FROM MEDICI TO BOURBON - Newport Mansions

historically positioned paneling, cornice and mantel. When the Cornelius Vanderbilt
II residence was demolished in 1927, its Allard paneled reception rooms were
acquired by Twentieth Century Fox Studios and served Hollywood as iconic period
backdrops for historic dramas. 12 In Fox’s 1947 film The Razor’s Edge, Vanderbilt
paneled rooms are reassembled as a stylish setting representing the Paris residence of
an upper class American family. 13 As for the W.K. Vanderbilt salon, it was sold at
auction in 1921, five years before the demolition of 660 Fifth Avenue, as ‘Régence
Period’, for the disappointing sum of $1,400.00, to the Lawrence Curiosity Shop. 14
The criteria that created a specific Vanderbilt aesthetic, although short-lived,
exercised considerable influence on the American elite of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. If this chapter is simply referred to sociologically as the
phenomenon of the ‘Vanderbilt houses’, it might be more aptly and meaningfully
summarized as the ‘goût Vanderbilt’ triumphant.
12 Crowthers of Syon Lodge, London Sales Pamphlet, 1989; elements of the Vanderbilt ballroom
paneling remain for sale with at Crowthers.
13 Other contemporary Allard salons were reinstalled in American museums where they were
frequently identified, within thirty years of manufacture, as authentic period rooms by the early
twentieth century. Examples are the Bishop Room, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the
Salomon Room, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Astor Rooms, Ringling Museum, Sarasota; the
Salon Doré at the Corcoran, Washington, D.C.
14 The Costly Antique and Modern Furnishings, Interior Decorations and Embellishments of a New
York City Palatial Mansion, auction catalogue, American Art Galleries, New York, October 17-19,
1921, lot number 231.
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