The Spencer-Churchill family occupies one of England’s oldest and most magnificent stately homes. When they want to let it rip, they come to Palm Beach.

An excerpt from PALMER Vol. 8

“The clock’s gone wrong,” snaps James Spencer-Churchill, sounding much like any other homeowner irritated when he spots something off-kilter. But his clock crowns a gilded tower that rivals Big Ben. Ticking since 1710, it looms over the East Courtyard of Blenheim Palace, the 187-room Baroque behemoth set on more than 2,000 acres in Oxfordshire that has been home to his family for three centuries.

A changing of the guard occurred here in 2014, with the death at age 88 of James’s father, John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill, His Grace the 11th Duke of Marlborough. As the eldest son, James took the reins, becoming the 12th Duke. It was a transfer many social observers in Britain thought would never happen: the hard-partying James was long considered one of England’s most wayward heirs.

Meanwhile, his younger sister, Lady Henrietta, who studied art history and interior design and became an interior decorator, stuck by her father’s side, helping to run the vast estate. Now, a decade on, James, 69, has proven the doubters wrong. “I’ve got a very sharp pair of eyes. I notice everything,” he says as we walk around Blenheim in February. “My father was very much a stickler for everything looking immaculate, and James is the same way,” Henrietta says. “James and I have a very good partnership, which is wonderful,” she adds. “I do things he doesn’t like to do and vice versa. There are things he’s much better at than I am. It works really well.”

One of Britain’s most renowned stately homes, Blenheim has surprisingly strong ties to Palm Beach, thanks to James and Henrietta’s American great-grandmother, Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. In her richly illustrated new book, Blenheim: 300 Years of Life in a Palace, just published by Rizzoli, Henrietta takes readers on a comprehensive yet very personal tour through her family home, bringing alive many of the great characters who have lived there over the centuries. With seven acres under its roof, Blenheim arguably out does any of the British royal family’s homes in splendor. It is the only nonroyal, non-ecclesiastical residence in England styled a “Palace.”

Its cornerstone was laid in 1705, less than a year after the 1st Duke of Marlborough’s pivotal victory against the French on the fields of Blenheim, in Bavaria. On behalf of “a grateful nation,” Queen Anne granted Marlborough and his heirs the royal manor of Woodstock, and Parliament voted to provide funds to build a suitably magnificent residence.

But costs to build what was to be not just a home, but a national monument, skyrocketed. In 1711, Parliament cut off funds; the Marlboroughs and the Queen fell out. When construction resumed in 1716, it was all on the Duke’s dime. Arguments over finances as well as aesthetic decisions continued for the next two decades. Architect Sir John Vanbrugh finally stormed off in a rage, leaving Nicholas Hawksmoor to complete the project, in 1733.

Its maintenance has been an albatross for every succeeding generation of the family. “My famous ancestor won the battle of Blenheim in one day—but his descendants have been fighting it ever since,” I was told several years ago by the 11th Duke, who was called Sunny, after his courtesy title, the Earl of Sunderland (though he could appear rather grumpy).

Thus, the dukes of Marlborough have sometimes had to marry not for love but for cash—the most famous example being the 1895 union of the 9th Duke and Consuelo Vanderbilt, the poster heiress of the Gilded Age. The only daughter of railroad millionaire William K. Vanderbilt and his domineering wife, Alva, Consuelo was virtually sold into marriage; her $2.5 million dowry (about $85 million today) was quickly used to shore up the leaky Palace.

Famously, the marriage was not a happy one. After she gave birth to two sons, the couple separated in 1906. Divorced in 1921, Consuelo was finally free to marry the love of her life, Colonel Jacques Balsan, a French aviator and balloonist, with whom she moved to France. In 1940, at the onset of the Nazi invasion, the Balsans were evacuated to the United States. Florida became their home. They commissioned architect Maurice Fatio to build a palatial residence on a 70-acre property they acquired in Manalapan, which she called Casa Alva. Here, they spent the winters until 1956, when she “downsized” to Lakeview House, an elegant Georgian-style mansion on El Vedado. She died in 1964.

Even as Blenheim remains home to the Spencer-Churchill family, it is one of England’s biggest tourist attractions, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nearly a million visitors per year queue up to tour its magnificent state rooms, and millions enter the park, designed by Capability Brown. In 2014, contemporary art was added to the mix, when James and Henrietta’s half-brother, Lord Edward, launched the nonprofit Blenheim Art Foundation, with a show of works by Ai Weiwei that were displayed throughout the Palace and on the grounds. Artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jenny Holzer, Yves Klein, and Cecily Brown have subsequently been the subjects of lauded solo exhibitions. 

In 2019, a show devoted to Maurizio Cattelan made headlines worldwide—for unintended reasons. In the pre-dawn hours only days after it opened, thieves broke into the Palace and managed to pry from the floorboards “America,” a fully functioning toilet made of 18-carat gold valued at approximately $6 million. 

“Talk about a heist! The thieves had cased the joint and knew exactly what they were after,” Henrietta tells me. “Our security is much tighter now,” she adds. (While three suspects were caught, the purloined potty has not been seen since.)

This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol. 8. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.