Helena Holbrook “Ella” Walker Principessa della Torre e Tasso (1875 - 1959). American heiress, daughter of Franklin Hiram Walker and May Holbrook and grand-daughter of Hiram Walker, the distiller known for "Canadian Club" whiskey and other products bearing his name.
She was married three times. Her first marriage was to Count Manfred von Matuschka, Baron de Topholenzen and Spatten in 1897, which ended in 1926.
She next married James Hazen Hyde, an American capitalist, in 1930 at Versailles, France. The marriage lasted only two years.
She thirdly married the head of the Italian branch of the princely Thurn und Taxis family, Prince Alessandro von Thurn und Taxis, the Duke of Duino and Prince of Torre e Tasso, in 1932.
The two settled in Italy but appear to have lived much of the time apart, as he sought to re-build the Castel Duino near Trieste, his seat, and she sought to renovate the Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como, which she had owned since 1928 (the villa had been a hotel since 1907). The Prince sadly died five years after the marriage in 1937.
Ella lived until the age of 84 years but was childless, save an adopted daughter, Huberta, from her first marriage to Graf Matuschka.
Before she died in 1959 at the Villa Serbelloni, Ella gifted the property and 16 exquisite furnishings to the Rockefeller Foundation, for the promotion of international understanding.
The villa, built at the end of the XV century, saw many important guests over the centuries: Leonardo da Vinci, Ludovico Sforza, Emperor Maximilain I, Queen Victoria, Alessandro Manzoni, Cardinal Borromeo, Silvio Pellico and, in 1963, John F. Kennedy.
- "As an adult she had been described as "a beautiful woman of rather small stature, auburn hair, fair complexion, magnificent blue eyes, and a marvelous smile". https://it.findagrave.com/.../helena-holbrook-principessa...
- "Helle Comneno, the Principessa’s secretary for many years, described her as “a beautiful woman of rather small stature, perfectly proportioned, with auburn hair which became perfectly white in her old age..." https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/.../Bellagio-Center...
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