As anticipation builds around New York’s fall auctions, PALMER takes a look back at the extraordinary Palm Beach home of collectors Hilary and Wilbur Ross.
This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol.7. To see the full story, purchase your copy of the magazine here.
All things considered, it’s a pretty good engagement present.
Wilbur Ross, legendary businessman and onetime United States Secretary of Commerce under Donald Trump’s first term, purchased Windsong, his 12,000-square-foot Georgian Revival Palm Beach home, during his engagement to Hilary Geary, in 2003. Built in 1939, it was an original John L. Volk. The property appealed to her at first sight, especially the “great big southern exposure directly on the Intracoastal.”
“Not too many houses have this great wide expanse,” explains Hilary Geary Ross, the columnist, philanthropist, and author of Palm Beach People. “It’s magnificent. It’s so bright, and the view is amazing. It changes all the time with the light and the tide. I never get bored of that view.”
Hilary had a sense that Windsong would be a home she and Wilbur could live in for a long time, and she outfitted it as such. She hired the esteemed designer Bunny Williams to help with interiors. Later, she brought on her frequent collaborator, the equally venerated Mario Buatta. The property, she says, “hasn’t changed too much over the years. We just replace things when they get worn out.” The biggest change, she explains, happened when the couple sold their house in Washington in 2021. Scott Snyder helped them fold the furniture from that home into Windsong: “He did that brilliantly.”
A painting by Yacai Qiu hangs in the library.
“That being said, there’s always a rearrangement of artwork, and that’s an ongoing process,” she explains of the couple’s large art collection. “It’s always interesting to move an artwork. The light changes it, as does the position in the room.”
If nothing else, the couple know what they want and what they like, and that happens together. They have pretty much been inseparable since 2002. They first met in 1995, but were both in relationships at the time. Several years later and both single, they reconnected at a party given by hedge fund manager Amanda Haynes-Dale in East Hampton. Hilary had split from her second husband; Wilbur, from his second wife.
One of eight large sculptures Magritte conceived in 1967, “Le Thérapeute” is a three-dimensional interpretation of an earlier painting by the artist.
A few days later, Wilbur came to pick Hilary up at her home in Southampton for a date in his convertible, “with the top down,” she recalls. “I wanted to impress her,” he says.
“Both love going out every night,” Haynes-Dale told the New York Times in their wedding announcement. They had two wedding parties in October 2004: one at Hilary’s home in Southampton after a ceremony at Dune Church; a second for 300 friends took place at the Rainbow Room, with banana splits.
A guest room inside the pavilion, which the Rosses added on when they bought the home next door.
Now married for two decades, they are still always moving, going out, and entertaining at home. The last year has been a whirlwind of travel to promote Ross’s bestselling memoir Risk and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life, which Ross wrote in nine months. “I loved every minute of it,” he says of the writing process. He seems to equally have enjoyed an Energizer Bunny of a book tour, which took the couple to nearly 60 cities, including such social stops as Nantucket, Newport, Savannah, Austin, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, the Reagan Library, and events with groups of entrepreneurs at Yale and Harvard. (Ross has a BA from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.) “Oh, and don’t forget Sea Island, Georgia,” says Hilary. “And of course, Palm Beach.”
A table is set for a dinner party in the ballroom, which can seat 80 guests.
The couple are having a late breakfast at Claridge’s in London, a city where, yes, they seem to know everyone in the dining room, too. And after some iced tea, it’s off to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, England, birthplace of Winston Churchill, for an event. (Hilary has worked with the Blenheim Foundation for years.) Then a quick jaunt to Los Angeles (another book event) and, finally, back to their home base of Windsong.
One thing they may not totally see eye-to-eye on is discussing interior decorating. Wilbur likes talking about it “a little bit,” Hilary says, with a laugh. “I think he’s fairly interested. I’m wildly interested. In fact, I’m obsessed with it.”
Lead image: Hilary Geary Ross at home. Behind her hangs “Le Pèlerin,” 1966, by René Magritte.