Simple Life The

By WENDELL BROCK

William left a fortune of $150 million. He and his wife owned a Fifth Avenue mansion and a 204room country manor in New York’s Westchester County. But underneath the starch and lace, they were by all accounts just plain folk.

Fittingly, their favorite haunt was their winter home on Georgia’s coast: Indian Mound, a magnolia-draped cottage built in 1892 by Gordon McKay, a Civil War–era shoemaker and member of Jekyll’s storied millionaires club. Some of the richest, most influential men of the time enjoyed membership in the Jekyll Island Club: J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, Marshall Field, and William K. Vanderbilt, among others. And yet Indian Mound offers an illuminating glimpse of the Rockefellers as homebodies and beachcombers, two retirees basking in their grandchildren and the sunshine.

At Indian Mound, the couple could escape the glare of society life and the tabloids. Almira (or Mira, as she liked to be called) could gather her family in the large living room they added to the back of the house, where they would read, play games, or listen to the Victrola. William could sit