Conversation

“Blanche Ames Ames acquired her distinctive, double-barreled name upon marrying the prominent Harvard botanist Oakes Ames, who came from an unrelated dynastic strand of Ameses. A talented painter, Blanche illustrated some of Oakes’s books about orchids. The Ames mansion at Borderland, their 1,200-acre estate outside Boston, was built entirely of stone to ensure that the library—the filming location for the 2019 movie Knives Out—would be fireproof. Adelbert Ames’s and Benjamin Butler’s Civil War–era swords can still be seen in the foyer. George Plimpton once used one to cut a cake at an anniversary party.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/12/jfk-profiles-in-courage-book-lucius-lamar/675815/