John R. Drexel

[b] In 1929, the Drexels sold their New York mansion was sold to 65-year old James Blanchard Clews, senior partner of the brokerage house Henry Clews & Co.[c] In Newport, Rhode Island, they built a modest cottage known as Cliff Lawn, which was later given to son John, after which they acquired and extensively remodeled, likely by Trumbauer, into a massive Tudor revival mansion called Fairholme at Ochre Point, down the street from Cliff Lawn.

[12] Fairholme had been designed in the Stick style by Frank Furness and built between 1874 and 1875 for Philadelphia arts patron and engineer Fairman Rogers.

After several years at the Hotel Ritz, they bought a large townhouse at 34 Rue François Premier in Paris and filled it with French antique furniture.

[14] On April 27, 1886, Drexel was married to Alice Gordon Troth (1865–1947) at St. James' Episcopal Church in Philadelphia by the Rev.

[16] Together, they were the parents of four children:[15] In 1903, his wife was a guest of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at a ball in Windsor Castle, and at luncheon at Ascot.

[26] Through his son John Jr., he was a grandfather of John Rozet Drexel III (1919–2007), who married Noreen Stonor,[27] a daughter of Ralph Stonor, 5th Baron Camoys (and his American wife Mildred Constance Sherman) of Stonor Park,[28][29][d] David Anthony Drexel (1927–2003),[31] who married Joan Gripenberg (daughter of Georg Achates Gripenberg, the Finnish Minister to London, Sweden, and the United Nations),[32] and Jane Barbour Drexel (1929–2008),[33] who married Harry Marshall Vale Jr.,[34][35] and John Porteous II,[36] Through his daughter Alice, he was a grandfather of Edwin Gerald William Barrett (1920–1921), who died aged 10 months from meningitis.