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Holiday House, a Home for “Mad” Women?

The parallel lives of its owners Taylor Swift and Rebekah Harkness

Heather Jauquet
4 min readMay 5, 2021
Photo by Daniel Prado on Unsplash

On July 24, 2020, amid a pandemic, Taylor Swift dropped her 8th album, folklore with a surprise release.

A natural-born storyteller, Taylor Swift shares her writing process and inspiration during the folklore: the long pond sessions documentary on Disney+. During conversations with co-collaborators and producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, Swift shares how her work on folklore is inspired by stories of someone other than herself.

Swift, known for her autobiographical songwriting, shared that the pandemic gave her time to move beyond the realm of her own experiences and reflect on those of other people. Unlike previous albums, Swift’s pandemic albums folklore and evermore share the point of view and life stories of other people. In her song, the last great american dynasty Swift uses her storytelling talents to share and highlight the life of Rebekah Harkness, the eccentric wife of the heir to the Standard Oil fame, William, “Bill” Harkness.

In the folklore documentary, Jack Antonoff says, “That song is such a folklore moment. The song is not about you, but it’s all about you.”

In 2013 Swift purchased her home Holiday House, a mansion located in Watch Hill, Rhode…

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Heather Jauquet
Heather Jauquet

Written by Heather Jauquet

Writer. Wife. Mom. Runner. Crocheter. Cancer patient in a pandemic.

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