Natalie Mai Vitetti

Who was Natalie Mai Vitetti?

Natalie Mai Coe, Countess Vitetti was the only daughter of insurance and railroad executive William Robertson Coe and Mai Huttleston Coe.

Natalie Mai Coe was educated by private tutors until adolescence when she attended the Foxcroft School in Virginia. She graduated from the Spence School in New York City in 1930. She made her New York society debut that year, on the evening of 25 December, at a Southern-plantation-theme ball held in her honor at the Ritz-Carlton. The decorations included the installation of a mock Southern house, with a painting by Hoppner hanging above the a brick fireplace in the drawing room. As the New York Times reported the following day, "The ballroom and its approaches had been transformed to represent, as nearly as possible, Cherokee Plantation, the old home of [her father and stepmother, the former Caroline Graham Slaughter] near Charleston, S.C. A winding hedge of lofty cedar trees led from the entrance hall up the broad grass-carpeted stairway to the portico of the Southern Colonial homestead, red brick façade with four white columns and heavy cornices and pediment reaching to the ceiling, which had been covered with blue gauze dotted with silver stars to represent the sky."