In his book, White Christmas: The Story of an American Song, author Jody Rosen chronicles Berlin’s urgent arrival at his New York office on Monday, January 8, 1940. “‘I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend,’ Berlin said, waving (musical secretary Helmy) Kresa into his office. ‘Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it’s the best song anybody ever wrote.’”
 Rosen suggests, however, that the wistful song first stirred in Berlin’s heart in December 1937. Christmas Day was a painful remembrance for the Berlin. On December 25, 1928, his 24-day-old son, Irving Berlin Jr., died. Then, in December 1937, Berlin was stuck working on Alexander’s Ragtime Band in Hollywood apart from his family.
 Barrett concurs that such an origin could be possible. “The theory among us is that the idea might – and I say ‘might’ because there is no evidence of this – have come to him that Christmas,” she says, adding that the first stanza’s reference to “Beverly Hills, L.A.” fits the theory.
 By his own account in a January 1939 Biltmore poolside interview with The Arizona Republic, Berlin wrote music in Phoenix in November 1937 – one month before that lonely Christmas of 1937. He again visited in January 1939 to write music, and told the Republic he wrote six songs for When Winter Comes, a 20th Century-Fox production. (It was released in 1939 as Second Fiddle, starring Sonja Henie and Rudy Vallee.) “They came swiftly,” he told the Republic of his new songs. “What I reached out for was there.”
 Was he reaching out for “White Christmas” at the Biltmore? Could the Jewel of the Desert have provided Berlin the inspiration to complete the jewel of his musical repertoire?
Barrett isn’t sure, although she does recall details about a subsequent spring holiday in 1939 at the Biltmore – including her first dance with Berlin. Twelve years old and eager to show off results from years of dancing school in New York, Barrett took her father’s hand. “At some point on the dance floor, he looked at me and said, ‘I thought the gentleman was supposed to lead.’”
 She also remembers her father enjoying the Biltmore’s pool. “It would be very nice to think that it was partly written at such a beautiful place in the West,” she says.
 Another Berlin daughter, Linda Berlin Emmet, co-authored a work with musical theater historian Robert Kimball that bolsters the link. According to The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, the song was “written in 1938 or 1939 either in New York or possibly at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix or perhaps in both places.” Bert Fink, senior vice president of communications for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Association, which represents The Irving Berlin Music Company, says, “I take the claim very seriously. They only put in this book what they were comfortable with.”
 Biltmore historian Becky Blaine says the passage from the Kimball/Emmet collaboration and the 1939 Republic clipping form the basis for the Biltmore staking its claim to the song. In fact, the resort will host an inaugural, black-tie charity fundraiser on December 12 called “White Christmas: A Holiday Gala & Tribute to Irving Berlin.” It boasts a 1940s glamour theme with a nostalgic nod to Berlin.
Meanwhile, Rosen suggests the song ruminated for some time in Berlin’s mind. In mid-1938, Berlin planned a three-act musical revue called Crystal Ball, whose final number was to be a song titled “White Christmas.” It was never produced.
 Berlin told the Los Angeles Mirror that he wrote the song on an August afternoon in 1938 at his Beekman Place home in New York – a residence he did not move into until the late 1940s, according to Rosen. The Kimball/Emmet anthology quotes Berlin saying he wrote it in “two rather brief sessions” in 1938 and 1940. And, according to Rosen, Berlin dated the song to 1940 for the American Weekly and to 1941 for a gathering of Philadelphia press.
 The debate surrounding exactly where and when Berlin wrote “White Christmas” may never end as neatly as the chord in the 28th bar, when the song soars to the word “bright.” Barrett, an accomplished New York magazine writer, seems to enjoy the mystery.
 “It’s possible – and I don’t know for sure – but it’s possible that part of this song was written in this landmark hotel,” she says, pausing for effect. “Nobody will ever know for sure.”
 — Laurie Davies