Robert and John Gregg Allerton
By DeSoto Brown
A wealthy male couple from Chicago who made an estate on Kauai their home starting in the 1930s later managed to change the law in the state of Illinois to legalize their relationship. Along the way they developed a notable Hawaiʻi garden, and made substantial donations that carried on their names and legacies. They were Robert Henry Allerton (1873-1964) and John Wyatt Gregg Allerton (1900-1986).
John Gregg (left) and Robert Allerton in 1962 on the lanai of the home at Lawai kai that John designed for them. Photo Courtesy DeSoto Brown Collection.
Robert Allerton
Robert Allerton’s father became extremely wealthy in the 19th century in two ways. First, he started a major livestock exchange as Chicago became the center of the American beef industry, and secondly he also was a founder of the First National Bank of Chicago. In turn, his son Robert reportedly inherited $50 million in 1917 and was said to have been worth $300 million at his death in the 1960s.
A 1906 article from the Chicago Sunday Tribune described him: “…he measures up to the standards of vigorous, rugged manhood…[he is] Chicago’s foremost unmarried bachelor…he is a strongly built man of rugged health.” In fact, Allerton was not as physically perfect as this glowing assessment stated as he was partly or mostly deaf, which made him not want to be in crowds and which led him to socialize more frequently in smaller groups. Furthermore, his personality was somewhat reserved; in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1954 an interviewer said “Mr. Allerton is a modest man with a distaste for publicity.”
Despite his father’s great business successes, Robert chose a different path as a young man when he moved to Europe in 1893 to study painting. This ultimately was not his strength; he decided he did not have the ability he wished for, and ended this pursuit after four years. Around this time it is said that he pursued a romantic relationship with a woman to whom he wrote love letters, but after she rejected him he purportedly chose to remain single due to this great disappointment. While this relationship was likely real, Allerton’s life makes it clear that he was actually a gay man.
On a part of the extensive lands owned by his father, Robert constructed a large private estate surrounded by gardens. He lived here for some time but eventually donated it to the University of Illinois in 1946.
Although the Allerton garden was not open to the public while it was still a private home, invited guests were given maps like this one to use as they walked around. This particular map is from 1967, and the garden is therefore identified as belonging only to John Gregg Allerton since Robert Allerton had died several years earlier. Although John Gregg had been legally adopted in 1960, he did not start to use the last name Allerton until after Robert's death in 1964. Image Courtesy DeSoto Brown Collection.
The Start of the Relationship
A turning point came in the early 1920s when Allerton attended an event at his fraternity, Zeta Psi at the University of Illinois, celebrating a football game. This was themed as a “father-son” event, and obviously lacking an actual son himself, he was paired with a young student whose parents had both died several years earlier. This was John Wyatt Gregg, who was studying architecture; the men were about 27 years apart in age. From this, they stated that they subsequently developed a relationship that was akin to a father and his son.
Or was this often-repeated story how they actually met? In interviews late in his life, Gregg said that a male friend of Robert, realizing that he was lonely, arranged for the two men to meet up socially. This scenario implies that at least this one other friend recognized that both men were gay and sought to establish a romantic relationship, which was successful. Certainly the age difference could very well have made this what today would be called a “daddy-boy” dynamic, although at the time no such thing was recognized or named. Regardless, from early on, news accounts described John Gregg as the “adopted son” of Robert Allerton.
After John graduated in 1926, the men seem to have embarked together on a life of comfort and the pursuit of their artistic interests. While Allerton did have some family business duties, they were able to travel extensively while collecting art, and avoiding the brutal Illinois winters in warmer lands.
John Gregg and Robert Allerton in Hamburg, 1932. Photo Courtesy University of Illinois Archives.
Kauai
Robert had visited Hawaiʻi as early as 1894 while en route to Japan, and during another stopover in 1938 the couple had a free day before their ship sailed, having had to leave their accommodations at the Halekulani Hotel in Waikīkī. On a whim, they traveled to the island of Kauai for a day, flying on Inter-Island Airways. While there, they visited property at Lawai Kai that was for sale, where a stream ran through coconut palms into the ocean. Both were immediately overwhelmed with the location and within two weeks, by then having returned to Illinois, they started the process to purchase the 62 acres parcel, possibly at a publicized price of $50,000.
The land at the time was mostly in sugar cane cultivation, like a great deal of the Hawaiian Islands in general. A small wooden cottage on the site had been briefly inhabited by Queen Emma in 1870-’71; she was the widow of King Kamehameha IV and was then the property’s owner. Emma is said to have planted the bougainvillea vines that have since covered a rocky cliff and are known for their lush flowering. In 1886, after her death, the land was purchased by the McBryde family, who subsequently sold it to Allerton. On the lower part of the property, not far from the beach, John Gregg designed a small home for himself and his partner, far more modest than the grand estate in Illinois.
It should not be assumed that this magnificent tropical estate was a secret hideaway for two gay men to live as they pleased. While it was located on an island with a low population and was somewhat secluded as well, employees were always present. Not only were these the men who took care of the grounds, there were also live-in household servants who cooked and cleaned, as all wealthy people employed at that time.
Some decades earlier, back in Chicago, Allerton had been friendly with Louise Gaylord, herself from a wealthy family, who had married the very influential Hawaiʻi capitalist Walter Dillingham in 1910. Once Allerton and Gregg began spending time on Kauai, Louise introduced them to the local elite who they would associate with ever after.
The garden the men developed was mostly influenced by European styles, in which small classical structures and stone statues were focal points for various settings. They did, however, include Japanese elements and were always aware of the Hawaiian climate. Just as with art, both men enjoyed finding new tropical plants to collect and introduce from diverse locations like Sri Lanka, Fiji, Western Samoa and Tahiti. Today such casual imports would not be allowed, due to the real threat of accidentally bringing in unknown insect pests or plants that could escape cultivation to become uncontrollably invasive - and Hawaii has suffered repeatedly from these exact problems. Neither men seems to have had much awareness or interest in native Hawaiian plants or their preservation, since they looked for bright, showy exotics for garden horticulture.
While the owners directed the design and execution of the garden, the groundskeepers who did the actual labor could, and did, influence what was planted where. In particular, Hideo Teshima, who grew up at Lawai and began working in the garden at the age of 14, seems to have been able to introduce his own ideas in plantings.
In 1958, the national American magazine LIFE, read by millions of people each week, published a multipage illustrated article on the Allerton garden. The magazine described it as comprising 114 acres at that time, cared for by 5 gardeners and 10 helpers. After this massive publicity, the Honolulu Advertiser stated that “…hordes of people have been crashing the private estate. The owner even gets proposals of marriage in the mail.” The latter, of course, were of no interest to Robert Allerton, who by then was already over 30 years into his committed relationship with another man.
This page from LIFE magazine shows the classical European influence found in much of the Allerton garden when the home was still owned by Robert Allerton and John Gregg. Image Courtesy DeSoto Brown Collection.
LIFE magazine's issue of March 17, 1958 printed a large article on the Allerton garden, publicizing it all over the USA and internationally. These are the article's two opening pages. Image Courtesy DeSoto Brown Collection.
Philanthropy
Purchasing and collecting European and Asian art was a major pastime of the couple, made possible by the Allerton wealth. In Hawaiʻi, by 1945 Robert had already been donating regularly to the Honolulu Academy of Arts (today’s Honolulu Museum of Art), and the following year there were already enough of these gifts to “fill two galleries” for an exhibit. In 1956, the Academy opened a new building for its library, named for Allerton, and made possible by his $50,000 donation.
By the time of his death on December 22, 1964, Allerton had given nearly 200 art objects to the Academy valued at $500,000 at least, along with $125,000 in monetary donations.
And with no need for a regular daily job, John in particular was able to work at volunteer positions like being the head of the Red Cross on Kauai during World War II. He also served for years on the Board of Trustees for the Academy, including in the position of president.
Adoption
A same-sex couple in the 20th century could not, of course, be legally married. Even leaving assets to a partner in a will could be contested by family members related by blood. Whether the latter was the motivating factor or not, Robert Allerton was able to leverage his great wealth and known status as a philanthropist in his native Illinois to have the law regarding adoption rewritten, specifically that an adult could not legally adopt another adult. The Illinois State Legislature in its 1959 session negated this, and the new law took effect on January 1, 1960. On March 4, 1960, Robert Allerton adopted John Gregg in the Platt County Court in Monticello, Illinois; neither man was present at the proceeding.
Various Illinois newspapers were somewhat unsure of how to describe this event. Headlines read: “Robert Allerton Adopts Friend”, “Robert Allerton Adopts Companion of Many Years”, and “Robert Allerton Adopts ‘Son’, 59.” It was undeniably unusual.
Even after being legally adopted, John Gregg retained his original name until after the death of his “father” in 1964, after which he became known as John Gregg Allerton.
Legacy
It is not known how much John inherited from his partner. News reports only stated that it was in excess of $1 million; or that it was “multi-million” in dollar value. This was not just monetary assets because it included art and real estate.
The main recipient of Allerton’s generosity was the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Today there are five locations in this organization, one in Florida and the others in the Hawaiian Islands. The initial site, not surprisingly, was the Allerton Garden at Lawai, Kauai. It was a gift from Robert Allerton of $1 million that enabled this project to begin, funding the purchase of additional land to add to the existing garden. It is interesting that the focus of the NTBG has long been the perpetuation of native species, since Allerton and Gregg were more attracted to non-native tropical plants that could be used for garden purposes.
John Gregg Allerton lived at Lawai Kai until his death in 1986. The property there is held by a trust which has been managed by the National Tropical Botanical Garden since the 1990s.
The legacy of this committed male couple, even with its various complex elements that are not one hundred percent benevolent, is still a positive one. Living openly in their relationship was a substantial achievement to still be admired today.
Image courtesy of National Tropical Botanical Garden.
Header image Courtesy DeSoto Brown Collection