Hope Goddard Iselin was an American heiress, sportswoman, the first woman to compete as a crew member in the America's Cup yacht race and the last surviving member of Mrs Astor's 400. Daughter of Colonel William Goddard of Providence, Rhode Island, a chancellor of Brown University and a scion of a family that had accumulated great wealth from mercantile and manufacturing activities. Widow of Charles O. Iselin, a New York City banker and yachtsman. Proud, arrogant and stubborn, she demanded that she be let on her sailboat as crew during the America's Cup yacht races, making her the first woman to do so. A member of the famed and elite '400 List' as a young debutante, Who, along with her distant cousin Miss Edith Wetmore and Mrs Louis Bruguiere, would be the last surviving member of the aristocratic list. She insisted on living in grand style on such residential masterpieces as a castle-like estate, 'All View', in New Rochelle, New York, with gardens designed by Frederick Olmstead; a fifty-room estate, 'Wolver Hollow', in Upper Brookville, New York; and a New York City townhouse at No. 7 East 96th Street, designed by the famous Ogden Codman Jr. In 1900 she and her husband visited the dirt-road town of Aiken, South Carolina and immediately fell in love with the area. What used to be the 15 acres of farmland they bought, she turned into a lush and fruitful estate filled with gardens and greenhouses, which she named 'Hopelands', after her favorite house in Newport, Rhode Island. They spent their winters racing thoroughbreds and modifying the gardens at Hopelands, planting hundreds of camellia bushes around the massive old oak trees. Near the main house, they had architect Whitney Warren design and build the 'Dollhouse', a miniature playhouse for the Iselin children, which was air conditioned and had indoor plumbing. In 1969, the year she became the last surviving member of the '400 List', she established in Aiken the 'Hopelands Gardens', a foundation that's main purpose was to preserve the lush and lavish gardens she had built. When she died in her one hundred-second year at her beloved 'Hopelands', she donated her estate and the 'Hopelands Gardens', to the city of Aiken. In 2000, the foundation commenced extensive renovations of 'Hoplands' and the gardens, establishing the former estate into a residential neighborhood, with homes situated around the gardens, while still preserving the main house as it's headquarters. Today, her former stables are the home of the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame and Museum. Every summer, concerts are performed in Hopeland Gardens on the permanent stage that was constructed next to one of the ponds. A bust of Hope Goddard Iselin was erected in 2010 at Hopeland Gardens that was sculpted by Maria Kirby Smith.
Hope Goddard Iselin was an American heiress, sportswoman, the first woman to compete as a crew member in the America's Cup yacht race and the last surviving member of Mrs Astor's 400. Daughter of Colonel William Goddard of Providence, Rhode Island, a chancellor of Brown University and a scion of a family that had accumulated great wealth from mercantile and manufacturing activities. Widow of Charles O. Iselin, a New York City banker and yachtsman. Proud, arrogant and stubborn, she demanded that she be let on her sailboat as crew during the America's Cup yacht races, making her the first woman to do so. A member of the famed and elite '400 List' as a young debutante, Who, along with her distant cousin Miss Edith Wetmore and Mrs Louis Bruguiere, would be the last surviving member of the aristocratic list. She insisted on living in grand style on such residential masterpieces as a castle-like estate, 'All View', in New Rochelle, New York, with gardens designed by Frederick Olmstead; a fifty-room estate, 'Wolver Hollow', in Upper Brookville, New York; and a New York City townhouse at No. 7 East 96th Street, designed by the famous Ogden Codman Jr. In 1900 she and her husband visited the dirt-road town of Aiken, South Carolina and immediately fell in love with the area. What used to be the 15 acres of farmland they bought, she turned into a lush and fruitful estate filled with gardens and greenhouses, which she named 'Hopelands', after her favorite house in Newport, Rhode Island. They spent their winters racing thoroughbreds and modifying the gardens at Hopelands, planting hundreds of camellia bushes around the massive old oak trees. Near the main house, they had architect Whitney Warren design and build the 'Dollhouse', a miniature playhouse for the Iselin children, which was air conditioned and had indoor plumbing. In 1969, the year she became the last surviving member of the '400 List', she established in Aiken the 'Hopelands Gardens', a foundation that's main purpose was to preserve the lush and lavish gardens she had built. When she died in her one hundred-second year at her beloved 'Hopelands', she donated her estate and the 'Hopelands Gardens', to the city of Aiken. In 2000, the foundation commenced extensive renovations of 'Hoplands' and the gardens, establishing the former estate into a residential neighborhood, with homes situated around the gardens, while still preserving the main house as it's headquarters. Today, her former stables are the home of the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame and Museum. Every summer, concerts are performed in Hopeland Gardens on the permanent stage that was constructed next to one of the ponds. A bust of Hope Goddard Iselin was erected in 2010 at Hopeland Gardens that was sculpted by Maria Kirby Smith.
