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Alice Charlotte von Rothschild


Alice Charlotte von Rothschild (17 February 1847 – 3 May 1922) was a socialite and member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of Austria. Born in Frankfurt, she was the eighth and youngest child of Anselm von Rothschild (1803–1874) and Charlotte Rothschild (1807–1859). She was a small child when her family moved to Vienna, where her father took over management of the family-owned S M von Rothschild bank.

Alice von Rothschild's mother was the daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild of London and as a result the family would have close connections to the English branch of the Rothschild family. Her brother Ferdinand, with whom she was very close, studied at Cambridge University and married an English cousin.

Her mother died when she was twelve and as a result of her busy father who travelled constantly, she spent a lonely childhood, living with various relations. When her brother Ferdinand began the construction in 1874 of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire England, Alice acquired a nearby property at Eythrope for herself. There, between 1876 and 1879, she had a park and garden created and a house built near the river called Eythrope Pavilion. Because she had suffered from rheumatic fever, she had been advised not to sleep near water as dampness would aggravate her health problem. As such, her house was built for daytime occupation only and at nights she returned to stay at Waddesdon Manor.

In late 1898, following the death of her brother, Alice inherited Waddesdon Manor. During World War I she had the formal gardens at Waddesdon and Eythrope given over to the growing of vegetables for the less fortunate. The Eythrope Pavilion was still maintained but now as even more of an occasional retreat. As her health declined she spent more of her time at her magnificent château, "Villa Victoria", in the balmier climate of the town of Grasse in the Alpes-Maritimes département in France. Her property was located about 12 miles (19 Kilometers) inland, north of the Mediterranean coast and here she created an enormous garden that employed more than one hundred gardeners. A spinster, she wanted to be near family, and her château was close to Cannes, where her cousin Laura Thérèse von Rothschild, widow of James-Edouard de Rothschild owned the Villa Rothschild, Cannes, and only 34 miles (55 kilometers) from Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, the seaside estate owned by another cousin, Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild.


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