Edward L. Doheny - Family

Family

In 1883, in the Black Mountains town of Kingston in the New Mexico Territory, Doheny met and married his first wife, Carrie Louella Wilkins, on August 7.

Their daughter, Eileen, was born in December, 1885. Eileen was a frail child and died at the age of seven years old on December 14, 1892. Her death was caused by heart disease stemming from rheumatic fever as well as a lung infection.

Edward and Carrie's marriage was a fragile one, owing mostly to the harsh reality of mining life as well as their many financial problems. Eileen's death further strained their marriage. Nearly one year after Eileen's passing, on November 6, 1893, Carrie gave birth to their only son Edward Jr, known as Ned.

Edward and Carrie divorced in 1899, when Ned was six years old. After losing custody of Ned and Edward's marriage to another woman, Carrie committed suicide the following year.

Edward married his second wife, Carrie "Estelle" Betzold, inside the private Pullman car of Santa Fe Railway executive Almon Porter Maginnis ("Car 214"), on the siding in New Mexico Territory, on August 22, 1900. Although she bore no children, Carrie raised Ned.

Doheny is also famous for another of his gifts — the gift of Greystone Mansion (designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann after a design competition) to his son, Edward (Ned) L. Doheny, Jr., and wife Lucy Marceline Smith (the couple was married on June 10, 1914). He built the 46,000-square-foot (4,300 m2) house in 1928 at a cost of $3,188,000, selling the property and the accompanying 400-acre (1.6 km2) ranch to his son for $10. In 1929, during the midst of the Teapot Dome scandal, Doheny's son, Ned died at Greystone mansion, in a still incomplete story, a murder-suicide involving himself and his friend and secretary Theodore Hugh Plunkett.

Beset by shareholder lawsuits in the wake of Teapot Dome, and the death of Ned, Doheny became a recluse and invalid. When she realized her husband needed an undisturbed home away for a while after the Teapot Dome travails and Ned's death, Carrie Estelle asked architect Wallace Neff to design and build the Ferndale Ranch complex on their Ojai, California property. Hundreds of workers completed the 9,000 square feet (840 m2) house in less than six weeks, including Neff's blueprints, by working day and night.

Edward L. Doheny died on September 8, 1935, of natural causes, a month after his 79th birthday. His funeral was in St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles.

The legacy of the family name remains in Southern California: with Doheny Drive in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills; with Doheny Road also in Beverly Hills; with Doheny State Beach, on the Pacific coast of Orange County, in Dana Point; and with the principal library at the University of Southern California, which was named in memorial of his son, Ned.

Carrie Estelle Doheny, during and after her husband's death, was a major cultural philanthropist in Los Angeles, California. When commissioning new buildings for these civic projects she often chose the renowned Southern California architect Wallace Neff. Upon her death she left antiquities and funds to St. John's (Roman Catholic) Seminary located in Camarillo, in Ventura County, Southern California

Edward and Estelle Doheny were the great-grandparents of Larry Niven (the science fiction writer), and numerous Doheny descendants