The Story of Grey Gardens...

This post was supposed to be about a new colour passion of mine- The colour Grey. But it ended up being a post about the fascinating yet very tragic story behind a house called 'Grey Gardens' and the two women living in it..

Grey Gardens is mostly known as a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Grdens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgia Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York.

Edith 'Big Edie' Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter 'Little Edie' were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

The house was designed by Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe in 1897, and purchased in 1923 by Phelan Beale and Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale. After Phelan left his wife, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale lived there for decades more, over 50 years in total for each woman.

The house was called Grey Gardens because of the colour of the dunes, the cement garden walls, and the sea mist.

Unfortunately this beautiful home ended up looking like this...

If you like a beautiful song performed by Melissa Etheridge will guide us through the rest of this post...

In the fall of 1971 and throughout 1972 the womens living conditions (their home were infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water and filled with garbage) were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enqurier and a cover story in the New York Magazine, after a series of inspections(which the Beales called 'raids) by the Suffolk Country Health Department.

Once a beautiful sun room...
Tragic isn´t it!?

Makes me sooo wonder what happened to these beautiful women. Why, why, why did they end up like this?

via, Text

'Big Edie' died in 1977 and "Little Edie" sold the house in 1979 to former Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee and his wife.

'Little Edie' died in 2002 at the age of 84...

I´ve found out that HBO quite recently have made a movie about these womens life starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the two Edies. To find out more click here.
I can´t wait to have a look at it. Hopefully it´ll give me and all of you whom feel curious some answers on why things ended up like they did...