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The Last Great American Dynasty, a track on her new album, Folklore, released last Friday, tells of the eccentric socialite, composer and philanthropist Rebekah (“Betty”) Harkness, who bought Holiday House in 1947. Here, it is also revealed that the house Taylor is talking about is the Rhode Island Mansion she brought in 2013, that was once owned by Rebekah Harkness herself. In the above verse, she makes a lot of comparisons about how she is, and Rebekah was a target for harsh criticism from tabloids and people alike. The last great American dynasty is a return to Taylor Swift’s county roots as she uses a common lyrical technique in country songs where they talk about an event or a person in the third person and then weaves themselves into the songs, with references to how the song relates to their own life. This track is both a lyrical story rooted in country and folk music, a history lesson on the life of Rebekah Harkness, and a statement on the sexist criticism that similarly given to both Rebekah Harkness and Taylor Swift. In her now-deleted posts from 2016, she shared a photo of herself with her bikini-clad friends while enjoying the American holiday together.
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In fact, the 14-time Grammy winner reportedly offered up her saltbox house on the coast to Hadid and Bradley Cooper during the early stages of their romance last year. Although Swift never got the chance to meet the socialite, Harkness still made an impact on the singer-songwriter, who wrote “The Last Great American Dynasty” about her wild lifestyle. With the 2020 release of her eighth studio album, Folklore, fans got the opportunity to see a different side of Swift, as she moved away from writing music from her own perspective and, instead, chose to share other people's stories. "I found myself not only writing my own stories, but also writing about or from the perspective of people I've never met, people I've known, or those I wish I hadn't," she explained in a tweet announcing the arrival of her album. The Snowdens, beginning with George Grant Snowden's father, James McKean Snowden, who was born in 1831 and lived in Pittsburgh, had made their fortune in oil and gas exploration.
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Hadid shared a picture of herself playing on a make-shift volleyball court in Swift’s backyard and another photo of the three girls posing on a spiral staircase. Taylor Swift is notorious for her autobiographical style of songwriting, incorporating her own life experiences into her music. Whatever you are feeling or going through, we can almost guarantee there is a Taylor Swift song for that. In her day, Harkness was as much of a media darling as Swift is now, and often the target of unfavorable headlines and press coverage. The master’s suite contains a sitting room with a wet bar as well as a widow’s walk terrace — which is a term used to describe a railed rooftop platform with an inner cupola or turret frequently found in 19th-century North American coastal houses. Back in 2013, Taylor Swift paid a whopping $17.75 million for the 7-bedroom mansion — along with 700 feet of shoreline on Watch Hill, in Rhode Island.
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Built in 1930, the mansion sits on the highest point in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and features 700 feet of shoreline and views of Little Narragansett Bay, according to the real-estate site Zillow. The full story of Holiday House is featured in season 3 of House Beautiful's haunted house podcast, Dark House. Although the “Anti-Hero” singer took a break from hosting the star-studded party for a few years, she held a smaller gathering this past Fourth of July alongside BFFs Selena Gomez and the Haim sisters.
Taylor Swift’s Holiday House was once owned by Rebekah Harkness
It turns out that Swift's Holiday House has a long history of wealth and lavish parties, and is renowned among locals for its coastal views. On the 2019 album Lover, she sang about her former New York City carriage house in the song “Cornelia Street,” and on the brand-new surprise album she released on July 24, Folklore, there’s another tune about once of her residences. “The Last Great American Dynasty” tells the story of a woman named Rebekah, who, the lyrics explain, married the heir to the Standard Oil fortune and purchased a home called Holiday House.
After William's death in 1954, it was reported that Rebekah infuriated her neighbors with her quirky and wild antics. Swift includes details in her song about how Rebekah filled the pool with champagne, threw luxurious parties, and played cards with Salvador Dali. The singer also draws parallels between Rebekah's reputation and her own, especially when it comes to their shared tendency to upset society for not always doing what is expected of them.
In the above and below verse, Taylor suggests that she doesn’t care about people’s opinions that she’s ruining everything because they’re just people’s opinions and false perceptions of her, she just enjoys her life how she wants to enjoy it and is having such a ‘marvellous time’ doing so. The above verse is packed with a lot of lyrical details and history, as it reveals Rebekah was not a woman to get on your bad side, as she dyed a neighbour’s door ‘key lime green’ after an argument’. Then the story gradually moves to the present, as it is revealed that after Rebekah passed, Holiday House was left unlived in for fifty years, free of woman who were called mad for being different, for their love lives or for their habits, until Taylor reveals she eventually brought Rebekah’s house for herself. This verse (above) reveals that Rebekah’s marriage started off with a charming wedding, and that they came from new money, and they originally brought Holiday House as a place to begin their married life together and were known for through loud but tasteful parties. The last line reveals that perhaps the people of the town they lived in, blamed Rebekah (perhaps they blamed her because people assume it is the woman’s fault, and not the man’s fault but in this case, it was simply a medical issue that was out of theirs and anyone’s control.
In the lyrics of Taylor Swift's song, "The Last Great American Dynasty," she tells listeners that her Rhode Island mansion sat empty on the coast for 50 years before she purchased it. She also mentions a woman named Rebekah, and it didn't take fans long to discover that the woman in question was Rebekah West Harkness, an heiress from St. Louis who once owned the property, as reported by The Washington Post. In a final moment of clarity, Taylor tells us that she had a marvellous time at Holiday House, living her life, even some people unfairly saw it as ‘running everything’ and Taylor had a marvellous time. The last great American dynasty is the ideal song for a playlist, that’s designed to be listened to on a chilled summer evening, or when you want to listen to a good story, sitting around the campfire. The third track off Taylor Swift’s Folklore album is not one to be skipped over if you decide to listen to the album.
Snowden family
First, as soon as she bought the house in 2013, came grumblings from locals about traffic created by the flood of fans who just wanted to see the house. Then they got angry that she dared to stake her claim on the part of the beach she rightly owned, even though people had been using it for years. People claimed her construction — which was to repair damage done by erosion — would impede public access and would ruin the popular surfing spot.
It should come as no surprise that Swift has a special relationship with her Rhode Island mansion; just last year, during an appearance on Ellen, the singer said that the property is her favorite place to spend holidays. The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who would watch for their spouses’ return, often in vain as the ocean took their lives, leaving the women widows. The property spans 5.23 acres and is said to be “the highest point of direct waterfront land on the entire eastern seaboard.” It’s also the most expensive privately owned home in all of Rhode Island. And since celebrity homes are in our blood, especially when they come with their own backstory, we just had to do our due diligence and look up Taylor Swift’s house (and the story behind it), and boy, is it a good one. Sales plummeted 19% year over year in March in this category, which is often viewed as a way to own a home and help pay off one’s mortgage. The median sales price was also up, and by double digits — from $319,950 to $370,000, a 15.64% increase.
Swift put herself out there, right in plain view, just like she does in folklore and the seven albums before that. (So far out there that fans have scaled the seawall and fence to get onto her property, tried to break in, and even tried to swim there.) The old-money families in Watch Hill have passed those homes down through generations. Even Conan O’Brien, who lives just around the corner, gets a pass from whispered scrutiny, maybe because he bought the house from his parents in 1997. He’s fussed over so little that even someone like me, who lives close enough to go to Watch Hill at least twice a month year-round, didn’t know he lived there until recently.
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The "Holiday House" that inspired the song was reportedly bought by the Grammy-winning singer in 2013 for $17.75 million in cash, per Page Six. Since then, the musician has put her hard-earned, lavish home to good use by hosting numerous parties with famous friends, known as her squad. Since Taylor Swift tends to keep her personal life fairly private these days, details about the house have been hard to come by.
Also known as High Watch or Holiday House, the hilltop home by the sea reportedly has eight bedrooms, eight fireplaces, 10 bathrooms and a back patio with a massive pool. Rather than lavish paintings, Swift opted for black-and-white photos of her friends and family — which seemingly line one of her hallway walls. The eight-bedroom property, known as High Watch or Holiday House, was built on the highest point in Watch Hill and boasts over 700 feet of private beachfront. Several stalking, trespassing, and home invasion incidents have been reported at the house since Swift's purchase.
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