“Frederick Von Mierers” or “Life on the Poor Side of Beekman Place”
By Michael Louis Scott, Greenwich, Connecticut U.S.A. 04/27/04
No one was really sure of what Frederick Von Mierers real back ground was from what he told those that knew him. When I was told by a close friend of his around 1990 that he died, and there was an article in Vanity Fair about him, I bought the magazine, and I read the article. It did not seem to be about the same person that I had once known in Manhattan and whom was a neighbor of mine in Nantucket until the end of the season in 1983.
Fred Von Mierers claimed that he was from one of the original founding families of New York, and he was 14th generation Dutch New York.
One long time friend of Freddie as his friends called him or Fred, once told me he was a complete imposter, and his family owned a delicatessen in Brooklyn, New York. However, I would like to think that some of the other facts might have been true in that it would seem to be rather difficult to keep up a charade for such a long period of time.
I might have seen Fred somewhere in my travels or at parties or during summers in Nantucket before October 1973, when I first recall meeting him. I had been recently fired from Boodles restaurant in Greenwich, because of the economic down turn and the energy embargo, so there was very little fuel oil or gasoline in the New York area.
I had a 1971 baby blue Volvo four door sedan and I had access to the family 1973 tobacco brown Chevrolet Monte Carlo. I recall attending a number of art events in that period that I would read about in the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times.
I recall reading that a lot of the young so called fashionable crowd were regularly going to the “Le Jardin” discothèque in Manhattan just east of Times Square, so one night I drove into Manhattan, and I paid my $5 to get into the discothèque, and there was a quite colorful crowd of young New Yorkers dancing in the discothèque. They did not seem like the more conservative individuals whom I was use to dealing with in Manhattan and out in the Connecticut suburbs, but still with not much happening in the energy depleted suburbs, it was a level of activity that I had not seen since I had been in Europe the year before. Obviously a great many people at the Le Jardin discothèque were European in dress and appearance. I recall wearing a blue blazer sports coat, white oxford shirt, with dark wool trousers.
I had my usual Spritzer which was about two ounces of white wine with club soda on ice. I observed the crowd which I tend to do when I am out in public, and I did not know anyone. One person finally came up to me, and introduced himself, and he said he was Frederick Von Mierers from Oyster Bay, Long Island. He was wearing a European cut suit. Like all New Yorkers, he talked quite fast in the discothèque environment, which can also be quite deafening. After the discothèque closed, a group of about eight of us went back to his apartment in Manhattan at 420 East 49th street.
Fred’s 420 East 49th street apartment was a prewar building in which he had a small about 500 square foot ground floor apartment in the rent controlled building which he rented for about $150 a month. However, the apartment was very tastefully decorated with about at that time’s value about a half of a million dollars of antiques and other art and accessories. Most of the furniture was what he called Empire furniture, and I recall he had a painting that looked like a Renoir of I recall Vesuvius erupting in Italy.
Fred explained to me this over the next few times I visited with him that his godmother was Helen Kress Williams from Oyster Bay, Long Island, and that his parents had died in a 1954 when he was four years old in a car wreck, and that his Aunt Agatha from Beverly Farms, Massachusetts had raised him. He said around age 16 he started spending more time in the New York area including summers in Nantucket, and he had lived overseas for some time. He specifically mentioned that he lived with the Krump family in Germany, the Shah of Iran’s family in Iran, and the Saltonstall family in Spain when they were Richard Nixon’s ambassador to Spain. He also knew a Taft classmate of mine Tony Clark, whom had moved to the Canary Islands after dropping out of Taft in 1967. Since Fred did not drive a car, I would occasionally drive him around, and I would do some errands for him. I continued to be around his apartment two or three days a week when not in Greenwich up until about April 1975, when I started staying full time in Greenwich.
Fred spoke a number of different languages fluently including Italian, French, Spanish, German, Iranian, and Chinese, and I suppose some other languages too along with his native English. He told me that he worked as a male model until recently around that time in October 1973, and he showed me a picture of himself modeling underwear for the Sears catalog. He mentioned the modeling agencies Ford, Zoli, and Wiliamenia. His best friend was Joe McDonald whom was the top male model in New York for a number of years. Joe lived north of Fred in the prewar building on the east side of First Avenue running between East 54th street and East 55th street. Other people whom lived in Joe’s building were Ted Kennedy, Noel Coward, Lord Mountbatten’s grandsons Louis and Michael, and Ema McDonald. When I first met Fred, Joe was about the most regular visitor to Fred’s apartment, where he would come over to unwind after work. Fred had recently gotten out of the modeling business, and he was being trained by the Interior Decorator Billy Baldwin and he was in partnership with Taylor Sterling in Taylor Sterling and Von Mierers. Taylor Sterling was the architect whom also lived out here in Greenwich, and Fred was the interior decorator.
About the time I met Fred, Fred show me a picture of himself in the Eugina Shepard society column of the New York Daily News shaking hands with Nelson Rockefeller, and Fred later told me he was working on Nelson’s beach bungalow in Bermuda.
Fred was very protective of his clients but besides Nelson Rockefeller, they included many of Billy Baldwin’s clients since Billy Baldwin was retired. I recall names such as Barbara Rockefeller, Paul Mellon, Mrs. Avery Fisher, and Chris Forbes.
Since I was not working a steady job at the time, I would do errands around the family home in Greenwich, and I would help Fred out in Manhattan. Some times, I would answer the telephone 50 to 100 times a day taking messages. Fred maintained an extensive network of social engagements, and he was frequently being called on to help out with various charity functions. I recall, he use to carry a yearly day planner with many daily appointment scribbled in every day. Helen Williams also ran the International Debutant Ball, so once when I turned on television in New York, I saw Fred standing with General William Westmoreland at the ball. I recall Fred use to also help organize Ford - Rockefeller political events.
Since Helen Williams was his godmother and his patron, he would be frequently helping her out in her various charities and other lifestyle events. Helen Williams was the chairman of the Opera guild and the main patron of the Antiques show, along with many other involvements in New York, such as the DAR, the Museum of the City of New York and the Brooklyn Museum.
Still, Fred seemed to have enough time to clean and vacuum his apartment himself, and I frequently would help him out in house keeping details. I recall Fred in his business probably had about $50,000 a year in expenses, about half of which went to dining out mostly at the Isle of Capri, Taxi cabs, Laundry, and other house hold expenses. I was occasionally suspicious of Fred since I never saw any identification for him other than what the Society Press said and what his Chemical Bank checking book said, but the bank always cashed his checks. Of course since he did not drive a car, he did not have a driver’s license. However, since he did travel, I never did see his passport. I would assume he had a U.S. passport, but possibly he might have had another country’s passport. He told me the summer before I met him in 1973, he had attended a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace with Helen Williams. Another of Helen Williams’ activities was chairman of the Long Island garden club and lecturer at the Colonial Williamsburg Society and head trustee of Vassar College. Thus she kept Fred quite busy, and he would frequently escort her in her travels. She had a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon with a Earle Scheib paint job in copper paint. She use to keep it parked down the street east of her apartment on East 68th street across from another one of her charities the New York Fondling hospital.
Helen owned 40 acres on the waterfront in Oyster Bay, Long Island where the Kress family mansion stood until 1926, when it burned down in a fire. She lived in the gate house on what remained of the estate. Around February 1975, Fred and I another friend of his George Nichols who was an assistant editor for the New York Times moved her out of the gate house in Oyster Bay on a few zero degree nights to a house near the fire house in Locust Valley. Helen’s own house was quite a museum. She collected famous men’s mustache cups. I recall besides moving her, we painted the kitchen beige, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the old grandfather’s clock working. I also stopped by Sporter’s bar which was nearby near the Winter Club for a couple of beers, and I recall a lot of the local youth were wearing orange parkas.
Fred never paid us for any of our activities, but he would buy us meals at fancy restaurants and give us taxi fare for the errand we did. I recall frequently going down to McNulty’s on Christopher Street to buy Viennese blend coffee beans which he made with a Danish coffee press, and he served it to his guests. Fred’s apartment was constantly full of guests from around the world, and since his apartment was near the publishing neighborhood of Manhattan, not only were people there from the art and fashion world, but also the literary world. Since Fred had been a professional male model he had a large collection of first quality men’s clothing, so he never actually spent much money on clothing, and frequently he and Joe McDonald would spend much of their free time in denim blue jeans, which at the time not many people in the suburbs did.
Fred knew the establishment in New York, and he was listed in the Social Register. However, he use to say the only people that used the Social Register were Florists and Jewel Thieves. Fred did have his avant guard groups of friends, and some of them would use marijuana and LSD. I recall trying to keep a close eye on any drug activity around the apartment, but since those two items had been heavily used in the hippie days of the country, one had to keep it all in perspective. I do recall for security purposes, Fred had a family retainer named Ed Powers, whom was a formidable man of over 500 pounds, whom did errands around Beekman Place and regularly checked in on Fred and delivered groceries. Fred called him his “Major Domo”. I also recall he kept a baseball bat behind his steel plated apartment front door with a police lock on it. The only window in the apartment had a Frederick air conditioner, which he kept going year round for ventilation. Besides a few New York Times best sellers and standard coffee table books, the only other books in Fred’s apartment were about a 100 volume set of the complete works of Edgar Casey.
At the entrance to the his apartment in front of the small Pullman kitchen, he had set up a bar with about 50 different bottles of alcohol and liquors. Fred mostly drank white wine, but many of his guests drank the other alcoholic beverages. Thus one was always cleaning cocktail glasses and emptying and cleaning ashtrays. Fred had the walls of the apartment covered with mirror panes on top of which he hung art work. He said he was trying to make his apartment look like the Muhlenberg Palace in Germany. Most of the clients whom lived in the larger mansions and apartments in New York were not too impressed by his apartment, but it was a good effort on Fred’s behalf considering his limited income. I suppose most the furniture was either from his Aunt Agatha, Helen Williams, or inherited from his family.
Fred use to tell me his parents use to live in the mansion in Brooklyn Heights next to J. P. Morgan. I never knew his mother’s maiden name, but possibly she could have been a relative of J. P. Morgan, since more than likely a relative of J. P. Morgan would live next door to him. Fred use to tell me Helen Williams use to chose the head of J. P. Morgan, and at the time Fred knew the head of J. P. Morgan.
I recall Fred had several scrapbooks with thousands of pictures of his friends from around the world. Since he met a lot of them in his professional modeling days, they were a rather attractive looking group of young people. Fred during the time I knew him looked a bit like the actor Tony Curtis and acted a bit like him, as if he had studied American movies of Tony Curtis. I recently noticed that he also looked like Roy of Siegfried and Roy. Thus Fred was very Germanic looking and but more Prussian acting. One was always waiting for him to click his heels when dressed in White Tie at some diplomatic reception. I never attended many of the fancy parties that Freddie was attending, but I would just see him when he returned back to his apartment exhausted and tired. A lot of his male friends were quite athletic looking and well built, but most of his professional friends were over worked New Yorkers. I recall, in a few parties that I first attended with him, the other party people did not like cigarette smokers which both Fred, Joe, and I all smoked cigarettes.
Fred use to walk constantly long distances in Manhattan, and he was hard to keep up with walking. I some times thought he might have been Fred Perry the Tennis pro using an assumed name. Most of Fred and Helen Williams immediate friends had one thing in common, and that was that they all attended St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan just north of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Of course for an interior decorator, Christmas time meant a lot of work too.
Fred was also involved in starting a children’s foundation called the “Childrens to Childrens” foundation with one of the lesser known Rockefeller heirs.
When Manhattan became too exhausting I started spending all of my time out continually in Greenwich around April 1975, and that following August while I was up in Nantucket, I ran into Fred when he just arrived on the Island. He had rented the DeMendle house just off Main Street for $8,000 a week. I had been told a couple of weeks before by a mutual friend that Helen Williams had died from injuries sustained in an automobile wreck in Glen Cove, Long Island, but Fred did not mention this. We went out to dinner at the Opera House, and then I spent the night at the DeMendle house helping Fred get settled. Since I had been camping outside for the last several months trying to quit smoking cigarettes, it was strange being in a house. While unpacking Fred’s luggage which was temporarily lost in transit by the airline, Fred showed me that he brought up with him from Manhattan a pound of marijuana. Fred did not seem to worry about the legality of this act, but since it was illegal, when he was not looking, I hid it underneath the wicker chair in the master bedroom. The following morning when it was missing from Fred’s luggage, Fred went ballistic, and he started beating me up, without giving me time to explain. I quickly fled the house with my back pack, and my shirt ripped off my back. I told a mutual friend Jim Eldert whom worked at India House what had happened, and then I left the island to return to the quieter life in Greenwich.
I did not see Fred again until the summer of 1977, when I returned to Nantucket from my travels down in south Florida, and he was my neighbor living on India Street. I lived at Florence Frances’ guest house on India Street. Fred lived at John Rugg’s about three doors east on India Street. John Rugg owned an antique shop and restaurant on Nantucket. Jim Eldert was still working at India House on India Street, about three doors west of me. Billy Baldwin lived behind India House on Hussey Street. I did not see Jim and Fred except about twice that summer, since they were busy with other activities.
I returned to Nantucket again in the summer of 1978 with a friend, and Fred was still living on India Street, but Jim had moved to California after my friend and I saw him down in Key West, Florida.
I lived in Manhattan and the New York area, but I did not look up Fred, and when I returned to Nantucket in 1983, Fred was still living at John Rugg’s on India Street.
During a trip to California in 1980 with the same friend, I had seen someone that looked like Fred walking outside of the J. Paul Getty museum in Malibu that Labor Day weekend.
I recall during the summer of 1983 in Nantucket, I saw Fred about twice, and I used to talk with John Rugg regularly whom was always in the center of town. Just before I left Nantucket late that fall in 1983, John Rugg had me turn the water off in his house since it was not winterized, and he had me drain the pipes. Fred had disappeared about that time. I later learned about that time that Billy Baldwin had died, so I guess since Billy Baldwin was a long time Nantucket Island resident, a great many people were depressed. I think he had been living up in Sconset after downtown Nantucket got too busy.
I returned to Greenwich in December 1983, and about December 1988, I moved into my current apartment in public housing in Byram, Connecticut. I recall around February 1989, a local friend had me drive into Manhattan with him to go to a silverware sale at Michel Fina’s in the Diamond district. On the way out of Manhattan, I had the friend stop by Fred’s new apartment in the same building where Joe McDonald had lived east of First Avenue between 54th street and 55th street. I recall I had visited there possibly once before when he first moved in. Fred was cooking some organic chicken soup, and he gave me a cup of herbal tea, and showed me around the larger two room apartment. I actually liked the old apartment at East 49th Street better, but he had quite a few friends in his current building with better security. All of the antiques were pretty much gone, and he had more modern decorations. He explained that he had a Chinese roommate named John whom was attending Columbia University, and Fred had a number of 600 year old books in Chinese that he was reading.
I sent Fred a Christmas card that following year letting him know my current address.
I think around February 1990 someone told me locally that Fred had died, and I called a mutual friend in Manhattan whom told me about the Vanity Fair magazine about him and the fact that he had died near Ashville, North Carolina. Since Fred once told me that he had been working for Mrs. Vanderbilt at the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, it did not surprise me that he had been working at the Biltmore House in Ashville, North Carolina. I recalled that one of the first people Fred had introduced me to was Charlie Cowles that owned Vanity Fair, so I wandered how accurate the magazine article might have been.
Anyway since then I have seen someone that looks like Fred in Greenwich about four times usually speaking German with younger family members. For years downtown, there was a younger teenager in town whom worked at the movie theatre whom looked like he could be Fred’s son. The last time I saw the younger Fred look alike, I overheard him say he had moved to East 54th street which is about the same location that Fred had lived at. We now have J. P. Morgan private banking in Greenwich, Connecticut, so perhaps if Fred or his relatives or heirs are still around, maybe they just look like him. Also it is a big world out there, so maybe Fred is just traveling around like he always like to do. I recall the last time, I chatted with Fred at East 54th Street, I suggested that he should visit Norway. About two years after he supposedly died, I saw someone that looked like him on the cover of a cruise ship catalog advertising Royal Viking cruise lines.
Whatever the case and what ever the real story is, I think we will have to leave it up to wiser older people to sort it all out. Well, maybe if Fred is still alive, he can try to sort out his own self.
It is truly like a Chinese puzzle.
Somehow, I think a lot of Fred’s friends might have been involved with the Duke of Windsor’s travels and visits around the world, but that is only opened to conjecture.
Fred’s primary theme in Manhattan seemed to have been the book, play, and movie
“Auntie Mame”.
End Of:
“Frederick Von Mierers” or “Life on the Poor Side of Beekman Place”
By Michael Louis Scott, Greenwich, Connecticut U.S.A. 04/27/04
Of course having seen Fred alive in Greenwich, Connecticut 5 times since he supposedly died, either he has a twin or amnesia. Once about 5 years ago, he was at the Greenwich train station with three young boys and a European woman speaking some language like German.
About 4 years ago, I saw him riding a bicycle on a hot summer's day looking at the Mercedes Benz dealership.
About 3 years ago, I saw him walking up Greenwich Avenue with a very large man whom looked like a Texas cattle baron or a large version of Teddie Roosevelt or the chairman of J.P. Morgan.
About 2 years ago, I saw him walking up Greenwich Avenue with the same large man.
About a year ago, I saw him walking down Greenwich Avenue with a tiny girl in a ballet costume.
If I have seen him since I have not recognized him.
He might be a flight attendant with S.A.S. flying from Oslo, Norway to Tahiti on a regular route, and he now keeps an apartment in California for lay overs instead of Manhattan. Thus he could be tanned or pale depending on which end of the route he is spending the most time at.
January 2006
Note added in reply to email:
http://mikelouisscott.com/fred.htm
I knew Fred quite well from 1973 to 1976, and he lived three doors down the street from
Me in Nantucket during the summers of 1977 to 1983, but I never saw him around.
He lived in John Rugg’s house from Glen Falls, New York, and John had a restaurant in the center
Of town called the “Company of the Cauldron” . There was a red hair guy that worked at Company of
The Cauldron that looked like an old school classmate of mine named Peter Sherman, and Peter’s mother
Was a Rockefeller, and he lived most of the time in Costa Rica, and he spoke Spanish. Peter also showed
Up in south Florida in white robes trying to look like Jesus Christ, and he would pan handle for money and then
Spend it on beer. I think he worked out of some church in West Palm Beach, Florida. His family obviously had
Money. Fred was from Beverly Farm, Massachusetts near Swampscott, Massachusetts where the Salem Witch
Trials were held. He was a member of St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan. He used quite a bit of marijuana and
LSD when I knew him, so technically he was quite “SCREWED UP”. I was encouraged by a mutual friend to try to keep
An eye on him, which I did until he tried to kill me in a fit up in Nantucket. Another mutual friend in Nantucket several
Doors the other way on the same street Indian street ended up in Santa Cruz, California which was the center of the
Occult in California, but when you go out there it is just a bunch of hippie types trying to keep their marijuana business
Secret. I once observed Fred coming out of the Getty museum in Malibu, when it was closed, so he obviously had
High level contacts besides the Rockefellers.
My viewpoint around Fred besides him being a recreational drug user, many of his friend used drugs, and when
He went to many of his so called fashionable parties, he was himself drugged by his friends. He used to hang
Around people like Mick Jagger and that crowd. Since Fred also knew Robert Morgenthau the New York City
District attorney and he also knew the head of the New York mafia, and his patron Helen Kress Williams had
Strong German connections, and since Fred had lived with the Krupp family in Germany and since he claimed to
Be 14th generation Dutch New York, I regarded Fred more of being a European spy with American roots.
In other words he was an opportunist with interesting connections.
Since he is probably still alive he is either working another racket or he has changed his cover.
New York City is a small town, so he could still be just living in the same neighborhood as a recluse.
Since with his connections with Rockefeller University, he obviously had access to psychiatric medical treatment.
One person that looks like me, I have seen driving around here with the license plate with the same name of a private
Psychiatric hospital on East 72nd street. Whatever, the case I dare say Fred is doing more than drinking herbal tea and
Making organic chicken soup. The common remedy for people using LSD is to take niacin or niacinamide, and if they
smoke tobacco, they can just smoke a cigarette, since nicotine has the same ingredients.
I inquired with the New York City police department and the Oyster Bay police department as to whether he might
Have given Helen Kress Williams LSD when she had her fatal automobile accident, but she was alive around us
Down in Key West, Florida back in 1977 and 1978 darkly tanned an nobody recognized her. Fred’s friend Charlie Cowles
Owner of Vanity Fair was probably Tennessee Williams somehow related to Helen Williams. However, the character I knew
In Key West, Florida that looked like Tennessee Williams said he was Steve Bahl of http://www.fennimorecheese.com/ , but
Actually looked and talked more like Adolph Hitler. If Fred Von Mierers is still alive in Europe, I know he use to frequent
“Harry’s Bar” in Venice, Italy an old “CIA” www.cia.gov hangout. Thus somebody there might be able to find him.
Since Fred also lived with the Shah of Iran’s family he might be working out of the Middle East. The last time, I chatted with
Him, I suggested he visit Oslo, Norway, and several years later, after he had supposedly died, I saw his picture on the cover
Of a Royal Viking cruise ship catalog. I know Fred had lived with Richard Nixon’s ambassador to Spain the Saltonstal family from
Massachusetts, and he also spoke fluent Spanish, and our original friend in common was a classmate named Tony Clark whom
Had left Manhattan and moved to the Canary Islands in the late 1960s and left a forwarding address at the Knickerbocker Club in
Manhattan. Thus it is very likely that Fred could be living on one of the Canary Islands in obscurity. I have had other friends disappear
In the Canary Islands.
The family name Von Mierers was the name of a Dutch Prime minister in a Greta Garbo movie, and Fred knew Greta.
Greta had a house in Tobago. Von Mierers also is the name of a family in Dutch intelligence that moved to Tahiti
After World War II.
The man that I have seen Fred out here with twice weighs about 500 pounds, and he looks like Teddie Roosevelt, and they
Were Helen Kress Williams neighbors in Oyster Bay. Thus if I really wanted to track down Fred, I would look on India Street in Nantucket in the summer
Or Oyster Bay, Long Island. The kid that looks like Fred supposedly moved from here to East 54th street where Fred’s last
Apartment was. However, in the period that I knew Fred, he maintained at least a half dozen apartments in Manhattan not to
Mentions houses elsewhere. If I were looking for him in Manhattan, I would take a job in Bloomingdales and wait to see if he showed
Up in the Men’s department. Since I never saw any legal identification with Fred’s name on it, other than the Eugina Shepard society columns
And the Chemical Bank checking account, I can only assume that was Fred’s name. He might have been Donald Trump’s brother
Fred Trump the airline pilot.
Your guess is as good as mine.
March 20, 2006
Another replay on email about Fred:
I am not sure what Fred was involved with. In October 1983 before I left Nantucket and I returned to Greenwich, John
Rugg had me turn the water off in his summer house. About that time Billy Baldwin also died whom also lived on India
Street in Nantucket and Sconset and he was also down in Key West. Billy supposedly was training Fred to take over his
Decorating business. Billy Baldwin was a friend of the Duke of Windsor, so the group involved shorter people whom were
Around British Royalty. When I last visited with Fred on East 54th street in Manhattan, he told me had a Chinese roommate
John whom was attending Columbia University. After Fred supposedly died, Sly and John came up and talked to me here in
Greenwich, and they seemed a bit confused. Later John talked to me again, and he told me that his family were original
Investors in Microsoft at nine cents a share, but the original IPO for Microsoft was $11.50 a share.
Fred might have been J.P. Morgan’s grandson, since his parents whom died in 1954 had a mansion next to the J.P. Morgan
Mansion on Brooklyn Heights. Fred was very temperamental, and he would go along with a group of people for a while, and then
He would drop them all and go on to something else.
Since he knew most everybody in Manhattan, he frequently had his enemies.
I was told that Fred and Jim Eldert also had a house near the Exeter http://www.exeter.edu/ school.
Jim’s grandmother was from one of the original families in Massachusetts, and he was E. Howard Hunt’s godson
Of the Bay of Pigs, and his grandparents had the house next to Nixon in Key Biscayne. Jim used marijuana and
Had a drinking problem, and he use to date Ted Kennedy’s doctor’s daughter. Basically they both were relatively
Private individuals. I know Fred had been in Key West before I got there in 1976, and his Major Domo from
Manhattan Ed Powers was down there with him. Helen Williams was the head of the New York City opera guild
Amongst other activities, and the Getty fortune paid for the Texaco opera hour. Thus all of the Italians were not necessarily
Mafia although some like Pavorotti were big and fat.
Fred also worked for Nelson Rockefeller, Paul Mellon, Mrs. Avery Fisher, and the C.I.A. connection was
David Wise whom lived on Beekman Place of C.I.A. fame.
Helen had enough influence in Manhattan to have her friends keep an eye on Fred, but more than likely whatever
Cult he became involved with happened after 1975, when I quit helping him maintain his apartment.
Since Fred did not drive a car, and he frequently walked everywhere, he was subject to being around anyone he happened to
Meet on the street where ever he was.
His friend when I knew him George Nichols was the assistant editor of the New York Times. Fred use to sleep
On the sidewalk outside the New York post spying on them when he had an apartment at the time with a half million
Dollar in antiques.
Basically Fred never let us know whom he was working for, and he acted like he might be involved with some sort of
European royalty possibly of German origin.
Thus where the Royalty went he would follow along as some sort of close friend. Thus he was seen in Palm Beach,
But most of my friends did not like him, since he did not take them too seriously.
Whatever the case he could be living in some foreign embassy of some foreign country with his language skills.
At the time former president Bush was the United States ambassador to the United Nations, so his son the current
President might have been one of the visitors around Fred’s apartment. I do remember a freezing Texan on one winter’s
Eve. Also the Kress family had a large ranch in Texas. Basically in helping Fred run the apartment, I spent a lot of time
Getting rid of numerous guests at various times of the day, so maybe one of the guests I helped leave the apartment got
Rid of me. I just did what Fred told me to do, since it was his apartment.
Since Fred had sort of a Prussian mentality, I thought he might have been working for some military organization.
If you read about them in the papers at that time, they were all in that neighborhood.
Fred supposedly died in North Carolina, but the third to the last time I chatted with him, he told me was working
For Mrs. Vanderbilt in Newport, Rhode Island, so possibly he started working at Biltmore House and Gardens
www.biltmore.com , and he just became more private. Who knows.
September 12, 2006
I saw somebody that looked like Fred VonMierers around the first of February 2007 at the Microsoft Conference at the Hyatt Hotel out on Hauppauge, Long Island. The individual I saw weighed about 220 pounds with a medium dark tan and shaved head, and he was wearing a white wool beret. I did not chat with the individual. Since the French wear berets, possibly Fred is now in the French Foreign Legion. Since Microsoft employs people working in India, maybe Fred is working for them with his language skills. Since somebody named VonMierers lives in Tahiti, possibly Fred is also living in Tahiti, which would explain the beret and tan. I know Joe MacDonald use to vacation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and I know Fred was living in Key West, Florida before I first arrived down there in October 1976, so possibly Fred has returned to Key West or some other tropical location. We know that Sly Stallone lived in Palm Beach, Florida as the Krump heir did, and we know that Jimmy Eldert maintains an address in West Palm Beach, Florida, so possibly they are in that area. I also know that some people that live in the Bahamas maintain Florida addresses, when they are more private in the Bahamas. I once saw somebody that looked like Billy Baldwin in Key West, Florida. Of course Fred might have been down there, when Prince Charles was serving on a Frigate in the Caribbean, so he might be part of a retinue that travel with the British Royalty. There is a Meyers family that have a Rum business in Jamaica. Possibly whatever the case, Fred might just work for some airline like British Airways. I remember on East 49th street, there was the Barclay Hotel where airline personnel stayed just east of the Waldorf Astoria, so possibly other airline personnel lived and maintain residents in the neighborhood. There use to a night club two doors west of Fred's apartment at 420 East 49th street, and it was called "Freddie's' ", but I do not know if it had any connection with him or not. Basically the last time I spoke with Fred at the East 54th apartment, he told me he had been working for Mrs. Vanderbilt at the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, so possibly he also was working for them at their Palm Beach or Ashville residents or elsewhere. Whatever, the case nobody seems to know for sure, and all of the web traffic on his web page has disappeared, so there does not seem to be any interest in him anymore, so I guess we can consider him yesterday's news. CIO
Worst case scenario with his Middle Eastern connections from living with the Shah of Iran's family, he might be working for some Middle Eastern group.
Fred's bank was at the Chemical Bank across the street from the British Consulate on Third Avenue, and he had a charge account at the liquor store just north of the British consulate. However, he use to get liquor for parties duty free from the Mexican consulate in Manhattan, so possibly he other connections with Mexico. He frequently went to Carl Springer's showroom off Third Avenue. He usually ate at the Isle of Capris, but when he became more prosperous, he ate at Le Cirque. I can not remember his telephone number, but it was in the Social Register from 1973 to 1975. What seemed strange to some people that he did not have immediate family was explained by the fact he was only child and his parents had died in a car crash in 1952. His birthday was suppose to be December 25, 1949. He use to date Sonja Van Voohres regularly, and he once threw a big party at her family's Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue. He seemed to know the right people, so possibly living out in Nantucket for long summers all of those years, he lost track of main stream New York Society. I think he use to work setting up the summer parties for the established residents of Nantucket. He also ate at the Opera House regularly in Nantucket. Billy Baldwin was involved in setting up a dinner for Princess Grace of Monaco at the Chantaclair restaurant in Sconset, so possibly Fred worked on that too. Besides attending formal affairs, he knew how to set up a formal affair in terms of all of those minor details. Thus I do not think he was some other government's foreign agent, but with his language skills, he obviously could converse in foreign languages with visitors. Possibly he might have been assigned to some foreign mission of embassy overseas, and never bothered to reestablish residence in this country. Since I have seen him alive a half dozen times after he supposedly died, but I have not chatted with him, perhaps he is either still alive or there is somebody that looks and acts like him. CIO
November 10, 2007
Mike Scott