Two Gilded Age Mansions, One Titanic Tragedy: The Heroic Story of Clarence Moore

Born with next to nothing, Clarence Moore quickly became one of the richest men in the nation, but lost it all after helping women and children escape the Titanic. His wife, however, became very wealthy from that infamous disaster. Hi everyone, Ken here. Hit that subscribe button and let's explore this house. In 1865, Clarence Moore was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and despite relatively modest beginnings, he quickly found success in business. After college, he partnered with influential investors like Senators Stephen Elkins and Henry Gassaway Davis to develop coal, oil, and timber properties in West Virginia. By 1890, Moore moved to Washington DC to further his fortunes and joined the brokerage firm W.B. Hibson Company. In Washington's booming financial sector, he earned an impressive annual salary of $25,000, the modern equivalent of about $890,000 per year. In short, Clarence epitomized the American dream with his journey from rags to riches. While Clarence was climbing the economic ladder, his second wife, Mabel Florence Swift, brought her own considerable wealth into the marriage. The Swift family had one of the country's greatest industrial era fortunes, and Mabel was very much an heiress to that prosperity. The Swift family maintained homes in Massachusetts as well as Chicago. Even before her marriage, Mabel frequented the posh summer colony of Pride's Crossing on Boston's North Shore. It was in Beverly, Massachusetts that Mabel married Clarence Moore in June of 1900, uniting two substantial fortunes. Tragically, Mabel's father died a few years later in 1906, which only increased her inheritance and financial independence. The couple's combined resources would soon be poured into real estate and architecture on a grand scale. In 1906, flush with wealth, the Moores commissioned a Washington DC residence that would reflect their stature. Mabel had purchased a choice lot at 1746 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest in the city's most fashionable quarter, and the couple hired esteemed architect Jules-Henri de Sabor and Bruce Price to design a showplace home. The result, completed in 1909, was a soigné Beaux-Arts mansion clad in pale Roman brick with limestone trim, evoking the grandeur of a French chateau. The exterior features a rusticated limestone base and a tall mansard roof, hallmarks of Parisian-inspired design. Carved stone consoles, swags, and balconies embellish the front, and a formal entrance tube leads up from Massachusetts Avenue. At four and a half stories tall, the house was immense, roughly 100 feet long on each side and nearly 80 feet high to the roof crest. Inside, the Moore mansion was just as lavish. The interior design drew on 16th to 18th century European influences, with different rooms styled after French and English period fashions. Ornate wood paneling, grand marble fireplaces, a sweeping staircase, and carved plaster ceilings filled the home. Modern conveniences were not spared either. The house had electric lighting, an elevator, and even a mechanized dumbwaiter, at a time when such features were cutting-edge luxuries. No sooner was the mansion completed in 1909 that it became a center of social activity. One newspaper later noted that the Moore home was one of the handsomest in the city, and is a constant scene of hospitality. The couple hosted glittering parties, charity receptions, and high society dinners under its roof. Given Clarence and Mabel's social connections, guests might include diplomats, prominent businessmen, military officers, and Washington dignitaries. Clarence's standing as a famed sportsman and clubman added to the home's allure. He had been master of foxhounds at the Chevy Chase Club, and counted President Tapp's military aid, Major Archibald Buckt, among his friends. Life in the Moore Mansion was luxurious by every measure. The household staff of 20 servants saw to the families' and guests' needs, and maintained the many rooms. In the same era that the Moores were cementing their status in Washington, they were also part of the elite summer community on Boston's North Shore. Pride's Crossing, a neighborhood of Beverly, Massachusetts, was famed for its summer cottages, a euphemism for the colossal mansions that Gilded Age Bagnates built along the rocky coastline. Here, industrialists and financiers like Henry Clay Frick and others constructed sprawling estates to escape the city heat. Among these luminaries was Mabel's father. He established a grand estate on Pride's Crossing's Payne Avenue, a private drive lined with some of the most splendid homes in America. The Swift Mansion was affectionately dubbed Swiftmoor. The name was a portmanteau, blending Swift and Moore, symbolically joining the family name with that of Mabel's husband. The interiors of Swiftmoor were lavishly eclectic. While the outside maintained a dignified restraint, inside, the decor featured a mix of styles. Perhaps a French drawing room here, an English library there, a grand hall with a carved staircase, reflecting the era's penchant for historical fantasy. Photographs are scarce, but one can imagine high ceilings, rooms filled with heavy antiques and oriental rugs, and walls adorned with portraits of the Swift ancestors. Modern amenities were certainly present. By the 1910s, the estate had electricity, telephone service, and supportive buildings like stables, greenhouses, and even garages were on site. For the Moore family, Swiftmoor was a summer haven from the formality of Washington. Each year, as spring gave way to summer, Mabel would decamp with the children, servants, and baggage to Massachusetts. They would travel in style, perhaps in a private railcar, disembarking at the quaint Prides Crossing train station, along with other wealthy families who had their own rail sightings nearby. At Swiftmoor, the family enjoyed the more relaxed, if still luxurious routine. Morning rides on horseback along country lanes, tennis matches on the estate's courts, sailing or bathing at West Beach nearby, and lavish garden parties on the lawn. However, the Moores' charmed life was shattered in the spring of 1912. That March, Clarence Moore embarked on a trip to England, ostensibly a pleasure trip, though in reality, he had a specific mission – to purchase a pack of fine English foxhounds for his hunting club in Virginia. After securing 50 pairs of hounds and enjoying the Grand National Horse Race, Clarence booked a first-class return passage on the brand new RMS Titanic. On April 10, 1912, he and his English manservant, Charles Harrington, boarded the Titanic. The Titanic, deemed unsinkable, was filled with society figures that season, and Clarence fit among them. On the fateful night of April 14, as the ship sailed through an icy North Atlantic, Clarence spent the evening exactly as one might expect of a gentleman of leisure, playing cards in the first-class smoking room with a circle of friends. His card partners reportedly included Major Archibald Butt. In the chaotic hours that followed, Clarence Moore demonstrated calm and courage. Multiple survivor accounts later emerged describing his final actions. He and Major Butt were seen helping women and children into the lifeboats, steadfastly refusing to save themselves while others were at risk. Thus, at only 47 years old, Clarence's life ended heroically in one of history's most infamous disasters, a far cry from his gilded halls. In Washington, D.C., Mabel Moore suddenly found herself a widow at just 34 years old. The tragedy that made headlines around the world was intensely personal for her. She had lost her husband and the father of her four young sons. Yet in practical terms, Mabel's circumstances were far different from the stereotypical bereaved widow. Thanks to the fortune she inherited and the substantial estate Clarence left, coupled with lawsuits and insurance claims she made following the Titanic's sinking, Mabel was now extraordinarily wealthy, even by high society standards. The press soon dubbed her Washington's wealthiest widow. In 1915, she remarried, this time into Danish nobility, but that's a story for another time. As for the couple's mansions, the Clarence Moore house in Washington still stands today as the Embassy of Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, Swift Moore, though no longer standing, lives on only in a small handful of old photos. And with that, I'll turn it over to you. Which of these two mansions was your favorite? Let me know down below in the comment section. 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