William Pierre Stymus, Jr. (1862-1944) was elected to The Lambs in 1893 as a Theatrical member. He was a notable interior designer who counted as clients Andrew Carnegie, the Rockefellers, and the Metropolitan Opera Company.
He was a member of one of the oldest Dutch families in New York. He was born in New York on January 22, 1862. His father, William Pierre Stymus, Sr., founded the furniture decorating firm and cabinet maker Pottier & Stymus Co. in 1854, and the son was president and director in the firm.
Stymus was internationally famous as an expert on antiques and objet d’art. He was one of the most important dealers in the field. He was also a director of a bank.
Stymus made international news in 1936, when he was involved in a scandal with a beautiful actress, who he had hired in 1933 to be a nurse and companion, but in reality it led to something else. Newspapers described Thelka Reardon, a 30-year-old former movie actress, as “a shapely blonde.” They met in Havana, and Stymus hired her as a nurse when he was 77. The couple traveled to his home in Palm Beach, Mexico City, Hollywood, and Palm Springs. He had a mansion in Port Chester, New York. They spent the winter in Hawaii.
Reardon claimed he promised her $200 a month for life, $5,000 at the end of 1933, and $100,000 in his will for serving as his nurse and traveling companion. She insisted he was feeble and unable to take care of himself. When he fired her in 1936, Reardon filed a $196,000 breach of contract suit when he said that she was not his nurse and companion, but only his mistress. The trial played out during the height of the Depression. He said in court, “She was no nurse; she was my mistress.” Stymus won in court when the state supreme court ruled against Reardon.
He retired to his mansion in Port Chester. In his later years he was active in the Holland Society.
On April 7, 1944, Stymus died of heart disease and pneumonia in Port Chester. He was 82. He is interred in the family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx.
—Researched and written by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, Shepherd of The Lambs, 2025.