Financier. Born into a middle-class Quaker family he attended Philadelphia's Friends' Central School. Starting as a clerk at Drexel, Morgan and Company at 17, he became a full partner and close colleague of J.P. Morgan. Morgan called him the man who knew "more about the banking business than any man in America." The simplicity of Quakerism contrasted with his fantastic mansions in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Maine. White Marsh Hall, Stotesbury's home from 1921 until his death, was called the "Versailles of America." It cost over $8 million to build, and furnish. White Marsh had 147 rooms and 45 bathrooms. It was complete with a movie theater, a barber shop, a billiards room, and nine elevators. Filled with tapestries, porcelain, Oriental rugs, paintings, and sculpture, it was a textbook example of the America's Gilded Age and its "conspicuous consumption." White Marsh with its staff of 70, was only used six months of the year. Stotesbury spent three months of the year in Palm Beach at El Mirasol. Another three months were spent at Wingwood in Maine. Guests at White Marsh Hall included Henry Ford, Will Rogers, and Olympic gold medalist and fellow Philadelphian John B. Kelly, Sr. Stotesbury was a social member of the Bachelors' Barge Club on Boathouse Row. The Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the oldest and largest high school regatta in the United States, is still held along Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.
Financier. Born into a middle-class Quaker family he attended Philadelphia's Friends' Central School. Starting as a clerk at Drexel, Morgan and Company at 17, he became a full partner and close colleague of J.P. Morgan. Morgan called him the man who knew "more about the banking business than any man in America." The simplicity of Quakerism contrasted with his fantastic mansions in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Maine. White Marsh Hall, Stotesbury's home from 1921 until his death, was called the "Versailles of America." It cost over $8 million to build, and furnish. White Marsh had 147 rooms and 45 bathrooms. It was complete with a movie theater, a barber shop, a billiards room, and nine elevators. Filled with tapestries, porcelain, Oriental rugs, paintings, and sculpture, it was a textbook example of the America's Gilded Age and its "conspicuous consumption." White Marsh with its staff of 70, was only used six months of the year. Stotesbury spent three months of the year in Palm Beach at El Mirasol. Another three months were spent at Wingwood in Maine. Guests at White Marsh Hall included Henry Ford, Will Rogers, and Olympic gold medalist and fellow Philadelphian John B. Kelly, Sr. Stotesbury was a social member of the Bachelors' Barge Club on Boathouse Row. The Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the oldest and largest high school regatta in the United States, is still held along Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.
