John Sanders plays the famous (and problematic) architect, Stanford White.
If you’ve ever walked around Washington Square Park in Manhattan, you’ve seen one of White’s most renowned pieces of work: the Washington Square Arch.
In the show, White is also responsible for designing the Russells’ behemoth of a townhouse on Fifth Avenue.
In real life, White was involved in one of the era’s biggest scandals. When he was 48, he was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting 16-year-old Evelyn Nesbit, a model and actor.
In 1905, when Nesbit was 21, she married another prominent New York figure, Henry Kendall Thaw. When Thaw learned what White had done to his wife, he murdered him during a performance at Madison Square Garden (a building he designed).
The subsequent trial was a media circus and was even dubbed the trial of the century. Public opinion of White plummeted during the trial when the public learned about his private life. According to The New York Times, Vanity Fair even ran this headline: “Stanford White, Voluptuary and Pervert, Dies the Death of a Dog.”
Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
