The Lost F. W. Vanderbilt Mansion -- 459 Fifth Avenue

The free-standing house had an enclosed yard and a near-matching stone stable to the rear.  Collins' "Both Sides of Fifth Avenue" 1911 (copyright expired)

Despite being the son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest Americans in history, young William Henry “Billy” Vanderbilt started his professional life at the bottom.   The eldest son of the Commodore, The New York Times would later say “His father had little anticipation of the qualities which the boy was to develop in future years, and he satisfied himself with giving his son an ordinary education in the Columbia College Grammar School.”

The boy entered the office of Dean, Robinson & Co as a clerk at the age of 18.  It was here, rather than within his father’s enterprises, that he began learning business.  Earning $16 a week (about $385 today) and living on Staten Island, he devoted himself to hard work while unknowingly being surrounded by his father’s spies. 

In 1841 William married Maria Kissam, the daughter of a Brooklyn clergyman.  The Times would later remember “The young couple began their wedded life in poverty, and the Commodore took very little notice of either his son or his daughter-in-law.”

And when William mortgaged his property for $6,000 to make improvements, Cornelius lashed out saying “You don’t amount to a row of pins anyway.  You won’t never be able to do anything but to bring disgrace upon yourself, your family, and everybody connected with you.  I have made up my mind to have nothing more to do with you.”

The young man who had always been intimated by his father gained the confidence to explain in business terms why the investment made financial sense.  “I cannot see that I have done anything to be ashamed of,” he said.  The following morning he received a check from his father for the $6,000 loan.

After this episode Cornelius Vanderbilt’s appreciation of his son’s abilities and worth gradually changed.  In 1864 William was made Vice President of the New-York and Harlem Railroad Company and became his father’s trusted confidante.    Almost simultaneous to his new position, William received the gift of a brownstone mansion from his father.  Sitting at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 40^th Street, the free-standing Italianate brownstone house included a matching carriage house to the rear.

The Wm. Vanderbilt family poses in the family parlor of No. 459.  The "relaxed" room offers a magazine rack to the left and easy chair.  Beyond, a more formal room exhibits an exquisite crystal chandelier and pier mirrors.

The spacious home spoke of William and Maria’s wealth and social position.   Frescoed ceilings, marble fireplaces and richly carved woodwork set the home a rung above most.  Vanderbilt, who only two decades earlier could not afford to furnish his Staten Island home, commissioned Gustave and Christian Herter to decorate the mansion.

William Vanderbilt would become one of the nation’s most recognized collectors of art and No. 459 Fifth Avenue filled with valuable paintings, antiques and sculptures.  He and Maria would have nine children—five sons and four daughters.  One would be singled out as the black sheep, of sorts, in William’s eyes.

Frederick William Vanderbilt attended Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School.   In 1878 he entered the New York Central Railroad, beginning his career as his father had done, as a clerk.   He would eventually work in every department, mastering a complete understanding of the running of a railroad.

A year earlier, in January 1877 Cornelius Vanderbilt died, leaving essentially his entire estate to William.  Although the other children and his widow received legacies of around $1 million apiece (a rather satisfying $21.5 million in today’s dollars); the will was contested.  William compromised with his family to keep peace and, perhaps more importantly, to prevent any further delving into his father’s personal affairs. 

Frederick’s father was now endlessly wealthy and powerful.  His problems with his father started when his enchanting first cousin, Louise Holmes Anthony Torrance divorced Albert Torrance.  She and Frederick fell in love.   William forbade the courtship on several levels—Louise was significantly older than Frederick (by 12 years), she was a close relative, it was rumored she could not have children, and she was a divorcee.  Blinded by love, the couple secretly married on December 17, 1878.

Louise was beautiful and cultured; but deemed an unacceptable match for Frederick.  photo vanderbiltgarden.org

William Vanderbilt was not informed for a month.  Although he did not disinherit his son as he reportedly threatened, he never forgave Frederick’s disobedience.   In 1878, as Manhattan’s millionaires moved closer to Central Park, he began plans for a triple palace engulfing the western block of 5^th Avenue between 51^st and 52^nd Street.  The largest of the three connected homes would house William and Maria; the other two were for daughters Margaret and Emily.  The following year William Kissam Vanderbilt and his wife, Alva, would begin construction on their lavish French chateau across 52^nd Street.  The seeds of “Vanderbilt Row” were planted.

Frederick, however, would not join in the migration.  When his new palazzo was completed, William donated the old brownstone to Frederick.  The significance of the ten-block gap was lost on few. 

 

Unlike some of his siblings, Frederick was rather unassuming.  He was nevertheless tremendously successful. photograph www.nps.gov/vama/philanthropy.html 

Construction on the triple palace would take years.  In the meantime the William and Maria lived on at No. 459.  On Tuesday morning, May 10, 1881 the Vanderbilt staff sat “rubbish” on the curb to be picked up.   Among the discarded items were “a number of old trunks too much battered for future Summer journeys and too infirm to be longer considered an object of value even by the domestics,” said The New York Times two days later.

Before the ashman would haul the junk a full block, 20-year old Daniel O’Reilly flagged him down.  The florist’s assistant asked to purchase one of the trunks.  The two haggled and came to the price of 50 cents.  O’Reilly loaded it onto the empty hand-cart he had been using to deliver flowers.

He was directly in front of the Vanderbilt mansion at 40^th Street when he noticed one of the hinges was missing.  He paused to look inside, hoping to find the loose hardware.  He found instead a wad of newspaper, “in which was wrapped in cotton a brooch set with stones that glistened as they were brought into the sunlight.”

O’Reilly’s employer, Mr. Matheson, told him “They’re diamonds.”  But the Irish immigrant could not suspect his luck was that good.  “I guess not,” he said, “I guess it’s a trinket that belongs to some of Mr. Vanderbilt’s hired girls.”

What young O’Reilly did not know was that five years earlier Maria Vanderbilt lost her diamond brooch at Saratoga.  Apparently it had somehow dropped into the lining of the trunk, because it was not noticed when the trunk was emptied back on Fifth Avenue.  She had finally given up hope of finding the gold-and-diamond ornament, containing over 80 stones and valued at $1,500.

When several others examined the piece and deemed it valuable, O’Reilly hurried home and showed it to his parents.  The New York Times reported “Miles O’Reilly, the father, is a hard-working, honest fellow, who for 25 years has driven a Madison-avenue stage.” 

There was no question, according to Daniel’s father, as to what to do.  The Times said the man instructed “Ye’ll take that to Mr. Vanderbilt, my boy.”  And so he did. 

Two days later The Sun said that Daniel hoped for a reward—but not what readers might expect.  He told Vanderbilt’s secretary “that he did not expect any reward for the return of the brooch, but that he hoped that the circumstance might lead to getting work for his father easier than stage driving.  He said his father was getting on in years, and that the exposure and hardships of his present employment were beginning to tell on him.”

The last glittering affair to be hosted by William and Maria at No. 459 was the wedding reception of their youngest daughter, Lila Osgood Vanderbilt.  On December 20, 1881 she was married to Dr. William Seward Webb.  The ceremony took place in St. Bartholomew’s Church, performed by Bishop Henry C. Potter.  The Times said “A reception was held afterward at the Vanderbilt home, 459 Fifth Avenue, at which there was a distinguished assembly of guests, including General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mrs. Paran Stevens, Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid and Mr. and Mrs. Ogden Mills.”

The near tragedy was narrowly avoided in May 1, 1882 when a mail bomb was sent to William.  The Deseret News reported “A dastardly attempt was made today, by some miscreants, on the lives of Wm. H. Vanderbilt and Cyrus Field by sending them explosives through the mails.”  The package for Vanderbilt was addressed to No. 459 Fifth Avenue.

As the mail wagon headed uptown from Chatham Street, the package addressed to Vanderbilt exploded.  Inside the packages were what appeared to be jewelry boxes—“a pasteboard box covered with gaudy flowers and pictures and [which] had a small drawer in it, from which depended a string.”

The cleverly-devised bombs were meant to be triggered by pulling on the string to open the little drawer.  By doing so, chemicals would combine to create the explosion.  It was assumed that the jostling of the mail card prematurely combined the explosives and set off the Vanderbilt package.

Finally his parents moved into their lavish palazzo at 51st Street, and Frederick and Louise establishd themselves in the old family mansion.  William H. Vanderbilt would not enjoy his new home for long.  On the afternoon of  December 8, 1885 he suffered a massive, fatal heart attack.  That night Frederick and his brother Cornelius sat overnight in their father’s bedroom with the body.  When the will was read, William H. Vanderbilt’s phenomenal $200 million estate was divided among his children and wife.

Cornelius and William K Vanderbilt received “about $50,000,000 apiece in addition to their present large fortunes,” said historian William Augustus Croffut a year later in his The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune.  The remaining children, including Frederick, received $10 million.

Despite his father’s disfavor, Frederick and Louise continued an amiable relationship with his siblings.  The two, as had been suspected, could never have children but they maintained a close bond with their nieces and nephews.    Both were highly involved in philanthropic endeavors; Frederick preferring to remain nameless in his benefactions.

While his brothers and sisters lived within about a block of one another, he and Louise continued to live in the now slightly less fashionable area at No. 459 Fifth Avenue.  This did not mean, however, that the couple was dealing with hard times.  They also maintained the magnificent Newport cottage “Rough Point," an estate in Bar Harbor called Sonogee, “Pine Tree Point" in the Adirondacks, and a sumptuous home in Hyde Park, New York.

Frederick hired Ogden Codman, Jr. to do over the now-outdated Herter Brothers interiors.  In sprucing up the mansion, he also installed a flagstone out front that amazed.  To ensure that slippered Victorian feet did not trip, he ordered a single enormous stone 15 feet wide by 20 feet long.  Delivered in December 1888, The Sun deemed it the “largest single stone ever used for a sidewalk in this city.”

Before this, the largest flagstone ever laid was the one William H. Vanderbilt placed in front of No. 640 Fifth Avenue.  Frederick’s massive stone—which required a special railway car be built to transport it—was perhaps his silent "one-up" on his father after years of suffering disregard.

An unusual entertainment was held at No. 459 Fifth Avenue on February 12, 1897.  Louise gave a dinner party for her niece, Daisy Post.  The guest list included the more impressive names of Manhattan society including Belmont, Van Cortlandt, Sloane, Mills, Burden, Rutherford, Baylies and Van Rensselaer.  An orchestra played during dinner and a dance followed.

The Sun reported that dinner “was served in the smaller of the two ballrooms, which was adorned with tropical palms, flower plants, and great pots of azaleas in full bloom. There were five tables, and the one in the centre of the room was trimmed with mauve cattleyea orchids.”

What made the night unusual was that the Vanderbilts did not attend their dinner party.  They remained upstairs, still in mourning for Frederick’s mother who had died on November 6, 1896.

As the new century dawned the Vanderbilt’s Fifth Avenue house was increasingly surrounded by commercial structures.   When Frederick and Louise opted to spend the winter season of 1901-02 in Hyde Park, they leased the mansion.  The Virginia Enterprise of Virginia, Minnesota reported on October 11, 1901 that “The handsome house of Frederick W. Vanderbilt at Fortieth street and Fifth avenue has been leased to John R. Drexel of Newport, together with the Vanderbilt stables at 2 East Fortieth street.”  The newspaper added “There was a report some time ago that Mr. Vanderbilt was anxious to sell the house.”

However anxious he was to sell the house, it would not come to pass for a decade.  But by 1909 the Vanderbilts had moved out and the mansion was being used by the high-end art dealer Macbeth Gallery as its showroom.  That year on December 14 the firm advertised its second annual exhibition of “small bronzes by American sculptors.” 

At the time of this photograph, the mansion next door had been converted for business and large commercial structures loom in the background.  http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/hh/32/hh32f.htm

Finally, on March 7, 1912, the New-York Tribune reported that Frederick W. Vanderbilt was selling No. 459 Fifth Avenue—calling it “the property” rather than using a term like “home,” “residence,” or “mansion.”  Vanderbilt was asking $4 million for his former family home.  The Tribune said it “has been placed on the market for business purposes.”

Within two years the old home would be gone.  On November 7, 1915 The Times reported on the new Arnold, Constable department store building, “a dignified six-story structure of limestone, covering a large plot at the southeast corner of Fortieth Street.”   The newspaper reminded readers “It was the home site of Frederick W. Vanderbilt, the old house having been formerly occupied by his father, William H. Vanderbilt.”

Designed by T. Joseph Barley, the former department store building survives nearly unaltered as an annex to the New York Public Library across the avenue.

photo by the author

The Lost Vanderbilt Triple Palace, 5th Ave and 51st Street

William H. Vanderbilt's mansion (left) shared an entrance vestibule with the home of daughter Margaret Fitch.  Emily Vanderbilt Sloane's home was entered on 52nd Street (right) photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1878 the Vanderbilt family was busy changing the face of Fifth Avenue.  Cornelius Vanderbilt II began construction of his massive brick and limestone palace at the southwest corner of 57^th Street, plans were underway for three mansions for the William Henry Vanderbilt family between 51^st and 52^nd Streets, and the following year William Kissam Vanderbilt’s wife, Alva, would engage Richard Morris Hunt to start work on the “Petite Chateau” on the northwest corner of 52^nd Street.  By the turn of the century this section of Fifth Avenue would be familiarly known as “Vanderbilt Row” or, with a touch of sarcasm, “Vanderbilt Alley.”

William Henry Vanderbilt’s idea was an interesting one.  He would erect three near-matching homes, one for himself and wife Maria Louisa Kissam, and two for his daughters, Margaret and Emily.  (Margaret had married Elliott Fitch and Emily was now Mrs. William Douglass Sloane.)  John Butler Snook is routinely credited with the design of the harmonious mansions, since his name appeared on the plans filed with the Department of Buildings.  He may be getting more credit than is deserved, however.

According to author Wayne Craven in his Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society, an executive of Herter Brothers complained to the editors of an architectural journal on April 11, 1886 “It is a matter of record…that Herter Brothers were the architects of [Mr. Vanderbilt’s house]…and are the only persons responsible for the designs, both of the exterior and the interior…We might add that of the two gentlemen named by you, Mr. Atwood was employed by our firm at the time as a draughtsman and Mr. Snook by Mr. Vanderbilt as general superintendent.”

That argument may never be settled; however two years after construction began, the Triple Palace at Nos. 640 and 642 Fifth Avenue, and No. 2 West 52^nd Street, was completed.  Vanderbilt had originally envisioned the grand Italian Renaissance palazzos clad in gleaming white marble.  In the end, the less glamorous brownstone was used instead.  Some historians feel that an aging Vanderbilt changed his mind when he realized that he may not have that many years left to enjoy his house.  Using the easily obtainable brownstone would significantly speed the construction process.

Art and architecture critic Helen W. Henderson had another opinion.  In 1917 she offered that he “stipulated that the material should be white marble, then greatly in vogue; but Vanderbilt owned a quarry of brownstone and the native produce was employed.”

More than 600 construction workers and 60 European sculptors and craftsmen had labored on the triple mansion.  William’s and Margaret’s homes were entered via a common centered courtyard.  Emily’s entrance faced 52^nd Street.  The daughters’ homes, sharing a plot the same size as their father’s, were necessarily about half the size of their parents’ 58-room house.  For occasions of elaborate entertaining, their adjoining mansions were constructed so the drawing rooms could be opened into a single, enormous ballroom.

William K. Vanderbilt's "Petite Chateau" can be seen across 52nd Street to the north (right).  photo by Byron Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ4RZN1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Unlike William Kissam’s and Cornelius’s chateaus with their towers and turrets and ornamented gables; the houses of the Triple Palace were restrained and dignified in comparison--which is not to say they did not abound with ostentatious decoration.

As the mansions neared completion in 1881 Vanderbilt addressed a potential problem.  He would have no stumbling of dainty feet on the paving stones as high-class visitors moved from their carriages to the entrance.  On August 6 The New York Times reported that “What is claimed to be the largest pavement stone ever quarried in the United States, is now resting upon blocks in front of the main entrance of William H. Vanderbilt’s new house.”  The 25 foot, 2 inch long stone was 15 feet wide and 8 inches thick.  It weighed over 22 tons.  With no seams between his paving stones, Vanderbilt did not have to worry about embarrassing and dangerous tripping.

Tucked away on the 51st Street side was Wm. Henry's glass and metal conservatory.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

The families moved into the homes in January 1881; although they would not be totally finished until 1883.  Work on furnishing the mansions and completing the ornamental details would go on around the Vanderbilts’ home life.  By March 1882 Henry and Louisa felt the mansion was guest-worthy and a housewarming party was held.  Two thousand invitations were sent out by liveried messengers.

The guests that night entered through the covered double vestibule with its mosaic-encrusted walls and stained glass ceiling.  They turned left into William’s doorway and entered interiors intended to astound.  Carved woodwork was inlaid with mother-of-pearl ornamentation; the painted ceiling of the 45-foot long dining room was done in Paris by E. V. Luminais; and the Japanese Room was designed by John La Farge.  Herter Brothers, the preeminent furniture and decorating firm of the day, was responsible for the interior design throughout, including the custom furniture and built-in cabinetry.

photo American Architect & Building News, July 5, 1886 (copyright expired)

In December 1883 the art gallery was ready for showing off.  Vanderbilt sent out 3,000 invitations to “an art reception” and on December 21 The Times reported that “More than 2,500 gentlemen promenaded the parlors of William H. Vanderbilt’s house.”  Considering the large number of visitors and the high value of the bric-a-brac in the mansion, Vanderbilt had a crew of 11 detectives roaming the crowd.  It was a good move on the millionaire’s part.

“They recognized one man in the crowd whom they knew came without invitation, and he was shown to the door.  Early in the evening a few ladies made an attempt to join the company.  They were politely ushered out," reported The Times.

An orchestra played while the guests rifled through the Vanderbilt treasures, and in the dining room Delmonico “served up a collation.”  The Times was a bit astonished at the presumptuous free-wheeling of some art students.  “They took down the books from the shelves of the elegant library, poked the blazing logs on the andirons in the private parlors and wandered at will into the richly furnished bed-chambers.  They handled rare and costly specimens of china and bric-a-brac with reckless audacity, looked inquisitively over the photographs and visiting cards, and commented on the collection of family relics in the sealed glass case.”

Vanderbilt had a printed catalog “bound in old gold” prepared for the event and he personally pointed out to guests whom he personally knew the “gems of art in his picture gallery.”  

Vanderbilt's massive fortune of $200 million would amount to about $5 billion today photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

At the time of the entertainment, Vanderbilt’s health had already begun to fail and was under the care of a physician.  “He had no definite conception of what trouble he was suffering from, though his greatest annoyance came from indigestion,” said The New York Times later.  On December 8, 1885 Vanderbilt rose as usual, at 7:00.  He went about his usual business, including a visit to the studio of sculptor J. Q. A. Ward to sit for a bronze bust.  The day continued as normal with Vanderbilt in the best of spirits and seemingly the best of health.

At 2:20 that afternoon he said in his private study chatting with Robert Garrett, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.  “Mr. Vanderbilt was speaking, when suddenly Mr. Garrett perceived indistinctness in his speech.  The next instant the muscles around his mouth began to twitch slightly.  Then they were violently convulsed.  I another moment the great millionaire’s arms bent under his body, he toppled forward, and pitched headlong toward the floor,” related The Times the following day.

“In a moment bells were ringing and feet were flying in every part of the house.  The butler, the footman, and the other servants were hastening breathless from the basement.  Mrs. Vanderbilt and George W. Vanderbilt, her youngest son, were hurrying, pale with terror, from above.  In a minute all were in the study, where Mr. Garrett was bending over his host’s body.  The ruddy firelight did not light up the pallid features now.  The ghastliness of death was upon them.”

Within five minutes of the massive stroke, William Henry Vanderbilt lay dead on his study floor.

Cornelius and Frederick sat overnight in Vanderbilt’s bedroom where the “body of William H. Vanderbilt, the richest man in the world…rested all Tuesday night in an ice box in his bedroom, which is the second story front room of the Fifth avenue mansion.”  Earlier that day undertaker W. H. Billier fastened rosettes of crepe bearing black silk streamers to the electric bells of the Fifth Avenue and 51^st Street entrances.  “The white curtains of all the windows were pulled down, forming a striking contrast to the rain-soaked brownstone walls,” commented The Sun the following morning.

Among the few admitted to the death chamber other than family members was John Quincy Adams Ward.  The sculptor took a cast of Vanderbilt’s face.  “He said it was a very successful one, and that with its aid, and with photographs he would be able to complete the bust without difficulty,” said the newspaper.

As with all up-to-date mansions of the 1880s, there was an Asian-themed room.  In the Vanderbilt house a reeded ceiling and upper walls, Japanese fans and Oriental bric-a-brac created the ambiance.  photo from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On the morning of December 10, while the pall bearers and close friends of Vanderbilt gathered in the parlors, the family assembled in millionaire’s bedroom for a last look and a brief prayer.  Afterward Louisa was assisted to her own suite, too overcome with grief to attend the funeral service at St. Bartholomew’s Church.  The streets had been cleared of traffic and after the coffin was closed and placed in the hearse, “the carriages began to fall in line before the door.”

The order of the 15 carriages that pulled away from the Vanderbilt mansions was directed by social protocol.  “In the carriage first following the hearse were Cornelius Vanderbilt and wife, with George Vanderbilt.  In the second carriage rode William K. Vanderbilt and wife.  The third vehicle contained J. S. Webb and wife, the fourth Mr. and Mrs W. D. Sloane, and the fifth Mr. and Mrs. Twombly.”  And so on.  A detachment of 180 policemen kept the crowds around the church at bay.

Vanderbilt’s will was read two days later.  He had earlier told his family “The care of $200,000,000 is too great a load for any brain or back to bear.  It is enough to kill a man.  I have no son whom I am willing to afflict with the terrible burden…So when I lay down this heavy responsibility, I want my sons to divide it, and share the worry which it will cost to keep it.”  And indeed the will divided Vanderbilt’s massive estate nearly equally among his children.

As for Louisa, she got a life interest in the Fifth Avenue mansion and an annuity of $200,000 and $500,000 “for disposal by will.”  She remained in the house and “At her death the residence and works of art are to go to George W. Vanderbilt, and at his death to his eldest son, or, should he not have a son, to William H.; or Cornelius, sons of Cornelius, according to their survival.”  Vanderbilt was determined that his mansion and its artworks should remain a Vanderbilt house, “it being the purpose of the testator to convey them to a male descendant of the name of Vanderbilt.”  As for the other two mansions, “His daughters are given the houses in which they live,” said The New York Times on December 13.

In 1894 Munsey's Magazine published a charming illustration of the Vanderbilt homes -- copyright expired.

De facto Manhattan royalty, Margaret and Emily entertained lavishly in their abutting mansions.  On March 19, 1892 The Times commented on a dinner party hosted by Emily.  “One of the most elaborate of the Lenten dinners yet given took place last evening in the oaken dining room of Mrs. Eliott F. Shepard, 2 West Fifty-second Street…In the centre of one [table] was a mound of Madame Cuicine roses, and the embroider of the cloth and the tints of the china and the table settings were pink to match the color of the flowers.  A second table was all in yellow, the flowers being daffodils relieved with some lilies of the valley.  The third table was decorated in deep red, and the flowers used were the rich red meteor roses.  The flowers were from Hodgsons’s conservatories.”

As the marriage of William and Alva’s daughter Consuelo to the Duke of Marlborough in November 1895 neared, the Vanderbilt mansions were thrown open to society.  On November 6 The Times said “Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt’s residence at 640 Fifth Avenue was opened yesterday afternoon, as were also the houses of Mr. and Mrs. William Douglass Sloane and Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard in the adjoining building.”

The newspaper noted “Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, the grandmother of the future Duchess of Marlborough, has always made a great pet of Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt, who has also been a favorite with her uncles, aunts, and cousins.  All her relatives desire to make her wedding day as bright as possible.”

It would be among the last great events that Louisa Vanderbilt would see.  Exactly a year later, on November 9, 1896, the Vanderbilt mansion was hung with black crepe.  “The residence of Mrs. Vanderbilt, at the corner of Fifty-first Street and Fifth Avenue, where the body lay, was besieged all day yesterday by friends and acquaintances of Mrs. Vanderbilt, but her sons denied themselves to all except close friends,” said The Times that day.

As intended by his father, George W. Vanderbilt took over the massive mansion.  In the meantime, Margaret shut the doors of No. 642 Fifth Avenue for a long mourning period.  It was not until Valentine’s Day 1898 that she began entertaining again.  It was a cotillion for the Sloane’s second daughter, Lila.  “Mrs. Sloane has only just come out of mourning for the death of her mother, Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt,” remarked The New York Times, “and her function of last night was the first to which she has bidden society for a long time.  It was a dinner dance, and the most notable affair of the kind this season.”

Eighty “well-known and fashionable people” filed into the mosaic-paved inner court.  To ensure that they did not mistakenly turn to George’s mansion, Margaret stationed “a retinue of liveried servants…in the Sloane side of this court.”  The Times said they “formed a human path through whose rows of dark plush breeches the prospective revelers might find their way.”  Emily’s and Margaret’s drawing rooms were thrown open “and a better ballroom was thus secured than the Sloane picture gallery would have made,” said the newspaper.

In 1905 George negotiated a 10-year lease on No. 640 with Henry Frick.  According to The New York Times later, Frick “spent thousands of dollars in alterations, eliminating the garden in front and adding a massive entrance.”  The steel man paid $100,000 in rent, “making this Vanderbilt house the most costly private residence under lease in the city,” said The Times.  Frick could afford the rent.  In 1910 he hung Frans Hals’s “Portrait of a Woman” on the wall here.  He paid art dealers Knodler & Co. more than $140,000 for it—about $3.3 million by today’s standards. 

Among Frick's "improvements" was the closing of the open courtyard.  By 1923 when this photograph was taken, soaring business buildings were closing in.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQ4RZN1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

By now the grand mansions of this section of Fifth Avenue were being converted for business or simply being razed.  When Henry Frick moved into his new white marble mansion further up the avenue, Cornelius III took over No. 640.  By 1927, when his father’s massive chateau at 57^th Street was demolished, there were no Vanderbilt mansions left on Fifth Avenue other than 640.

But Cornelius III and his wife, Grace, stubbornly stayed put.  Cornelius, a brigadier general, was highly interested in military matters while Grace focused on entertaining and charity events.  Eventually surrounded by business buildings, the couple spurned all offers from developers.  And in the meantime, they entertained not only the highest ranks of military and society, but royalty.   

Cornelius "Neily" Vanderbilt was not only a military officer, but an inventor, yachtsman, inventor and engineer.  photo from the Library of Congress

In 1919 the house was crowded with European titles and wealthy socialites as Grace gave a reception with music for the Queen of the Belgians.  In 1927 it was Prince William of Sweden who was the guest of honor at a reception on January 9.  And in 1927 1,000 guests and a “fleet of officers” were entertained in honor of Rear Admiral Charles F. Hughes.

Cornelius Vanderbilt III died on March 1, 1942.  Although he had sold the Fifth Avenue mansion to William Waldorf Astor estate in 1940, he and Grace remained living there until his death.  Now Grace was forced out.  She moved into the William Starr Miller house at No. 1048 Fifth Avenue. 

On November 22, 1945 The New York Times said the mansion “is fast being demolished by wrecking crews preparing for the erection of a commercial building on the site.”  Three weeks earlier the house had been opened for a public auction of the rooms and interior decorations.  Since then buyers had been removing mirrors, paneled walls, chandeliers, inlaid floors, and mantels.

“Paramount Pictures, Inc., paid $3,500 for the carved panels, mirrors and other fixtures of the ballroom, $975 for those of the dining room and $1,250 for those of the study,” reported the newspaper.  Within days the last of the great Vanderbilt houses on Vanderbilt Row was gone.

photo by the author