Blithewold

McKee outlived his wife and died here in 1946. His elder stepdaughter, Marjorie (along with her husband, George Armstrong Lyon) then bought out her sister, Augustine, and the Lyons proceeded to spend half the year here and the other half in Boston. George died eight years later but Mrs Lyon continued her routine of living between here and Boston up until the year before her death in 1977. She left Blithewold and its 33-acres with an endowment of $1.2 million to the Heritage Foundation of Rhode Island but just twenty years later the endowment was gone and its future looked uncertain. In response, local residents clubbed together to found Save Blithewold, Inc., and within just three weeks had raised the required capital. Save Blithewold still rely on donations but they continue to maintain the house and gardens immaculately, both of which are open to the public today.

It is interesting to note that in 1896 John DeWolf's first cousin, John Byron Diman (1863-1949), co-founded and became the first headmaster of St. George's School at Middletown, near Newport. In 1901, Diman commissioned his first cousin, Prescott O. Clarke (1858-1936), of Clarke & Howe, to build the first building on its present campus, "Old School". The front facade (see the pictures) bears a distinct similarity to that of Blithewold.