TRINITY CENTER Let s start with the beginning The Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina Trinity Center is located on 62 maritime forest acres encompassing both Bogue Sound and Atlantic Ocean frontage in Pine Knoll Shores North Carolina. Trinity Center has come to be known as a rich legacy and resource for the region. A special place for conferences, reunions, and engaging summer camps. The establishment of the conference and camp retreat began with a land parcel gift to the Diocese by Alice Green Hoffman. The donation included her expressed condition that construction begin within five years toward the goal of building a camp for young people. Alice s name is known and tossed around on Emerald Isle with whispers of Roosevelt relatives. What is the story? How did Trinity Center, the preservation of natural land, and stretch of beach that we know today begin? Where did the money come from? Alice Green was born in her grandfather s brownstone house on 5 th Ave and 34 th Street in Manhattan on June 8 th, 1862. Her grandfather, Theron Butler, was president of the NY Railroad Corporation and principle owner of the 6 th Avenue Train Line. He had made some money as a dry goods merchant, however the impressive and perpetual stream of capital began with his entry into railroads. In those days the legs of the railroads were built and owned by a number of private companies. Railroads were still new, unconsolidated, and the race was on to get the permits, permission, and steel to get the rails up and running. Theron s rail line, the 6 th Ave, was only 4 miles long but it covered prime Manhattan real estate. It was raised or built on steel columns that ran above the NY streets. The way the business model worked in those days was, the line company built the tracks and would then lease use to one, two, or three train companies to transport people and goods. Sure and steady income. By the 1870s, Theron s company merged with the other Manhattan line owners and business was full steam ahead to connect to Lake Erie in western New York. Alice was raised in the traditional NY upper crust fashion of the Victorian era. Think first class from the movie Titanic. Alice attended Porters School for Girl s in Connecticut, summers in Maine, and trips to Europe. Her Father Albert Green was always away on business. He kept a house in Orange New Jersey, and owned a chain of Ohio department stores. This situation is why her mother chose to live with Alice s grandparents. In 1872 when Alice was ten, her mother died from complications after the birth of their third daughter, Mary. The girls were then raised by their grandparents in the Butler house. In 1886, Grandfather Theron Butler died leaving trusts and real estate to his three grand-daughters. Alice was 24 years old and began to further invest in New York real estate. From this point Alice sets out on an independent life of international luxury. She and her sister made trips to Paris, where she found a home at 29 Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Alice volleyed back and forth from her homes in Paris and New York for nearly 20 years spending summers socializing in South Hampton NY, Rhode Island, as well as taking trips to spend time with royalty in Denmark and Sweden. Alice jumped into a foray of horse breeding and racing where she beat two Vanderbilt horses at the Grand Prix at Longchamp in Paris. Exciting times. At age 38 her father died and left her the three Green department stores in Ohio. Alice Green finally settles down and marries at age 43 to John Ellis Hoffman in Paris. They remain married for only five years, and its back to the comfort and tempo of her independence. Over the decades her sisters married and had children. Alice s niece Eleanor Butler Alexander eventually meets Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and marries. That s the actual Roosevelt connection often whispered about on Emerald Isle.
New York Sixth Avenue Raised Train Line with crowded 6th Ave below. Owned by Alice s grandfather Theron Butler. By June 1878, its route ran north from the corner of Rector Street and Trinity Place up Trinity Place / Church Street, then west for a block at Murray Street, then north again on West Broadway, west again across West 3rd Street to the foot of Sixth Avenue, and then north to 59th Street.
Alice is 50 in 1912 when the Titanic sinks, and her horse, Flush Royal, wins at the Paris Longchamp Hippodrome. WWI begins to stir in 1914 which leads Alice to a new path. She evacuates Paris and heads back home to Manhattan. She allows her niece and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. to stay in her Paris house during their war relief efforts. Alice looks for a new investment project for something to do while state-side. She hears about a tract of prospective property that could enjoy the development success that Florida had seen. A place on the North Carolina coast called Pine Island. She visits Carteret County, NC in 1915, and rents a cottage. In 1917, she buys 2,000 acres on Bogue banks with the hope of making the parcel a productive and profitable dairy farm. After the WWI Armistice is signed, Alice returns to Paris at age 56. Once in Paris she sees that all of the French livestock herds have been decimated by the war and decides to help with the restoration effort by raising Holstein-Friesian cattle on Bogue Banks to give to France. She does end up shipping 10 head of cattle to France. When she turns 60, she buys herself a new house in France and continues to work on the plans for the North Carolina dairy farm. At 63 she is invited to be the guest of the English ambassador to China to enjoy a four month stay in Asia. Still very much an active person. Not someone hunkered down on an empty island in North Carolina as some stories suggest. She was 67 when the stock market crashed October 29, 1929. Alice had just arrived in NY from Paris on Oct. 22. She immediately booked a trip to see her niece Eleanor Roosevelt in Puerto Rico. It is my guess that the discussion to form a protected joint venture of remaining assets was discussed while in Puerto Rico. The Eastern Properties Company was formed. Alice liquidated her New York holdings with the exception of her penthouse which she remodeled when she turned 70. Alice charged ahead into adversity with a new adventure of riding an Indian Motorcycle from New York to the Bogue Banks. An impressive journey for anyone before Eisenhower s construction of the national highway system. By age 74 she had disposed of her remaining property in Paris. World War II and the Nazis had made a real mess of France. In 1949 at age 87 Alice Green Hoffman gifted the beautiful acreage of Trinity Center to the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina with the request that it remain commercially undeveloped, a place for groups to come together and serve as a camp for youth. Alice died at 91 in her Shore House, 1953. The legacy and ripple effect of Alice s gift to Eastern North Carolina is remarkable. The number of people who have been enriched by the presence of Trinity Center is difficult to calculate. Trinity Center is a perpetual gift. What will your legacy be? -Ben Harper 1933 Indian Motorcycle. Alice road an Indian from New York to Bogue Banks when she was 71.