Avery Brundage: Montecito’s Fallen King

Few have had a grander international presence while living in Montecito than a wealthy Chicago businessman named Avery Brundage. His story is a quintessentially American one – a rags-to-riches, Horatio Alger tale, though not without its twists. Brundage grew up in the Teddy Roosevelt era of bold, rugged achievers. Born to modest circumstances in Detroit in 1887, he became the proverbial hardworking newspaper boy who made good. An exceptional athlete with sharp intelligence, Brundage earned an engineering degree at the University of Illinois and then represented the United States in the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics.

Brundage was not only smart and athletic but politically savvy and a striver. He made his fortune in the rough-and-tumble Chicago construction industry of the 1920s. However, wealth alone would never be enough for the former Detroit newspaper boy. In 1927, Brundage stepped up in the ranks of society by marrying a wealthy Chicago socialite, Elizabeth Dunlap. Two years later, he secured the prestigious post of President of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). 

By the 1930s, Brundage had attained the wealth, power, and prestige he had ardently sought. However, dark whispers about the man began to circulate. He was an anti-Semite and sympathized with a then-ascending world power – the authoritarian Nazis. After the Nazis assumed power in Germany in 1933, calls arose in the U.S. for a boycott of the upcoming 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Brundage brusquely dismissed such proposed boycott as the work of “a Jewish/communist conspiracy.”

At six feet tall and 200 pounds, with powerful shoulders, Brundage could be an imposing presence. Combining that with his shrewd intelligence and self-confidence made Brundage an effective dealmaker. He assured U.S. officials he would get the Nazis to drop their Jewish exclusion policy for the ‘36 Games. Brundage’s backroom negotiating averted a boycott, but he did so bycutting a deal with the Nazis. The only Jews on the 1936 U.S. Olympic track team were sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller. Their event was a relay, but on the morning of the race, which was to be attended by Hitler, U.S. officials pulled Glickman and Stoller, denying them the gold medal the relay team would go on to win. Glickman attributed the decision to Brundage.

The European aristocrats on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) so admired Brundage’s work on behalf of the USOC that later that year, they appointed him to the ever-more-prestigious IOC, the world governing body for the Olympics. While Brundage had a sincere interest in the Olympics, there was no better opportunity for him to advance himself socially than to hobnob with the members of the blue-blooded IOC. For much of the 20th century, the IOC was heavily populated with royals. During Brundage’s tenure, its members included King Albert of Belgium, King Constantine of Greece, Prince Axel of Denmark, Prince Franz Joseph II of Liechtenstein, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover, Prince Rainier III of Monaco, and the marvelously named Alphert, Baron Schimmelpenninck van der Oye of the Netherlands. Brundage’s courting of aristocracy was regarded as sometimes embarrassingly obvious. He even once remarked to an associate that his dream was to marry a princess.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, property values in California coastal areas plunged. Brundage promptly began bottom fishing, buying California coastal properties at depressed prices. He eventually decided to move to California and chose Montecito as his home. In 1946, Brundage purchased the Escondrijo estate (the “Hiding Place”) fronting Ashley Road. He built a grand estate and renamed it La Pineta (“The Pinewood”).

Brundage also assembled a serious art collection – a hallmark of any aspiring aristocrat. Brundage filled his Spanish-stylemansion with an extensive Asian art collection. La Pineta became the venue for spectacular parties Brundage threw for the blue-blazered IOC crowd. 

Brundage refocused his real estate empire locally. His initial purchases included the Montecito Country Club and the El Paseo complex in Santa Barbara, which comprised the Restaurante del Paseo, 40 shops and offices, and the De la Guerra mansion. He later acquired the El Presidio business block, and in 1956, the Montecito Inn. 

Brundage would hold the post of IOC President for an unprecedented 20 years, earning him the moniker “King of the Olympics.” In 1956, Sports Illustrated called him “[t]he implacable Mr. Brundage, who is now the most powerful man in sport.”

By the early 1960s, Brundage had reached the aerie heights of wealth, power, and social status he had long sought. While he had fulfilled the role of the Horatio Alger self-made hero, the American archetype, his life was now beginning to more resemble Jay Gatsby. Brundage had not just improved himself but virtually transformed himself. Yet at the peak of that metamorphosis, cracks began to show in the great man. 

Like a portent, in 1964, the intense Coyote Fire roared through Montecito. Brundage quickly commandeered the staff of the Montecito Country Club to La Pineta to rescue its magnificent art treasures. However, the 20-room mansion was destroyed and many valuable art objects lost, despite the dire efforts of the club’s hard-working busboys and golf caddies. Rather than rebuild, the then-77-year-old Brundage bought the Brünninghausen estate on Hot Springs Road.

Rather than being the problem solver he always had been (through persuasion or intimidation) for the IOC, Brundage was becoming a source of its problems. In 1962, the United Nations passed a resolution effectively banning South Africa from the Olympics due to its apartheid practices. However, Brundage pushed through an IOC vote to readmit South Africa for the upcoming 1968 games in Mexico City. Widespread protests followed. The now 80-year-old Brundage found himself again fighting calls for an Olympic boycott, this time by Black U.S. athletes. While Brundage had been able to work skillfully behind the scenes in 1936, the now-elderly “King” was put front and center in this late-’60s controversy. 

Black civil rights leaders and Ebony magazine went after Brundage personally (among other things), exposing that he owned a business that excluded Jews and African Americans. That business was the Montecito Country Club. Now publicly branded a racist and hypocrite, Brundage reluctantly disinvited South Africa from the Mexico City games. 

Following Brundage’s cave on South Africa, almost all Black athletes on the U.S. Olympic team would go to Mexico City. However, the U.S. Olympic basketball team took a big hit when a young college player – today recognized by many as the greatest basketball player of all time – followed through with a personal boycott. Lew Alcindor of UCLA, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, refused to join the U.S. team in Mexico due to his distaste for the earlier pro-Nazi comments of Brundage.

Although Brundage’s backdown on South Africa averted a Black-athlete boycott, he could not extinguish the fire he had lit. During the ‘68 games, he withdrew from his traditional role of making medal presentations after some Black athletes said they would refuse their medals if presented by Brundage. One of the highlights of the ‘68 games was when American sprint star Tommie Smith blazed to a gold medal in the 200 meters in spectacular world-record time, with teammate John Carlos sweeping in for the bronze. But then, in what has become one of the most famous images of ‘60s protest, at the medal ceremony, the two African Americans proudly stepped up on the stand only to then lower their heads and raise leather-gloved fists in a Black-power salute as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. Brundage was outraged and kicked them off the U.S. Olympic Team.

The writing now was on the wall for the old bear, as calls mounted for Brundage to give up control of the IOC. However, he would hang on for one more Olympics, proudly returning the games to his beloved Germany in 1972. Sadly, the Munich Olympics would be marred by political action of a much worse sort, as Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes. Some of Brundage’s public remarks following that tragedy were seen as insensitive to the Jewish athletes who had died. He would shortly thereafter step down from this 20-year reign over the Olympics – the King was dead. He quietly retired to Montecito. In looking at Brundage’s Olympic legacy, he is widely regarded as doing much to advance the Olympic Movement – but also much to taint it. The IOC’s website later acknowledged that his tenure was “the most controversial of any IOC president.”

While Brundage’s conflicts with Jewish people and Black Americans are well known, accounts vary as to his attitude toward women as Olympic competitors. However, he clearly enjoyed their company in his personal life, particularly the younger ones. His socialite wife, Elizabeth, was the gracious hostess of the gala soirées thrown at La Pineta for art connoisseurs, aristocrats, and Olympic committee dignitaries. They remained married until her death in 1971. However, Brundage lived a double life, not only having numerous affairs with women in multiple countries, but also a second family. His Finnish mistress, Lilian Dresden, was 29 years old when their relationship began, 32 years younger than Brundage. He fathered two sons with her in the early 1950s (none with Elizabeth).

Even after Elizabeth died, Brundage would not legitimize his relationship with Dresden and their sons by marrying her. One might think that was because Brundage (then in his 80s) was too old, but that’s far from the truth. Fulfilling his long-held dream, in 1973, Brundage married a true princess, a German one at that. Marianne Charlotte Katharina Stefanie von Reuss-Kostritz was 37 years old at the time. Being himself 85, Brundage had married nearly 50 years younger, a rare achievement even by Montecito standards. Unfortunately for Brundage, a princess does not come cheaply. He and his new bride spent millions on property (a home on Picacho Lane, a vacation house in Germany), travel, entertainment, and jewelry. Brundage was headed toward bankruptcy. 

Avery Brundage died while on holiday in Germany (where else?) in 1975. Despite the high profile he had maintained – and the real estate and art he had amassed – during his near 30-year residency in Montecito, virtually nothing remains here of Brundage today. He was buried in Chicago. Rather than leave his world-renowned, 8,000-item Asian art collection to Santa Barbara as a local legacy, he sought a grander memorial. Before he died, he offered the collection to San Francisco on the condition that it build a museum dedicated to it. The City by the Bay agreed, and in 1966 the Asian Art Museum opened as a wing of the De Young Museum (then in Golden Gate Park and later moved to the Civic Center). It is today the largest museum in the United States devoted to Asian art and is well-worth visiting if you find yourself in the Bay Area.

In what has become one of the most famous images of ’60s protest, at the medal ceremony, the two African Americans proudly stepped up on the stand only to then lower their heads and raise leather-gloved fists in a Black-power salute as the Star Spangled Banner played.

So by the time Brundage died, his art treasures had left Montecito, his magnificent La Pineta was in ashes, and his once baronial local real estate holdings had been liquidated to fund the lavish lifestyle he pursued through his sunset years. Part of the La Pineta property was purchased in 1975 by “self-taught artist, poet, musician, and filmmaker” Rowena Pattee Kryder, with the proclaimed purpose of creating a “temple.” Ms. Kryder embellished a concrete colonnade on the property with panoramic, symbolic drawings from various world religions, and named it Cave of Dawning. She “wanted to amplify a power spot by transforming an abandoned ruin into a place where subtle energy could circulate and radiate.” Kryder hoped her work at La Pineta would “release the ancient past embodied in my soul’s mythic journey and… transfigure old symbols into a comprehensive whole relevant to the present.” We can only speculate as to whether her efforts transfigured whatever may have remained there of Avery Brundage.