Alice Lee (civic leader)

Alice Lee was born on May 27, 1853, in Westport, New York, the daughter of Colonel Francis L. Lee (1823-1886) and Sarah Mary Anne Wilson.[1] She was the second cousin of Theodore Roosevelt's wife, Alice Hathaway Lee.[2]

Lee was educated in Boston, where the family spent the winters.[1]

Lee was a supporter of the Progressive movement, and other than Theodore Roosevelt, she was friends with Florence Nightingale, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the family of Amos Bronson Alcott.[3]

In 1887 Alice Lee purchased Marvin House and transformed it in a posh hotel. Additional "cottages" were built and also a boathouse, gardens, tennis and croquet courts, a 6-hole Golf course and the annex on the other side of Main Street. The Westport Inn was demolished in 1966.[1] Alice Lee’s brother, Thomas Lee, built the pipes to bring water from Mountain Spring down to the hotel. He also bottled the water to sold it and later the pipes became the town water supply.[4] Lee sold the property to Harry P. Smith in the early 1900s.[1]

Lee assisted the fund-raising efforts for both the Westport Library (1888) and the Cutting Memorial Hall addition (1907).[4]

In 1902 Lee moved to San Diego to find a better climate and met the Marston family, already involved in the Progressive movement and through them also Lee joined the movement.[2][1]

In San Diego Lee was a member of First Unitarian Church, Wednesday Club, Civic Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and other groups for cultural and civic development.[2]

She was also President of the San Diego Museum, the Balboa Park Auditorium Association, and the Balboa Park Commission. She was Honorary Director of the Women’s Civic Center and Director of the Natural History Museum.[2]

She founded the Open Forum, a group that was devoted to discuss social, political, and international issues. In 1935 the Open Forum was "oldest continuous non-legislative forum of free public discussion in the United States" and it closed in the 1970s.[2]

She campaigned for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. She represented the California Progressive Party at the National Convention held in Chicago.[3]

She led the "Save the Beaches" campaign which purpose was to open to public beaches in San Diego and which was instrumental to develop the public playground system.[3]

Alice Lee was close friends with both the wife of Grover Cleveland, Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston, and that of Theodore Roosevelt, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, and was often a guest at the White House. Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, and Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston were often guests at Lee's San Diego home at 7th Ave.[3]

Lee lived together with Katherine Teats from 1902 to 1943, when Lee died. In 1905 they commissioned Hazel Wood Waterman, with the supervision of Irving Gill, to build three residences in San Diego, Alice Lee Residence at 3574 7th Ave, Katherine Teats Cottage at 3560 7th Ave and Alice Lee Cottage at 3578 7th Ave. The compound shared a garden designed by botanist and landscape architect Kate Sessions. Lee and Teats lived in the main house and used the other two for rentals. Teats continued to live at Teats Cottage, a Prairie-style house which Lee granted to her in 1906, until she died in 1952.[3]

Lee and Teats is, according to the San Diego Historical Resource Board, "one of the first documented domestic partnerships in San Diego", being indeed documented living together in various Census records; in the 1930 Census, Lee was Head of Household and Teats was Partner (and not Lodger while often used in such cases). Together they owned various real estate properties in San Diego, and both had an active civic and social life, and they were accepted as a couple.[3]

Lee died on February 18, 1943, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was spending the winter, and is buried at Hillside Cemetery, Westport.[3][1]