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America’s National Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame makes the sport more accessible to the public, says Herbert Spencer
The success of America’s National Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in reviving the Westchester Cup international in the US this year, has highlighted the fact that the museum is the world’s only institution where members of the public can see an extensive collection of objects and memorabilia reflecting the history of the sport.
Much of polo’s heritage lies hidden from public view, in numerous private collections. A number of impressive, more ancient artefacts relating to the game can be seen in some of the world’s leading museums, such as the British Museum and Victoria & Albert in London and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. But the Museum of Polo in Lake Worth, Florida, remains the only one dedicated entirely to preserving the rich history of the sport, albeit devoted almost exclusively to modern polo in the US.
This unique museum was the brainchild of four polo-playing friends: Philip L B Iglehart, a former 9-goal player (brother of 10-goaler Stewart) who revived Florida’s old Gulfstream Polo Club; Hugh Jeremy Chisholm, a Wall Street banker who had left New York to ranch out West; George C Sherman Jr, a former chairman of the US Polo Association (USPA); and Leverett Miller, a Florida racehorse breeder who is a grandson of 10-goaler Harry Payne Whitney.
Leverett, the only survivor of the four and now an active 77 years of age, remembers when they first discussed the idea ‘around 1981’ over lunch at his Peter Dinkels restaurant in Palm Beach. None of the men were major polo collectors he says, ‘although I did own a copy of Herbert Heseltine’s famous bronze of America’s “big four” 40-goal
The National Museum of Polo was first incorporated in 1984 as a non-profit educational charity with ‘501’ status
team. We all agreed at the time, however, that an effort should be made to preserve the sport’s heritage.
‘Philip was the driving force behind the museum concept and it became his passion during the last years of his life,’ Leverett recalls, ‘but it would be 16 years before we found a permanent home.’
The National Museum of Polo was first incorporated in 1984 as a non-profit educational charity with ‘501’ status allowing donations to be deducted from taxes. Its first board consisted of Iglehart, president; Miller, vice-president; Sherman, chairman; George Haas Jr, treasurer; Wade Byrd, secretary; S K ëSkeyí Johnston; and William Sinclaire. Sadly, Jeremy Chisholm died in 1982, followed by Sherman in 1986 and Iglehart in 1993.
Polo was booming on Florida’s Gold Coast in the mid-eighties. Bill Ylvisaker’s big Palm Beach Polo & Country Club (PBPCC) was at the height of its popularity, with the American arm of the international jewellers Cartier one of its major sponsors.
Jeremy Chisholm’s widow Jeanne ran a
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small gallery beneath PBPCC’s stadium. In 1986 Ralph Destino, CEO of Cartier Inc in the US, commissioned Jeanne to collect polo memorabilia for a retrospective exhibition, “Polo in America”. With Jeanne, Philip Iglehart and Destino as the curators, it was first shown in a marquee at PBPCC before moving to Cartier’s store on Worth Avenue, the famous upscale shopping street in Palm Beach. Then in June 1987, Cartier expanded and remounted the exhibition in a monthlong show on the second floor of their flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York.
‘It was a mammoth task tracking down enough items to make the exhibition meaningful, from an aesthetic as well as historical, point of view,’ Jeanne recalls, ‘but we got a lot of help from a number of wellknown players and polo families such as Cecil Smith, George Oliver, the Hitchcocks, Whitneys and Butlers.’
By the time the collection had reached Cartier’s Manhattan store in 1987, it had grown to well over 200 items. A star exhibit was Cartier’s own little golden-winged horse ‘Pegasus’, first created in 1926 as a polo prize in England and now presented to the Most Valuable Player of the Coronation Cup international in the UK.
‘After the Cartier exhibition’ says Jeanne, ‘we went back to the people who had loaned items asking if they would donate them to the polo museum. Happily most agreed.’
For four years, from 1988 to 1991, a small museum exhibition was housed in rented space adjacent to the offices of the USPA in the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. The museum’s Hall of Fame began to mark the USPA’s centenary in 1990. The first inductees that year were 10-goalers Tommy Hitchcock, Stewart Iglehart, Devereux Milburn, Robert Skene and Cecil Smith. The following 58 Hall of Fame inductees were all Americans – until 2008 – when Argentine Gonzalo Pieres became the first foreign player to be so honoured. The 2009 inductees were former American 10-goaler Owen Rinehart and the late Gonzalo Tanoira of Argentina.
‘The Lexington site failed to attract much attention’ says the Museum of Polo’s current director George Dupont, who first became involved with the project in 1988.
1 The main building 2 Founder, Hugh Jeremy Chisholm 3 From left: George DuPont, Brenda Lynn and John Walsh
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1 A display case from the original exhibition in 1987 2 Stephen A. Orthwein, Chairman of the Museum Board 3 From left: Cecilia and Gonzalo Pieres with Museum Director Melissa and her husband Marc Ganzi 4 Founder George C Sherman
‘So we began looking elsewhere, considering Westbury in New York and Aiken in South Carolina. We settled on Florida because of the big winter season there.’
Today’s National Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame finally opened its doors in 1997 in a one-story, purpose-built building at 9011 Lake Worth Road near Gulfstream Polo Club – not far from the International Polo Club Palm Beach. Leverett Miller, who trained as an architect, provided the concept. The 10-acre site, part of which was donated by Iglehart, and the building, cost a total of £1.3 million.
In 2000, the museum inaugurated its annual ‘Horses to Remember’ award that, over the past decade, has honoured such great and deserving ponies as Tommy Hitchcock’s Tobiano, Cecil Smith’s Badger and Bonnie J and John Oxley’s Burrito and Woody D (aka Stormy). The following year the museum added its Philip Iglehart Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Sport of Polo.
In the award’s second year the single honouree was not a pony but a groom and trainer, the African-American James Rice. Starting his career grooming for a mere 50 cents a match in Houston, Texas, Rice eventually rose to fame helping Cecil Smith to train ponies.
Last year the museum opened a $400,000 extension, which it rents out as office space to the USPA and the association’s official publication, the Polo Players Edition.
The museum has two full-time employees: George Dupont, executive director and his wife Brenda Lynn, director of development. Stephen A Orthwein, a former USPA chairman, is the current chairman of the board.
Orthwein admits that the museum still struggles financially, despite having recently benefited from a million dollar endowment from the Oxley Foundation, matching money raised by the museum through donations and various fund-raising activities.
‘It costs us $180,000 a year in just operating costs,’ he says. ‘We are only allowed to spend the income from and 10% of any capital growth of our endowments.’
The National Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame had high hopes of raising more money from its historic revival of the Westchester Cup, but corporate sponsorship fell through and profits only totalled some $30,000.
‘Otherwise the Westchester was an outstanding success. I think it definitely helped to raise the profile of the museum, as well as that of international polo in the US,’ says Orthwein.
‘So much so, that we are now looking at the possibility of organising another international next year, perhaps between the USA and Argentina.’
