National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

The Gilded Age and Country Places
decorators, and designers. It is interesting to note that several of these firms worked on multiple
family commissions, such as Hunt; McKim, Mead & White; Warren & Wetmore; Herter
Brothers; and Ogden Codman; while a few including George B. Post and Georges Glaenzer
worked for only one member of the extended Vanderbilt family.
Frederick and his siblings were the third generation of wealthy Vanderbilts and as such
were still considered to be nouveau riche in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, their grandfather, built a large fortune in the steamboat
business and subsequently in railroads. While obviously an adept business man, he was widely
characterized as crude and lacking in basic manners. Cornelius Vanderbilt left the bulk of his
fortune to his eldest son William Henry Vanderbilt at his death in 1877. William Henry was able
to double the $90,000,000 left to him before his own death in 1885. While William Henry built a
magnificent house at 640 Fifth Avenue and filled it with an impressive art collection, he did not
clamor to enter the closed ranks of New York Society. In the next generation, however, a great
change took place. The most ambitious member of the third generation was Alva Smith
Vanderbilt, William K.'s wife. Her great entry into society was marked by the splendid costume
ball that she gave in March of 1883. This ball was attended by all of New York Society. Other
members of the family had entrees through marriage, such as the youngest daughter Lila's
marriage to William Seward Webb, whose family had long been prominent. The Vanderbilts
became accepted members of New York Society through their entertainments as well as their
building projects both in New York City and in various seaside and country retreats. 138
Vanderbilt family architectural commissions represent some of the finest examples of
the four previously defined gilded-age house types: townhouses, country places, seaside
cottages, and vacation houses. The yacht could also be considered as a type of vacation house,
albeit moveable. Each member of the family, except Cornelius had houses of each type. The
seasonal relocation of the uppermost echelon of society dictated where the majority of its
members might be at specific times of year. It is also no coincidence that the great age of
country building occurred after William Henry's death when each child received at least
$10,000,000 and the eldest two, Cornelius and William, considerably more. The Vanderbilts'
country houses were much more spread out than their city residences. Each of the Vanderbilt
siblings built or bought numerous houses in the country. There is an important distinction
between the estates that can be considered country places and those that were vacation homes.
A country place encompassed not only a magnificent house as its centerpiece, but also a farm, a
park with gardens and the facilities for leisure activities. Seven of the eight Vanderbilt siblings
had an estate that could be considered their "country place." Cornelius, the eldest did not have
such an estate; his early death in 1899 was probably a factor, as well as the fact that his attention
in the preceding years was focused on the rebuilding of The Breakers, his seaside cottage, in
Newport.
Townhouses
William H. Vanderbilt, the father of the third generation, set the stage for his children's
taste in his own building and art collecting. His own forays into architectural patronage began
around 1863 with the building of 459 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 40th Street, an
undistinguished brownstone house. William H. later embellished the interiors with the help of
138 For more on the Vanderbilt entrée into Society see: Andrews, 1941, Hoyt, 1962 and Patterson, 1989.
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