Like many prosperous men of the Roaring Twenties, Grosvenor K. Glenn's comfortable lifestyle was shattered by business setbacks and the Great Depression.
GROSVENOR K. GLENN (1867-1952, 85 years)
Through the 1920's, the publishing magnate enjoyed life to the fullest with homes in Brooklyn, Greenwood Lake, NJ, and a winter home in the Jungle. He was a member of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club and he was an avid fisherman. As a prominent resident of the sparsely populated Jungle area, it's likely he was acquainted with many of the Jungle luminaries of the era: the Fullers, Al Lang and even Babe Ruth.
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| Grosvenor K. Glenn with his four children. His first wife, Florence, died in 1912 from complications following an operation. |
GLENN LODGE
A reader from Arizona recently sent these photos of Glenn Lodge, the winter residence of her great-grandfather. The spacious home near the corner of Park Street and Country Club Road was one of the first homes in the Jungle. It was across the street from the 18th hole of the golf course. According to newspaper reports, the home was bought by Glenn in 1921. It's a large house ‒ it could be that additions were made after the purchase.
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| View from Glenn Lodge looking across Country Club Road toward the 18th hole of the Jungle Golf Course ‒ the Jungle Hotel is in the distance. Caption from the photo album: Young hibiscus each side of gateway. Oleander, just transplanted seen thru center of gate. A young rubber tree (not in picture) centers between front gates. Lot 185 feet front contains orange trees, grapefruit, lemons, guavas, mangos, camphor, oleander. Hedges, clumps of bamboo, palmetto, Chinese fan... |
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| Second wife Bess at Glenn Lodge (colorized) |
THE ILLUSTRATED MILLINER, 1900-1934
Grosvenor K. Glenn was the founder and publisher of "The Illustrated Milliner." Women's hats are made by milliners (men's hats are made by hat makers) and elaborate hats were essential to women's wardrobes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During its run from 1900-1934, "The Illustrated Milliner" attracted many advertisers and subscribers.
Click here to view an issue of The Illustrated Milliner from 1913.
THE ROLODEX INCIDENT AND BANKRUPTCY
Email comments from the family:
Apparently my family had a home that ... was near the country club. My great-grandfather Grosvenor K. Glenn was a publisher of a millinery magazine. He also had homes in Brooklyn, NY and Greenwood Lake, NJ.
The Illustrated Milliner was my great-grandfather and grandfather’s company...The story is that the secretary ran off with the one and only Rolodex with the subscribers and advertisers and they had no back up and POOF! They lost it all. My grandfather ended up having a nervous breakdown. Grosvenor K. Glenn was in his 60’s at this point. They lost handmade furniture our ancestor had made that probably dated to the late 1700’s if not 1800’s at Greenwood Lake, NJ.
Families struggling to make ends meet during the Depression lost interest in fancy women's hats. That fact, combined with the Rolodex incident, led to the magazine's bankruptcy in 1934.
THE FINAL DAYS OF GLENN LODGE
Some neighbors may remember the neglected bungalow across from Admiral Farragut Academy. The house was torn down in 2017. Here are pictures from Google Maps in 2016:
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| Grosvenor K. Glenn |
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| Grosvenor K. Glenn, 1923. (colorized) |
Some of the photos in this article are from the Huffmann/Glenn ancestry Pinterest page.
Click here to visit the page. These were originally published on Ancestry.com Glenn2019.
Many thanks to the Glenn family for sharing an intriguing look into the lives of neighborhood residents from a bygone era.
