The last testimony of Tesla’s life in the USA was discovered only recently, thanks to writer Barbara Dadino, the owner of a house on Long Island where one of the greatest minds of humanity lived during the realization of his grandiose vision – the construction of the laboratory and the famous Wardenclyffe Tower.
Dadino turned years of research on Tesla and a part of the lost history of Wardenclyffe, where he moved from New York because of a great dream, into the book “Return to Wardenclyffe,” recently published in Serbia as well.
“The story I discovered about Tesla is truly incredible,” Dadino told Tanjug, recalling that because of this “never-before-told story,” she received the title of Tesla Ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, of which she is proud.
She states that five years ago, a plaque was placed on the house as a testimony to the period of Tesla’s life in it, which, she added, was a time of both his greatest happiness and sadness.
The words of Tesla’s biographer Marc Seifer, one of the most influential in the world who dedicated half a century to Tesla’s achievements, are written on the plaque; thanks to that research, he earned a doctorate and became the author of numerous books, including “Wizard.”
“Tesla rented this house in 1902; it was his home during the construction of the laboratory and the Wardenclyffe Tower based on one of Tesla’s most revolutionary ideas about a global, wireless system for communication and energy transmission. There he loved to swim in the bay and to operate his own invention – a remote-controlled boat – from the elevation in the back of the yard, as well as from the shore itself,” Dadino said.
Barbara and her partner Daniel Byrne, great admirers of Tesla’s character and work, learned that the “father of the electric age” lived in the house only after they became owners of the house on the Atlantic in 2011; since then, as she says, they have been working on preserving the memory of the Serbian-American giant of humanity and welcome everyone who comes to see it with special joy.
“The house enchanted us immediately, but only after two years when our second offer to buy was accepted, the owners told us ‘you know, Nikola Tesla lived here.’ Dan and I almost fainted, because we are big fans of Tesla, but we never knew that he lived there,” Dadino said, adding that this fact was not known even to people from the surrounding area, which prompted her to research.
“In the beginning, I leafed through old newspapers over coffee looking for evidence that Tesla had a house here. My interest in Tesla grew and not only did I find evidence that he lived here, but I discovered what a magnificent man and researcher he was. I discovered who he hung out with, that he talked to children, neighbors, farmers, that he was also interested in agriculture,” she said.
In Wardenclyffe he led a life different from New York, although he was very busy with the laboratory and the tower, said Dadino, with whom Tanjug, as the bearer of the Tesla Ambassador title, spoke as part of the series “Tesla Man of the Future,” filmed with the support of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications.
“He planned to live here for the rest of his life. He wanted to build an entire ‘City Beautiful – Radio City’, in the spirit of the movement of the same name,” she stated and emphasized that the house was supposed to be his headquarters, the center of the world for electrical energy.
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In the book, as Dadino stated, she wrote not only about Tesla, who was then a world star, part of the New York elite, but also about Wardenclyffe, history, events, and the reasons why he came to Long Island.
Tesla arrived in Wardenclyffe at the time of its “bloom” – after the railway expanded services from New York to eastern Long Island and investor James Warden came up with the idea to create an exclusive resort on the ocean shore that would live all year round.
Woodville Farms was named Wardenclyffe after him at that very time.
Dadino recalls that in 1901, Tesla bought 200 of the 2,000 acres that Warden owned and built the famous laboratory and tower on that land, which was financed by J.P. Morgan and designed by one of the associates of the famous American architect Stanford White, whose project is also the first Madison Square Garden – the most famous New York indoor arena, but also the Washington Arch, which resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Tesla and White, as Dadino recalled, also imagined a new “city beautiful.”
“While the laboratory was being built in 1901, Tesla arrived every day by train from New York to supervise the works, and in June 1902, he moved all activities to Wardenclyffe. He rented a house by the sea and this became his home for the next two years. In March 1901, he convinced J.P. Morgan to finance him with $150,000 for the construction of the laboratory and tower. He came by train to Wardenclyffe, which was then a village with dirt roads, orchards, and farms. He was attracted by the proximity of the 41st parallel, necessary for communication across the ocean, but also by the friendships that bound him to this place,” SHE said.
Tesla had the privacy here that was necessary for him, but also the proximity to New York and friends like Stanford White and Mark Twain.
“Everything he needed was within reach, plus he could walk to the laboratory. It was one of the happiest periods of his life,” Dadino said.
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She recalled that things changed later when the split with Morgan occurred, who stopped financing him partly because Tesla made the tower twice as high as agreed and did not even inform him about it.
“Unfortunately, Tesla’s funds ran out before he managed to finish the tower, which is why he returned to New York in 1904 to seek additional financial support when Morgan gave up on his dream,” she said.
The tower, which when tested emitted light that was seen as far as neighboring Connecticut, was demolished and turned into scrap metal in 1919, while the laboratory was seized a bit later – however, she adds, Tesla never gave up on the dream of a system of wireless transmission of messages and energy throughout the world.
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“Tesla invested all his money in the project. He was exhausted, he suffered a nervous breakdown, but he still considered this place a refuge. He wrote that he would like to return to Wardenclyffe, current Shoreham, and lie down ‘in a bed of wild onions’ that grew all around,” Dadino stated.
“He invented the motor that enabled the use of alternating current and started the turbines at Niagara. In Colorado, he proved the theory that the Earth can produce energy and that this energy can be sent around the world. His vision was to improve humanity. As early as 1900, he wrote about the problem of increasing human energy – not just electrical, but about how people can become better through education, health, sufficient food, and without wars,” she stated.
Dadino emphasized that Tesla believed that the energy he would send through the world could help people be fed, educated, and make wars meaningless.
According to her words, that house on Long Island was the only one in which he lived since leaving Smiljan, and it is known that he stayed in numerous hotels from the New Yorker and Waldorf Astoria to the Gerlach, which is today a residential building named Radio Wave in his honor.
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“The house offers a 180-degree view of the ocean between Long Island and the mainland where Tesla would swim and perform tricks that caused children and people to gather to watch him. He was in contact with local people and invited personal friends to the house,” Dadino stated.
She says the house has become a place of pilgrimage for Tesla’s admirers, and that she is surprised by how much people respect Tesla, especially when she saw a guy helping them with the kitchen setup who had Tesla’s face tattooed on his arm.
“People come and are spontaneously touched by the fact that he lived here,” Dadino said, adding that they have been visited by numerous distinguished guests so far, including Tesla’s descendants William Terbo and Dusan who lives in Singapore, as well as Tesla’s most famous biographers Marc Seifer and Bernard Carlson who are frequent guests.
Dadino states that in July, organized by the Consulate General of Serbia, they celebrated Tesla’s birthday for the first time in the presence of guests from all parts of the world.
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Source / Photo: Tanjug/Aleksandra Otašević