’Wee Wah Beach Club’ discussion

The Woodbury Historical Society will host author Stuart J. McGregor for a special public program covering the intricate history of Orange County’s Tuxedo Park on July 27 beginning at 2 p.m. The event will take place at the Town of Woodbury Senior Center, 16 County Route 105 in Highland Mills. Light food and refreshments will be served.

In his new book “The Wee Wah Beach Club in Tuxedo Park: An American Story of Social Change,” McGregor takes his audience on a journey inside the gates, beginning with the creation of this place through to the present day. It is a place where the social stratification of America can be seen as a microcosm of what’s happening today and the social changes that have taken place over the last 130 years.

Pierre Lorillard IV, of the tobacco family, created the community in 1885, located 38 miles outside of New York City, as a form of a private club. This exclusive community is where the men’s formal wear known as a tuxedo got its name. It is a place built by Italian and Slovak immigrants, serviced from outside the gates and staffed by Irish cooks and maids, English butlers, and Scottish gardeners inside the gates on the estates.

Americans have long had a fascination with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Award-winning series such as “Downton Abbey” and the follow-up of the “Gilded Age” series recount the lives of those at the top of society in Victorian England and the United States There is one place, unlike the remaining mansions on Fifth Avenue off Central Park, where mansions built during the Gilded Age survive as private residences.

For more information about the program, call (845) 928-6770 or email Woodbury1889@optonline.net.