Louis Graveraet Kaufman

This fascinating biography recounts the life and legacy of a titan of American banking, Louis Graveraet Kaufman (1870-1942). Also known as LG, he was a Gatsbyesque figure who built New York's Chatham Phenix National Bank into one of the largest in the country. Kaufman retained his Michigan roots, building the world's largest log structure, a 26,000-square-foot Adirondack-style lodge near Marquette where he hosted lavish, boozy Prohibition-era parties frequented by George Gershwin, Ethel Barrymore, and Joseph Kennedy. While LG's ethnicity and Jewish surname led to many obstacles, he maneuvered around them to live a life of social and financial triumph. Once a household name chronicled daily in the press, LG coordinated the takeover of General Motors in 1916 and financed the Empire State Building during the Great Depression, yet he has been overlooked by modern historians. Ann Berman chronicles his remarkable journey from "barefoot boy" in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to trailblazing banking giant, proving Kaufman was not only a man of his time but one worth reading about a century later.