Augustus Coe Gurnee (1855-1926)
Art Patron, of New York City, Paris, Nice & Bar Harbor, Maine; died unmarried
He was born in Chicago and graduated from Harvard where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club. After a brief stint as a broker in New York, he retired to live a life of leisure off private funds between New York City and Bar Harbor, Maine, where in 1881 he commissioned "Beaudesert". After 1900, he seemed to spend most of his time in France. After World War I, he donated his villa "Villa Miramar" (see images) at 29 Boulevard Mont Boron in Nice to the City of Nice for the benefit of wounded soldiers. He lived his remaining years with his secretary, Gustave Frederick Dutschke, at 17 Avenue d'Iéna in Paris. In the year before his death, he donated a number of valuable works of art to the City of Paris for which he was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. He never married and didn't have any children. In his will, he left several large bequests to various charitable institutions in New York and his alma mater, Harvard.
