Throughout the year the Coe’s traveled to their properties that best suited the season. We know that Planting Fields is beautiful every day of the year, but W.R. Coe’s love of the west and his wife Caroline’s southern roots and desire for warmer climates brought them to Wyoming, the Southeast, and South Florida. Like Planting Fields, each house is situated in a picturesque setting and framed by aspens and pines, live oaks, and palm trees respectively.
Wyoming 1913
W.R. Coe purchased the Irma Lake property near Cody from Buffalo Bill Cody and commissioned a Craftsman Bungalow style residence from Walker & Gillette—who went on to design Coe Hall. It later burned down in 1940 and was replaced by a new and more fire-resistant house designed by John Walter Wood, who was a colleague of W.R.’s son Robert and fellow Harvard graduate. The Coe’s enjoyed the mild summers in Wyoming and used the 100,000 acres for horseback riding and hunting. The property was sold in the 1948 when increasing age prohibited the Coe’s from extensive travel.
Yemassee, South Carolina 1930
Not long after W.R. married Caroline in 1926, they purchased an old rice plantation on the Combahee River and renamed it “Cherokee Plantation” after the Cherokee people who originally inhabited the land. A new Georgian Revival style manor house was designed by Philip A. Cusachs who specialized in country residences in the south. The Coe’s often spent winter or early spring and late summer on the 11,000 acres until it was sold in 1952, it now operates as a private club.
Palm Beach, Florida 1955
After the sale of Cherokee Plantation and in need of a warm winter spot, W.R. purchased a house on Ocean Boulevard overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Originally designed by Maurice Fatio in 1939—who designed several north shore estates—for Albert R. Worswick, the Georgian Revival influenced style is pared down as it was built after the Great Depression. W.R. spent his final days here and after he passed away in March 1955, Caroline continued to winter there.
Marie Penny, Michael D. Coe Archivist