- - Before Taylor Swift, a forgotten love story unfolded at Holiday House

Bryan West, USA TODAY NETWORKFebruary 10, 2026 at 2:02 AM

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Taylor Swift's mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, is famous for its Fourth of July parties and for inspiring "The Last Great American Dynasty," but one of the most intimate stories tied to Holiday House lives on an old home movie. In grainy eight millimeter footage, a young bride named Yvonne Olsen smiles on the patio, runs down the concrete stairs to the ocean and draws her husband's name in the sand. She throws herself into a headstand and then rolls out laughing. Olsen's husband, John, films it all.

The 1951 videos recently resurfaced because the Olsens' daughter, Linda Witalis, rediscovered them in the spring of 2025 after her mother died.

“She was the bee's knees," Witalis said of her mother over Zoom. "I loved her lightness and her frivolity and her spark."

So how did Yvonne and John Olsen come to honeymoon at Holiday House?

Before Swift bought the mansion, it belonged to billionaires William Hale and Rebekah Harkness. John's father, William Lend Olsen, worked for them as a yacht captain, and his wife, Jennie, stayed behind as the home's winter caretaker when the Harknesses were away.

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Because John's parents lived on the property, the newlyweds were invited to stay at the mansion while his father was out on the yacht. For Yvonne, who grew up in a two-bedroom Michigan farmhouse on a dirt road and "had never even seen the ocean," the experience felt unreal.

"Can you imagine her?" Witalis said. "She still had an outhouse at home, and then they pull into this house on the ocean. She must have thought she struck gold."

The love story that brought her there unfolded quickly. Yvonne was 21. John was 31, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot sent to Traverse City, Michigan, on assignment. He first saw her singing at the U & I Lounge and flirted with her reflection in the bar mirror. Two nights later, they ran into each other at a dinner party on base.

"Oh my god, that's the girl that I was flirting with," John said to his friend. They went on one date. The next day he was on duty. The day after that, he picked her up again.

"He said, 'You know, Yvonne, I've been thinking about settling down,' and she said, 'So have I,'" Witalis recalled. "He hadn't even kissed her yet."

They married three days after they met and drove to Rhode Island.

"My father adored her," Witalis said. "I can see how he fell in love with her. He was from a stricter upbringing and military academy, and she was full of life."

After their honeymoon, the Olsens eventually settled in Westerly, Rhode Island. John retired from the Coast Guard to avoid moving his family around, and the couple raised Witalis and her brother in the beach town near Holiday House.

"I feel like I grew up with Ken and Barbie as parents," Witalis said. "They were just magical."

Yvonne and John Olsen honeymooned at Holiday House in Watch Hill, R.I. John's parents were the caretakers of the mansion for Rebekah Harkness.

Yvonne lived in Westerly until her death at 95. Even in her later years, as dementia set in, she still recognized the pull of that house. A senior home bus tour once drove past Holiday House.

"Your mother was so funny," the activities director told Witalis. "She pointed and said, 'I used to live there.'"

And she was right.

Shortly before talking with USA TODAY, Witalis returned to the beach behind the mansion with her boyfriend. She carried her parents' ashes, combined into a single container.

"We walked down on the beach behind the house and threw the ashes out and just kind of said, 'Mom, we're going to do this interview,'" she said. "We're going to send this out to the universe."

Witalis hopes Swift eventually hears the story of her parents.

"I just think she would love knowing that this love story took place in her home," Witalis said. "Aside from the craziness of Rebeka, there was this beautiful love story. These simple young people in love were in her home."

In Watch Hill, where stories travel faster than the ocean waves and where Swift's presence draws fans to the village's boutiques, Witalis' story is a reminder that Holiday House has always been a place for romance.

"You never know who you're going to meet or where your life is going to go," she said. "For my parents, it started right there."

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Before Taylor Swift, a forgotten love story unfolded at Holiday House

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