PICKFAIR (c.1922) - U.S. Postcard #01

Price: SOLD

Item Number: CS-PICKFAIR-PC1

Vintage original 3.5 x 5.5 in. (8.9 x 14 cm.) U.S. postcard, c.1922, published by M. Kashower Co. (Los Angeles), unused, very fine condition.

The image depicts Pickfair, the legendary "home of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Beverly Hills, Calif." The full-color image depicts silent film legends Douglas Fairbanks and his wife, Mary Pickford, on the lawn of their Beverly Hills estate which features a nice shot of the house in the background. The famous statue which they installed on their property still exists today but is no longer on what constitutes the ground of the former Pickfair estate. This vintage original postcard was published by M. Kashower Co. (Los Angeles, California) and is unused and in very fine condition.

Pickfair was a mansion designed by California architect Wallace Neff and named as an amalgamation of the names of its original residents, silent film actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Located at 1143 Summit Drive in the San Ysidro Canyon in Beverly Hills, California, the property was a hunting lodge when purchased by Fairbanks and Pickford in 1919. They renovated extensively to transform the lodge into a 22 room mansion luxuriously decorated with ceiling frescos and the highest quality art and furnishings available. The property was said to have been the first private property in the Los Angeles area to include a swimming pool (set in a large formal garden). During the 1920s, the house became the focal point for social activities, and the couple became famous for entertaining there. An invitation to Pickfair was a sign of social acceptance into the closed Hollywood community, and European royalty was also accommodated and entertained at the mansion. Dinners at Pickfair were legendary; guests included Charlie Chaplin(who also lived next door), George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Elinor Glyn, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Fritz Kreisler, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Crawford, Noel Coward, Max Reinhardt, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Austen Chamberlain, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Sir Harry Lauder. Lauder's nephew, Matt Lauder Jr., a professional golfer whose family had a property at Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, taught Fairbanks to play golf.