating, Bon Ami-sprinkling fun-seekers frolicking in the sun. Weren’t there public beaches for them … elsewhere? Owners of nearby summer homes complained at public hearings and signed petitions trying to enforce some quiet at Round Hill.
The Colonel made a few token concessions—airplanes would fly no lower than 1,000 feet over neighboring houses—but mainly the complaints delighted him. He never cared much for stuffed shirts, anyway. “It’s just another sport—complaining about me,” the American Magazine quoted him as saying in 1933. “In the morning they swim, in the afternoon