Joan Whitney Payson | |
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| Born | Joan Whitney (1903-02-05)February 5, 1903 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 4, 1975(1975-10-04) (aged 72) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Miss Chapin's School |
| Alma mater | Barnard College (1925) Brown University |
| Occupation(s) | Businesswoman sports team owner racehorse owner/breeder art collector philanthropist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5, includingLorinda de Roulet |
| Parent(s) | William Payne Whitney Helen Julia Hay |
| Relatives | SeeWhitney family |
Baseball player Baseball career | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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Joan Whitney Payson (February 5, 1903 – October 4, 1975) was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist,patron of the arts and art collector, and a member of the prominentWhitney family. She co-founded, and was the majority owner of,Major League Baseball'sNew York Mets baseball franchise, making her the first woman to own a major league team in North America without inheriting it.
Joan Whitney was born in New York City, the daughter ofWilliam Payne Whitney andHelen Julia Hay. Her brother wasJohn Hay Whitney. She inherited a trust fund from her grandfather,William C. Whitney and on her father's death in 1927, she received a large part of the family fortune. She attendedMiss Chapin's School, then enteredBarnard College with the class of 1925, as well as taking some courses atBrown.[1]
Payson was a sports enthusiast who was a minority shareholder in theNew York GiantsMajor League Baseball club. She and her husband opposed moving the team to San Francisco in 1957. After the majority of the shareholders approved the move, Mrs. Payson sold her stock and began working to get a replacement team for New York City. They teamed up withM. Donald Grant, who had represented the Paysons on the Giants board and had been the only board member to oppose the Giants' move, to win a New York franchise in theContinental League, a proposed third major league. The National League responded by awarding an expansion team to Payson's group, which became theNew York Mets.
She served as the team's president from 1962 to 1975. Active in the affairs of the baseball club, she was much admired by the team's personnel and players. She was inducted posthumously into theNew York Mets Hall of Fame in 1981. She was also the first woman to buy majority control of a team in a major North American sports league, rather than inheriting it.[2]
Payson was instrumental in the return ofWillie Mays to New York City baseball in May 1972 by way of trade and cash from the Giants.[3]
Joan Whitney Payson also inherited her father and grandfather's love ofthoroughbred horse racing, which ran throughout theWhitney family and created the famedWhitney Stakes. Following her father's death, her mother assumed management of hisGreentree Stable, an equestrian estate and horse racing stable inSaratoga Springs, New York, and the Greentree breeding farm inLexington, Kentucky. In 1932, her mother gave her a colt named Rose Cross whom she raced under thenom de course,Manhasset Stable. Rose Cross won the 1934Dwyer Stakes and finished a good fifth in theBelmont Stakes.
In partnership with her brother, Joan Whitney operated the highly successful Greentree stable, winning numerous importantGraded stakes races including theKentucky Derby twice, thePreakness Stakes once, and theBelmont Stakes four times. Payson and her husband owned an art-filled 50-room mansion atGreentree, the Whitney family estate inManhasset, New York.[4]
An avid art collector, she purchased a variety of artwork but favoredImpressionist andPost-Impressionist works with her collection containing watercolors, drawings, and paintings. She owned numerous pieces including those byJames McNeill Whistler,Pierre-Auguste Renoir,Gustave Courbet,Maurice Prendergast,Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,Honoré Daumier,Joshua Reynolds,Claude Monet,Henri Rousseau,Jan Provost,Édouard Manet,Lucas Cranach the Elder,Paul Cézanne,Henri Matisse, andAlfred Sisley and Vincent van Gogh. Payson was also a strong supporter of American artists, acquiring works byThomas Eakins,Arthur B. Davies,Andrew Wyeth,Winslow Homer andJohn Singer Sargent. Payson donated significant works to theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where the "Joan Whitney Payson Galleries" can be found.
TheJoan Whitney Payson Collection is on permanent loan to thePortland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine and toColby College in Waterville, Maine for one semester every two years. Regular educational tours of parts of the collection are offered to institutions throughout the United States.
In 1953, Payson co-founded The Country Art Gallery and Art School onLong Island withClarissa Watson.[5]
In 1924, she marriedCharles Shipman Payson, a lawyer and businessman who was a native ofMaine and a graduate ofYale University andHarvard Law School. Together they had five children:
Joan Whitney Payson died in New York City, aged 72, after the 1975 baseball season. She is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery, inFalmouth, Maine. Following her death, her daughter,Lorinda de Roulet, assumed the title of president of the New York Mets.[17]
Her heirs sold their stock in the Mets in January 1980 as well asGreentree Farm. In 2005, the equestrian property in Saratoga Springs was put up for sale with an asking price of $19 million. In 1991, her son, John Whitney Payson, permanently installed the Joan Whitney Payson Collection in thePortland Museum of Art inPortland, Maine where the Charles Shipman Payson Building cornerstones the Museum and is home to seventeen paintings byWinslow Homer he donated.
Besides the Greentree estate in Manhasset, the family lived in an Italian Renaissance-palazzo style mansion in Manhattan later known as thePayne Whitney House. It was a wedding present from Joan's great uncle, Oliver Payne, her father's namesake, and designed byStanford White. Located at 972 Fifth Avenue, it housed not just the family but 13 servants.[1]
Joan Payson was a minority owner of the New York Giants baseball team; in 1957, she voted against moving the franchise to San Francisco. In 1961, after the Giants eventually moved, she became the co-founder and majority owner of the expansion Mets, becoming the first woman to buy a major league sports franchise.
Mets owner Joan Payson had always wanted to bring the `Say Hey Kid' back to his baseball roots, and she finally pulled it off in a deal that shocked the baseball world.
JOAN WHITNEY PAYSON, the ebullient, highly visible owner of the New York Mets until her death in 1975, was the extremely private mistress of a 50-room, fieldstone mansion in Manhasset, L.I., that she and her industrialist husband, Charles Shipman Payson, filled with art, antiques, collectibles and souvenirs.
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| Preceded by | President of theNew York Mets 1968–1975 | Succeeded by |
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