Episode 414: Idle Hour and the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians
/Since it’s nearing Thanksgiving, Julia presents a hyper local cult that’s been fascinating her - The Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians and their attempt to raise an Immortal Baby. That’s all we’re giving you. Buckle up.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of colonization, eugenics, cults, racism, fire, death, unequal sexual power dynamics, child endangerment, incarceration, and suicide.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends the Reimagined newsletter at https://reimagined.news/
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. Now, before I tell you that I'm Amanda and that's Julia, I do just want to point out that, folks, I go into these episodes not knowing what they're about, same as you. You and I are starting at the exact same level here, which is the title of the episode. You even get something more than me, which is a little bit of a description, if you want to read it before you begin listening. And so today's episode, when I read the title in the calendar invite that Julia sent me for this recording, made me go, "Hey, what now?" So that's where we're all starting. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. and Amanda, the original hometown urban legends episode that we did on the podcast came out in November of 2016. It was episode 22.
AMANDA: Whoa. Whoa, baby. Okay. Great.
JULIA: Woo, woo.
AMANDA: Well, happy two presidential term anniversary, Julia.
JULIA: Anyway, one of the reasons that I had wanted to do the hometown urban legends episode in the first place was I was kind of like acknowledging the feeling of going home for Thanksgiving, sort of revisiting your hometown. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Absolutely. My mom sends me memes about the Montauk Monster constantly, and that's not even where I'm from.
JULIA: Well, in that episode, Amanda, I don't know if you remember what we covered, but we covered stuff like Sweet Hollow Road, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, and obviously, the Amityville Horror.
AMANDA: Hmm. Amazing.
JULIA: But after the Oneida Community episode that we did for Episode 400, I was thinking more about the sort of weird history of Long Island.
AMANDA: It's a weird place. A lot of whalers said, "This land certainly belongs to no one," and then colonized it.
Jula: Yeah, yeah. And that is only the beginning of the weird history. We have a lot of other weird history things. And one of the things that jumped out to me as something that I wanted to talk about was inspired by when Jake and I were house hunting a couple years ago.
AMANDA: Hmm. Tell me why.
JULIA: Well, so there was this neighborhood that we were specifically looking at which we didn't end up buying in, but I really, really loved. It was very like historic neighborhood, and all of— I'll get to it, I'll get to it. But part of the reason I really liked it was because of these, like, old historic houses and these buildings. They used to be out buildings that were converted to homes from the old Vanderbilt estate called Idle Hour.
AMANDA: Yes. You showed Eric and me these buildings, and they were absolutely beautiful, real, like, old stable vibes, kind of the closest that we get in the US to a like, you know, beautiful story to like, you know, attached home in, like, a Europe— like a Western European city. So I loved that neighborhood.
JULIA: Yeah, that area that I showed you, specifically, the stables area, Amanda, was known as the artist colony.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: We'll find out why later.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: But that is only part of the big area that was the original Idle Hour estate. It is— it's a really gorgeous area. It is right up against this beautiful river called the Connetquot River. All of the buildings are from the early 1900s. But the history of Idle Hour is a really interesting one, not only as an estate, but also what came after that. So, Amanda, today I present you with a new to you, spooky hometown history from Long Island, Idle Hour and the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. It's like my birthday. I can't wait. Let's go.
JULIA: A quick content warning at the top of this episode, much like when we talk about cults on this show, there are going to be themes, sort of, of— I know it's shocking for a cult in the United States, but there will be themes of eugenics and racism in here.
AMANDA: I bet, I bet. A lot of coercion.
JULIA: So keep that in mind as we go forward, but you know, can't talk about cults without talking about problematic things. So we are going to start at the beginning with the building of Idle Hour. What you need to know, first off, because I realized that for some people who didn't grow up in New York or kind of on the East Coast, the name Vanderbilt might not evoke the images in their minds that I'm hoping for. So the Vanderbilt family, for people who don't know the Vanderbilt, they were the richest family in the United States during the Gilded Age. So like the 1870s to late 1890s.
AMANDA: Totally. If you have heard names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, these are all, you know, slightly different eras of industrial titans that made money. You know, exploiting lots of people and starting lots of businesses. And in some cases, built extremely huge, beautiful buildings, and libraries, and concert halls, and estates. Lots of the places we went as kids that are now museums or parks were originally the private homes of families like this.
JULIA: Yes, correct. And Amanda, fun fact for you as an aside, do you know who is a descendant of the Vanderbilt family?
AMANDA: Besides my best friend, Anderson Cooper?
JULIA: Yes, besides Anderson Cooper, I think is the one that people know the most of.
AMANDA: Then, no, I don't.
JULIA: Timothy Olyphant.
AMANDA: Timmy? Timmy Olyphant?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: No way.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: Wow. People must be so ashamed that he plays like a roguish you know, Westerner.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. So the Vanderbilt family made their money primarily in shipping and railroads. And the family was headed specifically by the patriarch of the family, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
AMANDA: You got to have a patriarch called Cornelius, Julia. There's no other way.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, fun fact, he was also known as Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, not because he was actually a Commodore.
AMANDA: Hmm, hmm, hmm.
JULIA: But because of how he eventually dominated shipping in the New York waterways.
AMANDA: Yep, it's giving L. Ron Hubbard, it's giving imaginary naval career. I'm already obsessed.
JULIA: They jokingly started calling him that, and then he built a entire empire, and then it became less of a joke.
AMANDA: That feels like a— like semi mean thing you call like your father-in-law, or like your, you know, older uncle behind their back and then they're like, "No, fuck it. I am the general."
JULIA: Yes, yes. You're like, "No, I'm embracing it now."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: At the time of Cornelius' death in 1877, he was the richest man in America.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: Like proven richest man in America. And when he passed away, that title, as well as the majority of his money, was passed on to his son, William Henry Vanderbilt.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, William Henry managed to do a lot with that money that he inherited in a very short amount of time. He doubled the Vanderbilt wealth and increased their reach in the railroads. He started what would become, I would say, a theme among the Vanderbilts, which is building extremely lavish homes across the country.
AMANDA: I am sure it was impressive, but there is nothing easier, Julia, than making a great deal of money when you start with a great deal of money. So I just want to put that observation on the table right now.
JULIA: I will say to Cornelius' credit, he was born in Staten Island to a, like, not particularly rich family. Like, he didn't inherit. He really did kind of like— he started with one boat in New Jersey, and then fought like hell to create the interstate shipping laws so that he was able to ship from New Jersey to New York. So he— like, I don't want to give a rich man credit, but he didn't get, like, you know, a million dollar loan from his father to start his business.
AMANDA: No, no. No disrespect, but for William Henry, not a lot of respect is what I'm saying here.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. So you mentioned, Amanda, these kind of, like, the lavish homes that a lot of these rich people were making, the Vanderbilts were famous for this.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Most notable were the Fifth Avenue Vanderbilt mansions in New York City. But there was also Vanderbilt mansions in notable other places like Newport, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Bar Harbor, Maine, Asheville, North Carolina, just to kind of name a few that are fairly well-known.
AMANDA: Various places within a few days ride or later train of New York City, including Long Island, where would be sort of like the country home of people in the city, because you could get there in, you know, roughly a day.
JULIA: Yes, and these houses that I'm kind of listing here, these mansions, really, they weren't all built by William Henry. Most of them were actually built by his children, but he was kind of the one that started the trend, so we have to give him a little bit of credit.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And when he passed away only eight years after Cornelius, so Amanda, he doubled the Vanderbilt wealth in the course of eight years, which is pretty wild, I would say.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: The money was passed down to his own children. Now, Cornelius Vanderbilt II was named the next head of house by his father, but it was his younger brother, William Kissam Vanderbilt, who was also quite important to the family.
AMANDA: Billy Kissam?
JULIA: Billy Kissam himself.
AMANDA: Billy Kissam?
JULIA: I think he was actually nicknamed Willy because his son was also a Willy later. But Willy Kissam, pretty good.
AMANDA: Will he kiss him, Julia? Yes, I will.
JULIA: So William Kissam Vanderbilt was put in charge of the family's railroad investments, and when his father passed away, he inherited $55 million which, in today's money, Amanda, is $1.9 billion.
AMANDA: Okay. This is why inherited wealth should be illegal, and someone called Billy Kissam Him, who was a billionaire. I— you can't make this shit up. So good.
JULIA: Not only was he a billionaire, he was also very invested in thoroughbred horse racing. It was like his true passion in life.
AMANDA: Oh, Willy Kissam loved the ponies.
JULIA: But not only was he super in love with the ponies, Amanda, he was also one of the biggest investors in architecture.
AMANDA: Sure. Okay.
JULIA: He commissioned, for example, the modern day Grand Central Terminal.
AMANDA: Thank you. Our last great railroad terminal in New York.
JULIA: Yes, that was the third Grand Central Terminal, and the one that has now lasted the longest.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But he also transformed the old P.T. Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome into— do you want to take a guess?
AMANDA: This one is Madison Square Garden.
JULIA: It is.
AMANDA: I know because it's round for no reason.
JULIA: Round for no reason.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: He also, much like his siblings would and his father did, built residence. One was known as Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island, which was completed in 1892, and the other most famous one, of course, was Idle Hour on Long Island.
AMANDA: Now, how much marble do you think had to be in that house in order for the Vanderbilts, famously consumers of marble, to call it that house with more marble than usual?
JULIA: It had to be a lot, right? Do you think it was all marble on the outside?
AMANDA: Oh, that's potential, yeah. Because, I mean, there's gotta be marble in every room to start with.
JULIA: Obviously.
AMANDA: Like marble floors all over the place, that doesn't shock me. That's probably in their townhouses. But maybe marble on the outside.
JULIA: Very possible, very possible. So now, construction on Idle Hour began in 1878, and the building was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, who was also famous for designing the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So like the entrance hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the pedestal that the Statue of Liberty is on.
AMANDA: Oh, really?
JULIA: So pretty, pretty relevant, I would say, at the time.
AMANDA: It never even occurred to me that we were gifted the statue, but then we got to put this fucking statue somewhere, so good that they got the good man for the job.
JULIA: Yeah. He— and he crushed it, I would say. He really did a good job.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So technically, the mansion was completed in 1882, but because of demands from Billy Kissam himself— or rather Willy Kissam himself.
AMANDA: Will he kiss him? Yes, he will.
JULIA: And his wife, Alva. Basically, this man, Richard Morris Hunt, was constantly adding onto the home.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: All of Hunt's work, the entirety of this wooden 110-room home, was destroyed in a fire in 1899, which was also— now, I don't want to make any assumptions. I don't want to impose anything on anyone here. The fire did happen while William Kissam's Willie was honeymooning there.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Willie and his wife, Virginia, managed to escape the fire, but the entirety of the building burned to the ground.
AMANDA: Yikes.
JULIA: Big yikes for that.
AMANDA: Now, non-American listeners might say, "That was 125 years ago. Surely y'all don't still build your houses almost entirely out of wood now." Yeah, we do.
JULIA: Yeah, we mostly do.
AMANDA: We still do. It's wild.
JULIA: We've gotten a lot better about, like, fire retardant materials and stuff like that, but—
AMANDA: And yet—
JULIA: —that's a great point that you've brought up. Richard Morris Hunt has retired from his firm because it's been like 20 years. So the building was instead designed by his son, Richard Howland Hunt.
AMANDA: Just give him three names and slap an architect label on him, and I'm sure they'll figure it out.
JULIA: Yes. So this time, it was not built out of wood—
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: —but rather it was done in brick and stone, and was completed in 1901 for around $3 million, which is near $100 million in today's money.
AMANDA: I was gonna say, two years is a quick turnaround time, $100 million in today's money, makes that make sense.
JULIA: Makes sense, yes. So between 1902 and 1904, the firm of Warren and Wetmore was hired to add in a bunch of other stuff. Like— so Hunt took care of the house, and then Warren and Wetmore were brought in to do a bunch of additions, including the palm court, which was basically like a big glass house that had a bunch of palm trees in it.
AMANDA: That's definitely the, you know, Victorian rich person thing that I would most take, is either a palm house or an orangery, big greenhouse where you grow oranges.
JULIA: Yes. At the time that we were house hunting, Amanda, the greenhouse for Idle Hour was for sale.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: It was way out of our price range.
AMANDA: I'm sure.
JULIA: A good $300,000 over our price range, but I did sit there and being like, "The dream."
AMANDA: You would simply get a roommate that you could never get rid of, Julia, because I would have been there the day you moved in.
JULIA: I thought you were talking about a ghost.
AMANDA: No, this time, I'm talking about me.
JULIA: Okay, okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. They also added on what they described as a bachelor's quarters.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Which the bachelor's quarters themselves included a indoor tennis court, a smoking room, and a bunch of other, like, bullshit that no one would actually need.
AMANDA: Okay, okay.
JULIA: By the time that all of this was completed, there were, again, 110 rooms. It covered 70,000 square feet, and the estate itself was made up of 300 buildings. The house I grew up in was about 1,600 square feet.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. I think mine is about 1,200 square feet.
AMANDA: It's big difference.
JULIA: The Vanderbilts, Amanda, even dredged the Connetquot River, which is the river that the estate sits on, so that a steamer paddle boat could bring Vanderbilt and his guests up and down the river.
AMANDA: Damn, dude.
JULIA: They were paying good money for this house, is what I will say.
AMANDA: Our billionaires used to do things in this country, Julia.
JULIA: Our billionaires used to spend their money on lavish things that only they got to enjoy. Wait, still the same.
AMANDA: Or infrastructure or libraries.
JULIA: Yes. It would be nice if we had more infrastructure and libraries. Like William Kissam was famous for being a patron of architects. He would just decide, "We're gonna build something nice," and then would hire architects.
AMANDA: Yeah. You ever look at the bathrooms in New York City from this era? They're beautiful.
JULIA: Do that with art now, guys. Do that with art now, billionaires.
AMANDA: Listen, I'm just saying we have a very high Patreon goal where we will buy a castle in Ireland. And if somebody decides to patron our art, as they patron someone else's art, I'll say thank you, and then affirm that I don't think billionaires should be legal.
JULIA: That's fair. That's fair. All right. So the Vanderbilts enjoyed the estate for about two decades, until the death of William Kissam in 1920.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: He didn't die at Idle Hour, otherwise, that would be very cool, and I'm sure there would be some ghost stories there.
AMANDA: Will he kiss him? St. Peter will say.
JULIA: RIP. He died in France. They brought his body back to New York City, buried him there.
AMANDA: Will he kiss him? No, no.
JULIA: No, no. In his will, Idle Hour was left to Willie Kissam's son, Harold, who'd actually been born at Idle Hour, so it seemed appropriate. Harold also was, like, famously, like a sailor. Like, that was his thing. Like, he enjoyed recreational sailing.
AMANDA: Okay. I mean, sure.
JULIA: However, he was not as good at the finances as his grandfather and his great grandfather were, and he held on to and maintained the house until 1923, only three years, and then attempted to sell it twice. Twice, Amanda, it went on market, and then both times, it ended in foreclosures.
AMANDA: Oh, no. Now, this might be a silly question, but how are you rich enough to try to buy the house, but not rich enough to buy it? You know what I mean?
JULIA: Yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, they probably got a loan from the bank, and then the bank was like, "Hey, you have to make payments." And they were like, "Whoops. Uh-oh." And then foreclosed.
AMANDA: I'm sure there were stock market crashes in there, maybe that's a thing.
JULIA: Records also show that a firm that did end up purchasing the estate, attempted to basically subdivide and develop the land, mainly into residential areas, but they ultimately were unsuccessful at the time. So that's also probably a reason why they've foreclosed as they tried to sell these different parcels of land and no one was buying. And they're like, "Oh, fuck, no return on investment."
AMANDA: Fair.
JULIA: "No ROI." See, I know business things sometimes.
AMANDA: Hell yeah, you do.
JULIA: So by 1926, the mansion, the stables and 26 acres of the originally 900-acre estate became known as the Idle Hour Artists Community.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: So this artist community was established by Lucy Pritchard Thompson, her son, William, and architect Betty Miller.
AMANDA: Lady architect, okay.
JULIA: Shout out to lady architects. 1920s, you wouldn't thought. So after acquiring the land, they converted the stables into apartments, which is kind of what you can see to this day. The apartments have been renovated since 1926. The 1970s, I think, they were renovated. But they were eventually turned into apartments, and then these apartments were sold to people who then joined the artist community and also gained a portion of land alongside the purchase of their apartment.
AMANDA: Julia, you mean a thing where people can have place to live and a place to connect with nature and share services and also make art?
JULIA: So, Amanda, eventually, the Idle Hour Artist Community had 30 members, and like there were some fairly prominent people involved. There's one guy who used to be part of, like, the old Western shows, who built his own log cabin over there.
AMANDA: Cute.
JULIA: Actually, interestingly, I remember he built two log cabins in that area. One of them was on Montauk Highway, which is kind of the road you have to take in and out of the various towns that I am near. The second one that he built was turned into a restaurant. And I remember as a child, the restaurant being there and then was abandoned. And only, like, in the past 10 years or so had they, like, torn it down, which was kind of wild.
AMANDA: That's amazing.
JULIA: So eventually they have these 30 members, but by 1937, the colony had begun to diminish, I would say. A lot of the original members either passed away or moved on. So the artist colony was forced to sell the mansion and the carriage house to a man named James Bernard Schafer. Under his organization, the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. And we will get to exactly what that group was up to, but first we gotta grab our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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AMANDA: Hey, folks, it's Amanda. Thank you so much for the kind comments about the message that we posted in the feed last week. It really means a lot to me. Felt kind of a little bit odd to put out there, but I'm glad it resonated with so many of you, and we've seen so many wonderful new faces in the free Multitude Discord. If you don't know what Discord is, it's basically a chat forum where, in our case, many members of the Multitude community, folks who like our various podcasts, come to share recipes and wins, and answer a question of the day, and pet photos, and chat about the podcast that they love, both from Multitude and other places. Yes, we allow that. So if you are looking for corners of the internet that feel like home and a community of supportive and lovely people who are there for you, we have channels for venting, for support, for advanced adulting, where people ask for questions on things like job hunts and caring for relatives, and all kinds of stuff. It's honestly amazing, and you should join us. Go to multitude.productions/community for the link to sign up to our Discord now. Welcome as well to everybody who's followed Spirits for free on Patreon and our newest paid patron, Melissa Hyatt. Thank you so much as always. If you're getting off of social, trying to simplify your life a little bit, you are welcome to follow us for free on Patreon, where you will get updates for merch, and new stuff, and tours, and anything else that's coming up that you need to know about. Thank you to our supporting producer-level patrons whose support helps sustain the show in a really meaningful way, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. All of that and more at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. In addition to joining the Multitude Discord or following us for free on Patreon, I'm going to recommend a newsletter to you all. If anyone, like me, is trying to channel all of your feelings into direct action to help people most impacted by the shifting winds of change, I highly recommend that you subscribe to reimagined ews.com, a free newsletter comes up three to four times a week where more than 300,000 people, myself included, get news insights and actions to build a just and liberated future. Used to be called Anti-Racism Daily, which began in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and they've since built like a really incredible business. They have a ton of great tips. And it's something that makes me feel like I'm not just sort of watching life happen to me and to us, but giving me a way to use what resources, privileges, and voice that I have for the help of others. So once again, that's reimagined-news.com. Link is in the description. Lots going on at Multitude, including, as always a really, like, compassionate, and friendly, and actionable way to understand the impact that the internet is having on our lives, and that show is Wow If True. Your one-stop internet culture shop, explaining how what's happening online shapes the real world. It's hosted by the tech culture journalist Amanda Silberling and science fiction author/attorney Isabel J. Kim, Esq. They're incredible, and the only podcast I can guarantee you that's going to mention Neopets and horizontal mergers in the same episode. It's like it's made for me. So check out Wow If true, which comes out on alternate Wednesdays, that means every other Wednesday, you get a double dose of Spirits and Wow, If True. It is mid-November, which means that I am thinking about my Thanksgiving and Hanukkah plans. The holidays are definitely upon us, and I have already had way more people in my apartment than usual. 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JULIA: Amanda, we are back from our refill. And, of course, we gotta do a local beer for this one, and alongside our local beer, I'm going to give you a little bit of Long Island history as well.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: One of the reasons that families like the Vanderbilts even built homes on Long Island is that Long Island was kind of this rich person retreat during the Gilded Age. William Henry Vanderbilt was drawn specifically to this area because of the South Side Sportsmen's Club District.
AMANDA: Oh, my.
JULIA: Which was a recreational club that catered to wealthy businessmen, mainly acting as a hunting club for game birds and fishing.
AMANDA: Where was it located?
JULIA: Well, it was located on the mouth of the Connetquot River, and is now, in the modern day, my favorite park to go to, which is the Connetquot State Park.
AMANDA: That's amazing.
JULIA: It's my favorite hiking location, and they still have a hatchery there where they help breed like spotted and rainbow trout.
AMANDA: Adorable.
JULIA: Also, Amanda, this area was and still is known for its oysters, and one of the biggest types of oysters in the area are Blue Point Oysters. So, naturally, I'm going to suggest a beer from Blue Point Brewery. We're still not sponsored. Come on, Blue Point, get on it.
AMANDA: Come on.
JULIA: Come on.
AMANDA: We'll take any amount of money at this point. I will get paid in cases of beer, I will. That's fine.
JULIA: Well, one of those beers that I would recommend, Amanda, is their Mother Pumpkin beer, which is one of my favorites.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But now, as we are, like, solidly in fall, heading closer to winter, I'm going to recommend their Apple Crumb Pie Sour.
AMANDA: Hmm. Never met a sour I didn't like, especially not one related to apples. So good.
JULIA: Hmm. It's got that, like, really good kind of green apple sour flavor, but at the same time, it's also flavored with vanilla and cinnamon. And it's also a collaboration with the Jericho Cider Mill, which has been making apple cider on Long Island since the 1800s, and that feels really relevant to a Long Island history episode here.
AMANDA: Adorable.
JULIA: All right. Let's pick up where we left off. Let's get into the heart of it, the meat of it. It's 1937, the Idle Hour mansion, as well as the carriage house, has been acquired by a man named James Bernard Schafer for his organization, the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Now, I say organization, it was a cult.
AMANDA: Oh. Not even just like a philosophy club where men like did, you know, masked activities of bonding.
JULIA: No, no. Schafer was a cult leader.
AMANDA: Oh, okay.
JULIA: Born in Fargo, North Dakota in—
AMANDA: Oh, boy. Oh, my.
JULIA: —1896.
AMANDA: Oh, boy.
JULIA: Not a ton is known about Schafer. He supposedly had a medical degree, and we know that he was a registered member of the KKK. This will not be surprising information the more you learn about him.
AMANDA: Okay. If I hear, like, man born in Fargo in 1896, I'm gonna assume he becomes a cult leader, so the rest of it, not super surprising to me.
JULIA: So we know that he eventually moved to the New York area, specifically the city, and he managed to create a fairly substantial following for himself. Newspapers from the time claim that the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians was founded in the 1920s and that by the 1930s, their membership was in the thousands.
AMANDA: I mean, I think it was probably easy to gather thousands, like, white people with, you know, violently racist beliefs in the greater New York City area in the 1920s.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: I'm not sure he was particularly skilled at that, but I am kind of impressed that the word metaphysicians didn't put them off. I guess it's just medical enough to have, like, a little twist of respectability.
JULIA: This is also around the time that spiritualism was getting real popular in New York—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —so it kind of makes sense that this worked out for him pretty well. So notably, Amanda, it's interesting you mentioned white people in general, but a majority of the membership was middle-aged women.
AMANDA: I think that a lot of middle-aged women needed something, anything to spice up their dull lives. And not to, in any way, excuse the racism, I can understand why people see a charismatic leader being like, "Yes, yeah." You know, like just acting, saying something, getting them involved, giving them sensations in their body, I don't know, that maybe, like other things in their lives had not, and then they go, "Great." And I would rather that be for, like, socialism than, you know, eugenics, but I think it kind of— it's kind of up to the draw of, like, who comes to your town first.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Well, Amanda, it's funny you talk about him giving them sensations that they haven't felt otherwise, but Schafer did not discourage relationships between him and his female membership.
AMANDA: Julia, why would he? He's a cult leader.
JULIA: There were reports that often female members would like publicly hug and kiss him, you know, sort of initiating intimate moments. And when questioned about that, Schafer reportedly said, quote, "I can't deprive them of that. It's their aspirin."
AMANDA: Hard to admit that was a banger line for an odious human being, but it is. It is.
JULIA: Yeah, it's an interesting choice. It's an interesting choice.
AMANDA: I simply must state at this point of the episode that we would have been wildly successful cult leaders.
JULIA: I agree.
AMANDA: We have everything we need. We could put on the gowns of respectability. We could claim to be widows, despite never having been married, and just go around the country educating women on the classics, by which we mean the, you know, feminist and anti-patriarchy themes of, you know, mythology of the ancient world. And I think we would have been great at it.
JULIA: I do think so. I do think so. I'm curious to see what you think of Schafer's preaching and his beliefs, but what— the problem is a lot of what he was preaching to his cult is somewhat unclear. Time Magazine wrote a couple of articles about the cult and described his preaching as a, quote, "theological goulash of Rosicrucianism, Christian Science, Christianity, Supermind Science, faith healing, and How to Win Friends and Influence People."
AMANDA: Okay. Christianity, a real thing. How to Win Friends and Influence People, a book by his contemporary, Doug Carnegie. None of that makes any sense, and it's kind of terrifying how, like, any Instagram post that might get served to one of our parents on Facebook, that list is 100 years later.
JULIA: Yes. Unfortunately. So here— here's what we do know. We know that he believed that a vegetarian diet was important to overall spiritual and physical health for his members.
AMANDA: A broken preacher is right twice a day.
JULIA: That's true. Male members, especially ones that were kind of in Schafer's inner circle, were known as the storks. They would provide clothing and supplies to babies and, quote, unquote, "needy expectant mothers."
AMANDA: I really thought you were gonna say they delivered babies to women, by which I mean had sex with people and got them pregnant.
JULIA: No, that is not something that was heavily featured.
AMANDA: Shocking.
JULIA: This is not Oneida. It's not— shockingly, Amanda, this is not a free love sex cult.
AMANDA: Okay. Okay.
JULIA: Now, the babies and needy expectant mothers, this is going to be important in just a little bit. Bear with me.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Schafer also was known to his congregation as the messenger. It was through their generous donations, his congregation's generous donations, referred to as, quote-unquote, "love gifts."
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: That Schafer was able to purchase Idle Hour, which he renamed Peace Haven.
AMANDA: Would anyone like to give me love gifts of property? Because, frankly, I don't see a way I'm getting on that ladder anytime soon.
JULIA: Once he owned Idle Hour, aka now known as Peace Haven, he converted it into a retreat for the cult, a, quote, "spiritual sanatorium" as it was described.
AMANDA: Ah. Oh, I just keep yelling.
JULIA: Schafer described it as a retreat, quote, "for those students who desire metaphysical assistance or loving care."
AMANDA: To do loving care upon him and his body, maybe?
JULIA: I think the opposite, actually.
AMANDA: Really?
JULIA: I think they're— he's the one who's supposed to be doing loving care, because a lot of his stuff is focused on faith healing.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: So these students were first known as, quote-unquote, "truth students," but they could earn the title of Master Metaphysician, after studying for— do you want to guess how long?
AMANDA: Oh, I thought you were gonna say an amount of money.
JULIA: Oh, we'll get to the money in a second, but they have to study first.
AMANDA: Six months?
JULIA: A year and a half.
AMANDA: Okay, okay.
JULIA: When Peace Haven was ready to accept members, he, of course, had to charge. You know, he put a lot of money into it. He was renovating it—
AMANDA: With his own love gifts.
JULIA: His own love gifts.
AMANDA: I mean, come one.
JULIA: So rates for members to stay at the retreat started at, started at $14 a week, which is $310 in today's money.
AMANDA: So, like, a fair amount of money. I mean, you'd probably be paying rent somewhere else at the same time. Like, that's not cheap.
JULIA: This, Amanda was, of course, after the members had already paid the initial $100, which is over $2,000 in today's dollars, to become part of the fellowship.
AMANDA: Yikes.
JULIA: And by 1940, that amount had increased to $500, which is $11,000 nowadays.
AMANDA: People will always be scamming in a way that a part of me respects and part of me is deeply disgusted by.
JULIA: Yes. Now, Amanda, this is where it gets good. This is the reason we are talking about Schafer and the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Now, I mentioned earlier that the general teachings of Schafer were somewhat unclear, but there is one thing that they became extremely well-known for. Schafer believed that one could become immortal if one had no bad thoughts. How do we feel about that, as a main tenant?
AMANDA: Does like one bad thought ruin the streak forever, like Duolingo? Or can you pay to undo it, like indulgences in the Catholic Church?
JULIA: Interesting. I don't think that one could pay for it to get it— gotten rid of, and you'll see why in just a moment. Schafer decides he is going to prove this belief, or maybe just show it off as his chief tenant. And so he finds Baby Jean.
AMANDA: Does a baby get killed in this story?
JULIA: No one dies— well, I'm not going to say no one dies. The baby does not die in the story.
AMANDA: Okay. Because I just got real nervous.
JULIA: Baby Jean is fine. Baby Jean is a full adult who's still alive.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Supposedly.
AMANDA: Oh, damn. Wow.
JULIA: Last I checked, records report Baby Jean's still alive.
AMANDA: Live to old age, okay. Good. Good start.
JULIA: Now, Baby Jean was born Jean Gauntt to a New York City waitress, Catherine Gauntt, who was, at the time of Baby Jean's birth, struggling to make enough money to raise and support her child.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Now, through the organization, even though Catherine Gauntt was not a member herself—
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: —she was approached by Schafer to adopt Baby Jean. Now, Baby Jean, at three months, was taken by the members of the Master Metaphysicians to Peace Haven. However, this is very important. She was never officially adopted. No adoption paperwork was ever filed. This is important for later.
Amanda" People love to just take children and not file paperwork.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. So at Peace Haven, Schafer planned out the perfect life for Baby Jean because, remember, he believed that eternal life could be achieved by raising someone "the proper way," quote-unquote, "the proper way."
AMANDA: I mean, listen, a place called Peace Haven, I think you could do worse, but also, I hate everything about this experiment.
JULIA: Yes. So she was to be raised in a private nursery. She was to have a nurse who was going to attend to her 24 hours a day, and she was going to be watched over by the members of the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians.
AMANDA: None of which was her mom, though.
JULIA: So she would eat a all vegetarian diet that Schafer had dubbed the, quote, "eternity diet."
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: The plan was that while she would be allowed to learn about things like alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, mustard, vinegar and spices, she would never be allowed to consume them.
AMANDA: There's a different level of white people where mustard is spicy.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Vinegar is on the list. Wild. Now, most important to Schafer's philosophy, as we've mentioned, she would never be exposed to any, quote, "bad or destructive thoughts." She would never hear mentions of death or disease, and no unkind words would be allowed to be spoken in her presence.
AMANDA: I think this is a pretty thoroughly disproved theory of parenting, but I'm holding my judgments until I learn more.
JULIA: And of course, Amanda, she would be instructed in the group's philosophy, and in time, when she was old enough, she would become the group's immortal leader.
AMANDA: I mean, you know, we're talking about the long-term wealth building of the Vanderbilts. This is a long-term con to play on this innocent child and their mom.
JULIA: Yes. For sure. So the newspapers at the time, Amanda, they ate this shit up.
AMANDA: I'm sure they did.
JULIA: They, in particular, loved the fact that Baby Jean was going to be raised in the same nursery as the Vanderbilt children were raised in.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Like that was a big deal to them.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And they gained a lot of attention for this, for lack of a better phrase, stunt.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And then things got quiet for a while. The assumption was that Baby Jean was, of course, being raised as this immortal baby, but then, a mere 15 months later, it was reported that Baby Jean had been returned to her parents.
AMANDA: Hell, yeah, dude.
JULIA: Now, Schafer's initial explanation for this was that, quote, "the parents have adjusted themselves and they want her back." And the organization was just honoring their wishes.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Later on, they would be asked more about that, and they were like, "It's also really expensive to raise a baby." Meanwhile, this guy is rolling in money. He bought a mansion.
AMANDA: Babies can't pay dues, I guess, but. you know, you do have to pay, in some way, staff to take care of the kid. And I'm sure Schafer was not, like, changing diapers.
JULIA: Yes. She had the 24-hour nurse. She was fine. So—
AMANDA: Sorry, the baby is Schafer?
JULIA: No. Baby Jean.
AMANDA: Okay. Oh, yeah, you said 24 hours. Sorry. Okay.
JULIA: Well, the— she— Baby Jean had that—
AMANDA: Yes, yes.
JULIA: —24-hour nurse, so Baby Jean was fine.
AMANDA: I follow now. I'm getting very protective of Baby Jean that I'm like—
JULIA: So it was also really funny, like Schafer in the announcement that they had returned Baby Jean was like, "By the way, we sent her back with a detailed instruction on how to maintain the baby's eternity diet." And Schafer says to the press, he's like, "Whether Jean goes on to be immortal is for her parents to decide."
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Come off it.
JULIA: Pretty much immediately, the parents dropped the diet because—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —Amanda, why would they continue it, especially when they were in the middle of suing Schafer and his group?
AMANDA: Good. Yes. Okay. Let's go.
JULIA: Because while Schafer was like, "Oh, well, the parents asked, and naturally, that means where we're gonna return the baby."
AMANDA: Never.
JULIA: They had to threaten legal action in order to get him to return the baby.
AMANDA: I'm sure there was all kinds of subterfuge about like, "Oh, you know, aren't you struggling to make ends meet? Here's a gift, here's a gift, here's another gift." And, like, guilt tripping to get these poor parents to do what they thought was right for the kid.
JULIA: 100%. 100%. Now, Amanda, Baby Jean's family were not the only ones suing Schafer at this time.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: So there were, around this time, several lawsuits that were filed against Schafer. One woman claimed that she had lent him $2,500 which was never repaid.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Another woman testified that she had contributed three truckloads of antique furniture, plus an additional $10,000 to the cult.
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: Another woman, this one cracks me the fuck up, reported that she had lost two rings valued at $5,000 while at a retreat at Peace Haven. And when she reported it to Schafer, he told her that, quote, "Nothing is lost in the infinite. You can think them back in your experience."
AMANDA: No words. None.
JULIA: Now between these complaints of people realizing that they had been conned and the legal actions threatened by Baby Jean's family, the attorney general got involved.
AMANDA: Love when the New York attorney general says, "I'm inviting myself to this fight."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Criminal charges were brought against Schafer in 1940, and while he attempted to protect himself by gaining tax exempt status and hiding behind his religious organization—
AMANDA: Oh, ho, ho. A well-trodden road.
JULIA: —the New York Supreme Court ruled that there was nothing religious about the Royal Fraternity, quote, "except possibly the solicitation and receipt of funds."
AMANDA: Fuck yes. Hell yes. Let me buy that judge a beer.
JULIA: He was brought up on grand larceny charges, and at his trial, the judge called him, quote, "an admitted thief, not unlike the horse thief of old."
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Pretty tight, pretty tight.
AMANDA: Sorry, I got stuck there on— I mean, yeah, I guess stealing someone's horse would be, like, absolutely devastating to their livelihood, but I didn't know, like, the horse thief was behind us.
JULIA: Oh, yes. Yeah. Fair. So he was sent to Sing Sing Prison.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: He served five years there, and naturally, his cult dissolved while he was incarcerated, and he was forced to sell Peace Haven. He ended up, upon being released, attempting to start a Metaphysics Correspondence School in West Nyack, New York.
AMANDA: Oh, baby.
JULIA: But less than 10 years later, he and his wife were found dead in their car by apparent suicide.
AMANDA: Oh, damn.
JULIA: Baby Jean, Jean Gauntt went on to live a normal life, having married and given birth to children of her own. However, she refuses to publicly discuss her history as the, quote-unquote, "immortal baby."
AMANDA: Respect. That's her story to share or not.
JULIA: Yeah. That's— I mean, that's what I would do. I think the last, like, written about her, like checking in on her was in, like, 2004. But if she was born in the '30s, she might still be alive, you know? You know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: She might still be rocking and rolling, and at least, probably her descendants are in a comfortable spot right now.
AMANDA: Just like can't imagine the theft of privacy that that means of, you know, your name and appearance becoming public knowledge without your consent. Must be horrible to deal with, so I'm weirdly proud that she has chosen to keep that part of her life private.
JULIA: Yeah. And there's— it's wild like there are just, like, public record photos of her being raised by this cult.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And that is— I wish her all the best and all the privacy that she would want in her life.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: And as for Peace Haven, Idle Hour, the properties owned by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians were sold to, at the time, the National Dairy Research Labs.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Eventually, it was then bought by Adelphi University to act as a second campus for the school. For those— from Long Island, that is a local university here. And then five years later, it became its own independent school, Dowling College. Now, while owned by Dowling in 1974, the mansion suffered another fire, which destroyed a large part of the original interior of the house. It was partially restored by the Fortunoff family, famous on Long Island for their malls.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: But a majority of the renowned interiors were not restored.
AMANDA: I'm gonna go ahead and say, Julia, that it can go. The vibes are bad, and it can go.
JULIA: Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Dowling College continued operations until 2018. I actually took my driver's ed classes here, fun fact. But in 2018, the school went bankrupt and the mansion and remaining 105 acres of land were bought by an LLC, and it has pretty much remained abandoned since then. They haven't really developed the land or done anything with the buildings.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, we are from the brackish waters where grifters flourish and I kind of love that for us.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. However, much of the remaining land that is not now owned by this LLC, something like 800— or rather, some 795 acres of land that made up the Idle Hour estate have now been turned into residential areas, which is how Jake and I found it when we started our house hunting in that area.
AMANDA: I am astonished by the depth and breadth of the story, and I don't think I'm ever going to forget that William Kissam and Vanderbilt is a name and a guy.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, I don't know if this is like a tease or not, but the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians isn't the only Long Island cult that I found while researching this episode.
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: But I think we will save those for another time.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, eight years and you're still keeping me interested and surprised. You gotta love it.
JULIA: I do it what I can. Well, the next time you head back to your hometown for the holidays, whether that's the winter holidays, Thanksgiving, what have you, look around, think, was there a cult here at any point? And remember to stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
[theme]