The Weird Wendels and the Million Dollar Dog Yard
Wednesday, Jan. 15 6-7pm via Zoom Free for LW! Members
According to legend, in 1931, when 78-year-old millionaire Ella Wendel passed away in a Fifth Avenue mansion that once rivaled that of the Vanderbilts, she left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to her French poodle, Toby.
While this turned out to be a tall tale, the true-life story of Ella Wendel and her six sisters is plenty extraordinary—it gives Dickens’ Great Expectations a run for its money in depictions of fabulous wealth, reclusive spinsters, and the faded grandeur of a Gilded Age mansion. Toss a stingy, paranoid and womanizing brother and a few asylums into the mix, and you’ve got the makings of a mind-bending NYC tale, with all the twists and turns of history that we all love.
Don’t miss Landmark West’s first public program of 2025—and the chance to hear our special guest, Peggy Gavan, share the story of the Wendels and the French poodle with the “Million Dollar Dog Yard on Fifth Avenue.”
Our speaker:
Peggy Gavan is the author of the award-winning The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York (Rutgers University Press, 2019), The Bravest Pets of Gotham: Tales of Four-Legged Firefighters of Old New York (Rutgers University Press, 2024) and the blog The Hatching Cat of Gotham: True and Unusual Animal Tales of Old New York. She is also a licensed New York City tour guide and co-founder of Cats About Town: NYC Walking Tours for Cat Lovers. Peggy lives in Warwick, NY, with her husband and their three cats.
Photos courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections
