Norman Butler (polo)

Norman Butler (December 2, 1918 – October 8, 2011) was an American international polo player raised and educated in England and Europe, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant during WW2, as well as a thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder in Europe, where he won several classic races including the Irish 1,000 Guineas, Pretty Polly Stakes and Irish St. Leger.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Norman Frank Paul Butler was born in Manhattan, New York City on December 2, 1918 to industrialist Paul Butler ^[4][1][6][7], son of industrialist Frank Osgood Butler,^[8] and Sarah Anne Josephine Rooney, who was born in County Mayo, Ireland, became an American and French citizen, and later resided in Paris and Monte Carlo.^[1][9]

The Butler family arrived in Massachussetts from England in 1637.^[10]Julius Wales Butler and Oliver Morris Butler founded Butler Paper in 1841, the oldest family owned business in Chicago. Paul Butler founded Butler Aviation in 1945, which became the largest private aviation company in the world. Frank Osgood Butler and Paul Butler founded the Oak Brook Polo Club in 1922 and Paul Butler founded Butler National in 1972.^[11][12] The family also owned 5,800 acres of land outside Chicago modelled on an English country estate, where the family would host polo tournaments on their 14 polo fields, as well as having game shoots and fox hunting.^[13][14]

He was raised as a Catholic^[15] in England, France and Italy, and attended Hodder Place, Downside School and Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, England. He later studied Modern Greats at Oriel College, Oxford University.^[16][17]

During WW2 he served as a Lieutenant (USNR) bomber pilot with Squadron VB-107, which was based in Natal, Brazil and Ascension Island.^[18][19][20]He was decorated three times, with the Air Medal, Bronze Star and Presidential Unit Citation.^[16][21]

From 1948 until 1960 he worked for the Butler family companies, and founded Butler S.A. (South America). In 1951 he was one of the founders of the Peramco Film Corporation Inc. located in New York City at 325 East 72nd Street, alongside Millicent Rogers and Arturo Peralta Ramos Jr. They commissioned screenplays by Roald Dahl of some of his short stories including The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Skin .^[22][23]

He played polo internationally in England, Argentina and the United States, notably on teams including Maharaj Prem Singh, Cecil Smith, Rao Raja Hanut Singh, Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and Freddie Guest, as well as playing opposite Prince Philip at Cowdray Park and Guards Polo Club.^{[24][25][26][27]}

In 1962 he bought Kilboy House in County Tipperary, Ireland.^[28][29] He also owned Athgarvan Lodge, in County Kildare, which had been used by George IV, and which he bought for a then record £490,000 for a stud farm in Ireland.^[30] As a thoroughbred breeder in 1972 he won the classic Irish 1,000 Guineas and the Irish St. Leger as well as the Pretty Polly Stakes with his horse Pidget, trained by Kevin Prendergast and ridden by the jockeys T. P. Burns, Bill Williamson and Wally Swinburn.

Other notable horses included Pabui (winner of the 1974 Criterium di Roma at Capanelle) and Kilboy. He purchased several horses from the Aga Khan IV, including Emali.^[31][32] His horses raced in Ireland, England, Italy and France. He also worked with Vincent O'Brien and John Magnier among others.^[33] He later sold Kilboy House to Tony Ryan, founder of Ryanair.^[34]

He was a member of Buck's Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and a life member of the Corviglia Club.^[35][36]

In 1874 industrialist and member of the Jekyll Island Club James Ellsworth married Eva Frances Butler, daughter of Oliver Morris Butler, co-founder of the Butler Paper Company.^[37][38] They were the parents of the Polar Explorer Lincoln Ellsworth.^[39][40] James Ellsworth bought and restored the Villa Palmieri in Fiesole above Florence, where Bocaccio was thought to have written the Decameron, and which had hosted at various times Alexandre Dumas, James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford and Queen Victoria among others,^[41] and where Norman Butler and his mother Sarah Anne Butler spent childhood summers until the death of James Ellsworth in 1925.^[42][37][43]

The Butler family had homes since 1910 in Palm Beach, Florida, including on Via Bethesda and Golfview Road.^{[8][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]} They also owned ranches in South Dakota and Montana for the breeding of polo ponies.^{[51][52][38][53]}

In 1950 he purchased a 5 acre estate at First Neck Lane on Lake Agawam in Southampton, New York and an apartment at 525 Park Avenue.^{[54][55][56][3][57]} Later in the 1950's he purchased a townhouse at 217 East 61st Street from Prince Serge Obolensky, which had been a wedding gift from President Theodore Roosevelt to his daughter Alice Longworth in 1906. The house was later sold to the actor Montgomery Clift.^[58][59][60]

In 1957 he purchased Hopedene, Newport, Rhode Island from the Von Reventlow family to house the Impressionist collection and furniture he and his first wife Pauline had collected.^[3][61][62] They sold the Peabody and Stearns designed house after their divorce in 1958.^[3]

From 1960 until 1962 he rented Classiebawn Castle from Lord Mountbatten.^[63][64][65]

In 1962 he bought Kilboy House, Tipperary, from the Dunalley family as a winter home and base for his thoroughbred stables.^{[34][66][67][68]}

In 1966 he took up residence at the Le Chateau Malet in Cap-d'Ail, which had been designed and built in 1892 by Sir Edward Malet, a British diplomat.^[69] The Villa Malet was a Beaux-Arts mansion set on 14 acres of gardens, and designed by the architect Hans-Georg Tersling.^[70][71]

He later lived between England, France, Monaco and Switzerland.^[24]

In 1948 he married Pauline Katharine Winn (1920-1974) at Caxton Hall, Westminster, daughter of Lady Baillie and the Hon. Charles John Frederick Winn (son of Rowland Winn, 2nd Baron St Oswald), of Leeds Castle in Kent.^{[72][73][74][75][76]} They divorced in 1958. They had two children together:

• Sandra Butler (born 29 July 1949)^[77][78][79]
• Paget Butler (born 6 February 1953)^[80][81][2]

In 1959 he married in Perth, Scotland his second wife, the Hon. Penelope Dewar (1935-2023), daughter of Lord Forteviot, owner of Dewar Whiskies in Scotland.^[82][83][24] They divorced in 1977. They had three children together:

• Paul Butler (born 13 June 1960 - d. 1988)^[2][84][85]
• Tiggy Butler (born 6 November 1961)^[86][87][88]
• Sean Butler (born 25 September 1963)^[89][80]

In 1981 he married at Kensington and Chelsea Register Office his third wife Baroness Gabriella Gröger von Sontag (1945-2012), fashion editor of German Vogue, daughter of a German banker and Director of the Dresdner Bank.^[2][24] They had one son together:

• Patrick de Butler (born 29 July 1986)^[89][80][2]

Norman Butler died at the age of 92 on October 8, 2011.^[90][2]