Julia Sanza, Julia’s aunt, was a direct witness to the comings and goings of the false Hispanophile who “made one of the most tragic bloodsheds imaginable in the Spanish artistic heritage,” in the words of professors José Miguel Merino de Cáceres and María José Martínez Ruiz, with the sending to the United States of the monasteries of Sacramenia (Segovia) and Óvila (Guadalajara), as the most unfortunate events. Her nephew, Alfonso Sanza Santaolalla, born in Madrid in 1944, was barely a child when he lived in the basement of the mansion at number 3 on Calle Don Ramón de la Cruz, the spectacular mansion with a 3,000 square meter garden, next to Calle Serrano where Arthur Byne lived. The American architect and plunderer had died in 1935; his wife, Mildred Stapley, in 1941.
In Madrid in the 1930s, when she was just a child, Julia took advantage of the golden opportunity that her parents’ jobs had given her, as they worked in the mansion of Don Ramón de la Cruz for the Bynes: she learned English and even worked as a courier, carrying letters by bicycle to certain meeting places for foreigners, where interests close to those of the Bynes were brewing, in the midst of the pre-war environment (Spanish Civil War and World War II).
Mildred would leave Julia several personal belongings of the couple, and a financial inheritance – 1,000 dollars – that the Sanzas would never collect. Julia died a little over a year ago, and now her nephew Alfonso is the closest depository of that memory and, for decades, the custodian of those intriguing objects: a travel suitcase, a leather bag to carry thermoses, maps of Spain and France from a century ago and history and art books from various provinces of the country. Alfonso has no doubt: it is, let’s say, the kit with which Arthur Byne traveled around Spain… and plundered the country’s heritage.
The story that links the Sanzas to the Bynes begins in the 1920s in the family’s village, Fresnillo de las Dueñas (Burgos). Alfonso’s grandfather, Adolfo Sanza Pastor, was involved in an incident that sent him to prison for a time. With an uncertain economic situation and in a severely impoverished Spain, the grandmother, Eusebia Medrano, did not hesitate to travel to Madrid to work as a wet nurse. After a decade, the couple – reunited and already established in the capital – came into contact with the Bynes, who had just acquired (1931) a luxurious mansion at number 3 Don Ramón de la Cruz.
Arthur Byne and Mildred Stapley had arrived in Spain in 1910 to work as commissioners for the Hispanic Society of America in New York, an institution for which they carried out various editorial works on the country’s art and took hundreds of photographs of its monuments. Their relationship with the founder of this institution, Archer Milton Huntington, was broken in 1921, due, according to what can be deduced from their diaries, to the architect’s excessive financial ambition. From that moment on, Byne’s complete dedication to the art trade would bring the couple a much more comfortable economic situation, which explains the purchase of the mansion in Madrid.
“Grandma started working in the house as a housekeeper, and later, grandfather joined as a janitor,” says Alfonso Sanza, surrounded by family photos from that time, which are piled up on the table in the living room of his house in Madrid. “She must have been like the soul of that house, she took care of everything, while my grandfather was responsible for making sure things worked: he took care of the maintenance of the coal heating or the cleaning of the garden, which was almost 3,000 square meters,” he explains. Alfonso had not yet been born, but the family—who lived in the basement of the building—was aware of Byne’s business, of his trips through Spanish villages in a luxury Buick vehicle, searching for treasures in remote churches and confiscated monasteries. “I’ll tell you an anecdote: In the family it has always been said that Byne discovered the monastery of Sacramenia by chance: he was travelling in the province of Segovia and when he arrived in the village, late in the day, he asked for accommodation. The neighbours told him to go to the monastery, which, in addition to being a stable for the cattle, had large rooms where he could sleep. And so he did. The next day, surprised by the monastery, he began negotiations to be able to take its stones to the United States,” says Alfonso, about the sale made in 1925 to the American press magnate William Randolph Hearst.
But the prosperous life of the Bynes (at the expense of the Spanish heritage) was suddenly cut short. First, with the death of Byne in a tragic traffic accident with his vehicle in Ciudad Real (1935). Later, with the death of Mildred Stapley (1941), victim of cancer. The United States Government then acquired the mansion for diplomatic use by several ambassadors, in whose service the Sanzas worked for a few more years. The situation allowed Alfonso, as a child, to be moved from the village to there, with his grandparents, to be treated for an ear infection, and to stay permanently with them. “The basement had three rooms with windows facing the street, a beautiful kitchen, a dining room and at the back was the bathroom. We could access the garden, where I played with the butler’s son and the dog. There were also two ponds with Arabic decoration, where we fed the goldfish.”
Alfonso was also able to take a look around the house that the Bynes had left behind. “For my birthday, the ambassador asked me to go up: I remember a marble staircase with jasper columns, a kitchen larger than many restaurants, and, in a room on the top floor, more than a hundred paintings packed up, ready to be taken away.” Sanza also remembers the huge queues that formed outside the building, when his grandfather and other members of the Embassy handed out a loaf of bread and American propaganda, under threat from the Falangists, of course. Adolfo Sanza, the grandfather, would end up retiring from the Embassy (“He received his pension in dollars,” they say) and had to move with his family to Calle Alcalá. It was there that they found out, years later, that Mildred Stapley —Miss Mildred, as she is still called— had deposited $1,000 in an American bank for them, “but we were never able to collect it.”
Aunt Julia also lived in Alcalá. “When Julia moved to the USA, she sold the house and gave us a series of things that had belonged to Mr. Byne.” The same ones that Alfonso has kept safe for decades and that he now shows, surrounded by a certain halo of mystery. The first is a vintage brown leather suitcase, which he himself opens: inside, several road maps of France and Spain (one of the province of Ciudad Real can be distinguished) and a label that reveals where it was acquired: Luis Villegas (e Hijo), a travel articles establishment, located on Echegaray Street, advertised in the press at the beginning of the century. On the table there are also the books with which Byne must have documented his travels —volumes of Valladolid, Salamanca or Zamora from the romantic encyclopedia Beauties and memories of Spain, from the mid-19th century—, some photographs of the false Hispanist, an old envelope with his name as the recipient and, finally, a case, also in brown leather, to carry drinks.
There is one more object. It is actually a piece of furniture. It is a wooden chest that the family has carefully preserved all this time. Now that they are moving – almost a century after the damaging activity of the international agent – they are open to returning it to its original owner, if he appears. “We prefer, if it is known where it is from, that it be returned to its place, donated to its previous owners.” The memory, on the other hand – the happy years at the Byne residence and at the American Embassy – they keep with them, despite revealing to everyone a small part of such distant memories.
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