The recent, uh, affair of Robert Kraft reminds me of one of Tom Yawkey's side businesses. A few years after he purchased the Red Sox in 1933, Yawkey bankrolled a whorehouse called "The Sunset Lodge" near his winter home in South Carolina.
If you travel near Georgetown, SC, you encounter Tom Yawkey's name quite a bit. There is the Tom Yawkey wing of the local hospital (currently managing Covid cases), there is a street named after him, there's the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center Preserve. And between 1936 and 1969 you could visit one of Yawkey's most popular institutions, the Sunset Lodge.
This tale is best told in Bill Nowlin's biography of Yawkey, but here's a sketch:
For most of his adult life, Yawkey spent 3-4 months a year at his "plantation" (sometimes with, sometimes without, Jean Yawkey), and he became a familiar figure in the nearby community of Georgetown. To Yawkey's credit, he was often the first to respond to local fundraisers, relief efforts, and public projects that needed private funds. He is still well-regarded in that part of South Carolina.
You can decide for yourself if Yawkey's decision to purchase of an old "tourist camp" and hand it over to a madam named Hazel Weisse can be considered public service. The city fathers of Georgetown were worried that local laborers were apt to get into trouble, so Tom obliged by recruiting Miss Hazel, who has previously run a bordello in Florence, South Carolina, to solve the problem.
Tom was not only the owner, but a client, and Jean apparently brushed that off as "boys will be boys." Nowlin debunks the myth that the entire Red Sox squad stopped at the lodge after spring training one year, but since Yawkey did host his favorite players for week-long hunting trips during the off-season, I suppose you can speculate as to whether Ted or Yaz ever swung a bat at Miss Hazel's place.
The Sunset Lodge operated with the full cooperation of the local law enforcement, and even closed to the public down one week a year to host members of the SC legislature.
Eventually local churches got upset about the fun times, and one account has the sheriff asking Yawkey for help: "He went out to Mr. Yawkey's plantation and sat with him and patiently explained why it had to be closed. That was the kind of deference Yawkey was shown -- the sheriff apologizing for closing his whorehouse."
If you travel near Georgetown, SC, you encounter Tom Yawkey's name quite a bit. There is the Tom Yawkey wing of the local hospital (currently managing Covid cases), there is a street named after him, there's the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center Preserve. And between 1936 and 1969 you could visit one of Yawkey's most popular institutions, the Sunset Lodge.
This tale is best told in Bill Nowlin's biography of Yawkey, but here's a sketch:
For most of his adult life, Yawkey spent 3-4 months a year at his "plantation" (sometimes with, sometimes without, Jean Yawkey), and he became a familiar figure in the nearby community of Georgetown. To Yawkey's credit, he was often the first to respond to local fundraisers, relief efforts, and public projects that needed private funds. He is still well-regarded in that part of South Carolina.
You can decide for yourself if Yawkey's decision to purchase of an old "tourist camp" and hand it over to a madam named Hazel Weisse can be considered public service. The city fathers of Georgetown were worried that local laborers were apt to get into trouble, so Tom obliged by recruiting Miss Hazel, who has previously run a bordello in Florence, South Carolina, to solve the problem.
Tom was not only the owner, but a client, and Jean apparently brushed that off as "boys will be boys." Nowlin debunks the myth that the entire Red Sox squad stopped at the lodge after spring training one year, but since Yawkey did host his favorite players for week-long hunting trips during the off-season, I suppose you can speculate as to whether Ted or Yaz ever swung a bat at Miss Hazel's place.
The Sunset Lodge operated with the full cooperation of the local law enforcement, and even closed to the public down one week a year to host members of the SC legislature.
Eventually local churches got upset about the fun times, and one account has the sheriff asking Yawkey for help: "He went out to Mr. Yawkey's plantation and sat with him and patiently explained why it had to be closed. That was the kind of deference Yawkey was shown -- the sheriff apologizing for closing his whorehouse."
