Victoria Hay Pacaud, a longstanding resident of the West End who divided her time between Bermuda and her home in New York City, has died at the age of 103.

Together with her first husband, Henry Lafayette Collins Jr, Mrs Pacaud owned Ely’s Lodge, a historic listed building in Somerset.

A socialite and former model for the New York designer Hattie Carnegie, she was a member of the Bermuda chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Mrs Pacaud’s deep and abiding link to Bermuda came about fortuitously, according to her son, Henry Lafayette Collins III.

“She persuaded my father to come for a brief vacation even though he didn’t want to come — he said his parents hadn’t liked it, so he agreed to go on the condition that they left the next day and stayed at what was considered one of the best places on the island,” Mr Collins recalled.

It was mid-August, 1949, but the family, from Radnor, Pennsylvania, managed to secure a booking at Cambridge Beaches — and ended up sharing their flight on Colonial Airlines with legendary Bermudian performers the Talbot Brothers, who serenaded the young Mr Collins’ nanny, Josephine, nervous at taking her first flight.

“We became lifelong pals — they played at my sister’s wedding many years later,” Mr Collins said.

A ten-day stay turned into three weeks, and “the rest is history”, according to Mr Collins, who spent much of his childhood in Bermuda.

His parents adored Ely’s Lodge, which the family eventually purchased from its owner, Fitch Ingersoll, in 1962. Unfortunately, his father died ten days before the sale went through.

The house’s storied reputation included a background as a 17th-century pirate refuge. Mrs Pacaud met and married her second husband, Charles Edward Pacaud, who died in 2006 at the age of 97.

She lived subsequently in New York City, where her funeral will be held at 10am on Saturday in the St Jean Baptiste Church on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 76th Street.