Was This Part Of Keeping Up With The Joneses?

Edith Wharton, Mother's Recompense (it can be read online here) in addition to the main characters of Kate Clephane, Kate's daughter Anne, and Chris Fenno, there were the minor characters of Horace & Lilla Maclew.

"She knew about Horace Maclew, an elderly wealthy bibliophile and philanthropist, with countless municipal and social interests in his own town, and a big country-place just outside it. No; Mr. Maclew's private secretary was not likely to have many holidays."

"But Lilla Maclew was even more easy, self-confident and indifferent than Lilla Gates had been. The bolder dash of peroxyde on her hair, and the glint of jewels on her dusky skin, made her look like a tall bronze statue with traces of gilding on it." (Source)

"The publication in 1925 of Edith Wharton's The Mother's Recompense must have infringed on their (Henry & Sarah Walters') coveted privacy." (Source: William and Henry Walters: the reticent collectors...) So the fictional Horace Maclew's life mimicked that of Henry Walters?

Henry Walters was a neighbor of Richmond descendant Henry Barton Jacobs. He (Henry) married the widow of Pembroke Jones, Sarah.

Pembroke Jones' death in the NY Times, published on 25 January 1919, son of Captain John Pembroke & Jane (London) Jones (see photo of Captain Jones), born 15 December 1858, in Wilmington, NC. His will was noted in the NY Times here. Mrs. Fannie Barry and Miss Sallie Jones aunts, of Hampton, VA. Children, Mrs. Sadie Jones Pope (s-i-l John Russell Pope) and Pembroke Jones, Jr. and his wife, Sarah.

Airlie was the Jones' estate at one time (more information here).

Did "Keeping Up With The Joneses" start with Pembroke & Sadie, or Edith Wharton's parents?