Book Review: Tuxedo Park

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Meetings of the minds in ‘Tuxedo Park’

Depression-era tycoon gathered some of the greatest names in math and science to his homegrown idea incubator

It’s a tale that sounds more like an Ian Fleming creation than truth: An eccentric tycoon brings the world’s brightest minds to a private enclave, where they develop inventions that alter world history. 

In “Tuxedo Park,” veteran Vanity Fair reporter Jennet Conant examines the extraordinary true story of Alfred Lee Loomis, a millionaire Depression-era banker who converted a lakefront resort mansion 35 miles northwest of Manhattan into his personal scientific playground.

Between 1926 and 1939, many of the great names of science, math and finance, including Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg, visited Loomis’ state-of-the-art enclave, where they conducted research, published academic papers and attended extravagant parties.

At Tuxedo Park, Loomis’ homegrown physics lab would forge collegial bonds. Guests of this extraordinary cross between a creative colony and The Manhattan Project would go on to produce groundbreaking technology, including airborne microwave radar and, ultimately, the atom bomb.

Readers looking to get the radar development story should look to Robert Buderi’s 1996 book, “The Invention That Changed The World.” Where Buderi’s book more deeply examines the science and politics that took place at the MIT Radiation Lab co-founded by Loomis, “Tuxedo Park” focuses on the Wall Street mogul and the brilliant work he helped generate. And even if he remains an enigmatic character, “Tuxedo Park” clarifies a little-known chapter in 20th- century scientific history.

Conant praises the financier-turned-scientist’s work and the exclusive congress of great thinkers he organized, but she also captures a tarnished image of Loomis the man.

“Independently wealthy, iconoclastic and aloof, Loomis did not conform to the conventional measure of a great scientist,” writes Conant, whose grandfather and great-uncle worked with Loomis.

Loomis knew everyone: intellectuals, tycoons, and celebrities. A party-giver nonpareil, he was, strangely enough, a publicity-averse patron. Happy to remain behind the scenes, he contributed both brains and capital for scores of inventions and advances.

Born to privilege in 1887, he attended Yale and Harvard Law School. Having invested wisely, he’d cashed out well ahead of the 1929 stock market collapse. Because of his investments in public utilities, Loomis also owned outright Hilton Head Island and was rumored to have been among the richest men in America.

As a scientist, Loomis could hold his own. A lifelong gadgeteer, he held several patents, pioneered a device for brain-wave measurement and contributed to Nobel Prize-winning cyclotron engineering. In 1940, he conceived the idea of a precision long- range radio navigation system, Loran.

But compared with the extraordinary company he kept and the work he facilitated, Loomis was as flawed as any zillionaire. “He wasn’t really very much of a human being,” said Loomis’ sister-in-law, Mary Paul Loomis. “He was selfish to the point where he never really gave very much unless he enjoyed what he was doing. Everything was always calculated — what could be gained and what could be lost.”

An indifferent father, Loomis nevertheless gave each of his three sons $1 million when they turned 14. Ultra-competitive Alfred Lee Loomis Jr. would go on to win an Olympic gold medal in sailing. (Later a successful venture capitalist, “Lee” is described by Conant as an “almost universally unpopular” person.) The middle son, Farney, became a respected biochemist and Brandeis University professor. Plagued by depression, at 60 he fatally overdosed on sleeping pills. Loomis’ youngest child, Henry, pursued a career in public service.

In 1940, cognizant that war would dissolve the cerebral fraternity he’d created, Loomis sold the mansion.

Following a divorce in which Loomis dumped his ailing spouse, Ellen, for the young wife of his loyal Tuxedo Park operations manager, both Lee and Henry Loomis broke off relations with their father. Eager to dodge the barbs of New York gossip columnists, he settled down with his new wife to a lower profile. He divided residences between Manhattan and the Hamptons and continued working with colleagues at MIT, Berkeley and Cal Tech. Until his death in 1975 at age 88, he remained active in radio astronomy, building numerous observatories.

In retrospect, the atom bomb is remembered as the critical technology to emerge from World War II. However, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, radar saved countless lives, providing early warning, for example, of Nazi rockets headed for Great Britain. Conant makes this clear as she resurrects the explosive contributions of a man who harbored little interest in being remembered.

“History forgot him,” leading research scientist of the day Caryl Haskins said of his old friend Loomis. “He wasn’t interested in the past. He was only interested in the present and the future.”

Stuart Wadeis an Austin free-lance writer who is a frequent contributor to the Books section.