Devonshire, Peerless Homeowner

One from the archives; the newspaper clipping is dog-eared and yellowed. On same page, two other obits of note: Aleksandr Y. Bovin, 73, who twitted Kremlin (yes, of course, when I entered the phrase to search for the obit, Google returned "did you mean twitter" for twit; Homer Avile, 48, dancer undeterred by loss of lrg.


May 5, 2004
Devonshire, Peerless Homeowner, Dies at 84
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Correction Appended

Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, who maintained his family's historically grand way of life by selling art masterpieces and converting his Chatsworth estate into one of Britain's most visited attractions, died Monday night at Chatsworth. He was 84.

His death was reported on the Chatsworth House Trust Web site. No cause was given.

A tall, slim, elegant man known for wearing pale yellow socks that matched the racing colors of his thoroughbreds, Sir Andrew, as he became when dubbed a Knight of the Garter in 1996, was famously modest: he insisted in an interview with The Observer in 2002 that he had no achievements to his name.

''I've never worked a day in my life, so how can I retire?'' he asked.

The facts were that he was a war hero, cabinet minister, horse breeder and football club president. But his greatest achievement was overcoming an inheritance tax bill of nearly $20 million, partly by selling almost priceless art, tens of thousands of acres of land and a stately mansion or two. He even cut down on buying racehorses. (He was estimated to be wealthier than the Queen, even with his economies.)

The grandest strategy, however, involved using the income from the sales to set up a trust that generates income to keep up the house. Paying visitors, more than 600,000 a year, paraded through his house and grounds, generating profits that outpaced expenses for the first time two years ago.

The contribution of the Duchess of Devonshire, whom the duke married in 1941, was not insignificant. She is the former Deborah Mitford, the youngest of the famously eccentric Mitford sisters and the only surviving one. She devised moneymaking projects from selling the Duchess's Marmalade and Duke's Favorite Sausages to overseeing a prosperous farm.

As a result, one of England's finest country houses is splendidly preserved. A 16th-century mansion in rural Derbyshire, it has 297 rooms, 112 fireplaces, 68 lavatories, 32 kitchens and workshops, 26 baths, 17 staircases and more than an acre of roof.

Its magnificent art, most of which the duke was able to keep, is also shared with the public, both at Chatsworth and on exhibition elsewhere. Some of it is now on display at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.

Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish was born on Jan. 2, 1920. He graduated from Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In World War II, he served with the Coldstream Guards and won the Military Cross for gallantry in combat in Italy.

The course of his life was changed when his older brother William, the Marquess of Hartington, was killed in combat near the end of the war. Only weeks before, he had married Kathleen Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's sister. She died in a plane crash a few years later.

William's death meant that Andrew became the 11th Duke of Devonshire when his father died of a heart attack in 1950. He inherited a tradition of wealth harking back to Elizabeth Hardwick, who was born in 1527 and married four increasingly prosperous and powerful husbands.

She was able to leave her sons, all from her second marriage to William Cavendish, a real estate and commercial empire that has lasted her descendants for 14 generations.

For three generations after Betsy, the oldest sons were earls. The dukedom was granted to the fourth for services to the crown: he helped throw out one king, James II, and replaced him with another, William of Orange.

Andrew, the 11th duke, had thought he would get a publishing job with Macmillan, through Harold Macmillan, who was his uncle by marriage and part of the publishing family. Instead, he found himself mixing with the rich and powerful at Pratt's, the London dining club he inherited from his father.

When asked if he belonged to the club, the duke liked to answer that the club belonged to him. It was there that he became better acquainted with his Uncle Harold, by then prime minister.

This connection resulted in his being appointed parliamentary under secretary of state and then minister of state at the Commonwealth Relations Office -- a better result than he had achieved in two losing campaigns for Parliament. ''My appointment at the time was the greatest act of nepotism in the century,'' the duke said in an interview with The Derby Evening Telegraph in 2000.

Among his happiest moments was when his horse Park Top won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in 1969. He wrote his only book about the triumph: ''Park Top: A Romance of the Turf,'' published in 1976.

He is survived by his two daughters, Lady Emma and Lady Sophia; his son, Peregrine, the Marquess of Harrington, who succeeds him as the Duke of Devonshire; eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Publicity whirled his freewheeling lifestyle for many years, but in his last years he did not drink or smoke. He never lost his famous spirit.

''I had a terrible day two years ago when the Duke of Marlborough's grapes beat mine at the fruit show, and I got back to my club to read in The Evening Standard that the Duke of Beaufort was the best-dressed duke,'' he said in the interview with The Observer in 2002. ''That was a bad day!''

Photo: The Duke of Devonshire outside Chatsworth House in 2002. He converted the estate into one of Britain's most visited attractions. (Photo by Richard Pohle)