86. Ibid., pp. 329-331.
87. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney sponsored the Whitney Studio Club, a building next to her studio where unknown artists could exhibit their works. And when the Metropolitan Museum of Art turned down her offer of the collection of contemporary American art she had been building, she established the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1931. All the while, she continued working at her writing, publishing a number of short stories and, under a pseudonym, a novel, Walking the Dusk, with themes of lesbianism, depravity, and murder.
88. Ibid., p. 569.
89. Goldsmith, p. 232.
90. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 243.
91. Ibid., p. 244.
92. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 198.
93. Ibid., p. 238.
94. Vanderbilt and Furness, pp. 245-246.
95. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 223.
96. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 246.
97. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 226.
98. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 249.
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid., p. 250.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid., p. 251.
103. Ibid., pp. 250-251.
104. Ibid., p. 251.
105. Ibid., p. 252.
106. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 237.
107. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 306.
108. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 327.
109. Ibid., pp. 245-246.
110. Ibid., p. 249.
111. Ibid., pp. 245-246.
112. Goldsmith, p. 303.
113. Ibid., p. 17.
114. Ibid., p. 34.
115. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 51.
116. Goldsmith, p. 34.
117. Ibid., p. 443.
118. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 53.
119. Ibid., p. 54.
120. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 270.
121. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 257.
122. Ibid., pp. 257-258.
123. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, pp. 60, 66.
124. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 271.
125. Goldsmith, p. 20.
126. Ibid., p. 21.
127. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 272.
128. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, pp. 57-58.
129. Ibid., p. 59.
130. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 259.
131. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 279.
132. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 259.
133. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 279.
134. Goldsmith, p. 39.
135. Ibid., p. 351.
136. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 58.
137. Ibid., p. 76.
138. Goldsmith, p. 319.
139. Ibid., p. 326.
140. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 263.
141. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 286.
142. Goldsmith, pp. 321-322.
143. Ibid., p. 332.
144. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 263.
145. Goldsmith, p. 333.
146. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 264.
147. Ibid., pp. 264-265.
148. Friedman, p. 595.
149. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 266; Goldsmith, p. 343.
150. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 266.
151. Goldsmith, pp. 345-346.
152. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 268.
153. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 291. The testimony of Gloria Vanderbilt’s butler was just as damaging. He reported that Gloria threw parties at the house several times a week, noisy parties, from which the guests left early in the morning. “I saw Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Thomas naked in the library about half-past six in the morning,” he reported.
Had he seen any dirty books in the house?
“I saw one, this was shown to me by her maid, and it had pictures in it from the convent with all kinds of colored pictures in.”
“What were they about?”
“Women…some of them got slashed by the Sisters…. They were Sisters and they were feeling young girls. They were all naked…. I only saw three or four of them.”
“Pictures of grown girls or little girls?” the judge asked.
“Grown-up girls, sir,” the butler replied. (Goldsmith, pp. 378, 379.)
154. There was undoubtedly some truth in this theory. Gloria was en chanted by Aunt Gertrude’s palace in Old Westbury: “The curve of the stairs seemed to glide up and down. Even the space between each of the twenty steps was placed so you felt buoyed up or wafted down, without being aware that you were making yourself move at all…. At the foot of the stairs to the right was the dining room, where Aunt Gertrude would sit at the head of the long chestnutty table, so shiny you could see yourself reflected in it. Always, tall butler William, in swallowtail and striped vest, stood behind her chair throughout the meal, as though he were a silent guest. They had signals known only to each other. Without even turning, Aunt Gertrude would lift her finger so slightly no one else would notice, and butler William would know, without her having uttered a word, what she meant—Pass the Brussels sprouts again, or more pheasant, please….Everywhere there was…what was it? Something…but whatever it was I did not know a name for it. Was it order? Maybe that’s what it was—order. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that was what it must be….Everywhere order, and it was perfect. And it lived with such ease. Is that what luxury meant? So effortless! What made it so smooth, everything so perfect, as though some magic person directed it all, made it all happen?” (Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, pp. 62-63.)
155. Goldsmith, p. 409.
156. Ibid., p. 410.
157. Ibid., p. 412.
158. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 80.
159. Goldsmith, pp. 411-412.
160. Ibid., pp. 413-414.
161. Ibid., p. 414.
162. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 86.
163. Ibid., pp. 89-90.
164. Ibid., p. 91.
165. Ibid., p. 98.
166. Ibid., p. 89.
167. Ibid., p. 94.
168. Goldsmith, pp. 439-442.
169. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 101.
170. Goldsmith, pp. 450-451.
171. Ibid., p. 459.
172. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 102.
173. Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 270.
174. Brown, Champagne Cholly, p. 109.
175. Gloria sold all her mementos of the Vanderbilt family, all of Reggie’s trophies, the bust of Reggie, the monogrammed silverware and china, and went to live in a two-room apartment, dependent on the whim of her daughter for her living expenses. Some years later, little Gloria wired her mother: “Looking through my books and accounts, owing to heavy expenses, I can no longer continue your monthly allowance. Gloria.” Her mother immediately wired back: “Dear Gloria: What you term ‘monthly allowance’ is my sole means of livelihood. Please reconsider. Love, Mummy.” (Vanderbilt and Furness, p. 331.)
176. Goldsmith, p. 572.
177. Friedman, p. 597.
178. Vanderbilt, Once Upon a Time, p. 107.
179. Ibid., p. 1.
180. Ibid., pp. 115-116.
181. Vanderbilt, Farewell to Fifth Avenue, p. 204.
182. Ibid., p. 237.
183. Ibid., pp. 197-198.
184. Ibid., p. 206.
185. Ibid., p. 221.
186. Ibid., p. 203.
187. Ibid., p. 230.
188. Amory, Who Killed Society?, pp. 492-493.
CHAPTER TEN
1. “Mrs. Vanderbilt: The Echo of an Elegant Era,” p. 17.
2. Gates, The Astor Family, p. 110. She blamed Franklin Roosevelt every time “another yacht was sold, another fleet of cars reached the auction block, another great Bellevue Avenue mansion was boarded up.’ One spring day as Grace and Neily sat aboard the Winchester to watch the Yale-Harvard boat races, Grace spotted President Roosevelt aboard Vincent Astor’s yacht. As the Astor yacht passed by, Grace called out, �
��I don’t like you, Mr. President. I don’t like you at all.” Roosevelt smiled. “Well, Mrs. Vanderbilt, lots of people don’t like me. You are in good company.” (Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, pp. 296, 294.)
3. Lehr, “King Lehr” and the Gilded Age,
4. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 112 Golden Age, p. 218.
5. New York World, September 13, 1899.
6. Vanderbilt, Without Prejudice, p. 94.
7. New York Times, November 26, 1925.
8. “Mr. Vanderbilt’s Expenditures,” p. 128.
9. New York Times, January 10, 1926.
10. Lehr, pp. 152-153. From the time at one of her dinner parties when she had patched up a misunderstanding between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, Grace had fancied herself something of a diplomat.
While in London with her son, Neil, just before the outbreak of World War II, Grace asked, “Neil, do you think we are close to another world war?”
‘Yes, Mother darling. We’re very close to it. It may break out at any moment. Certainly not later than this fall, but perhaps as soon as next week or next month.’
Grace summoned Franklin Roosevelt’s mother and with her paid a visit to her old friend Queen Mary, with whom she had exchanged recipes for many years and whose friendship, according to Neil, even “survived Mother’s nine-page letter to the Queen telling her that she wasn’t fair to the Duke of Windsor!”
After their meeting with the queen, Grace and Mrs. Roosevelt had dinner with Neil. “They were so proud of themselves and so very happy and gay,” Neil remembered. At dinner that night, Grace explained why: “We went over to talk to Queen Mary and tell her that we three people were not going to permit another world war to come to civilization.”
“And Mother truly believed that because Mrs. Roosevelt, the mother of the President of the United States, and Queen Mary, the mother of the King of England, and she herself, a powerful person in financial circles in the United States, England, France and some other places—that because these three elderly women had got together and talked about it, they could prevent a second world war.” (Vanderbilt, Man of the World, p. 205.) After the war, she warned Andrei Gromyko that she intended to see Stalin herself if the Reds didn’t behave.
11. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 139.
12. Ibid., p. 303. In her own way, Grace seemed to mean it. When Grace and her daughter were in London in 1935, Grace regularly wrote to Neily. “Since our arrival I have never dreamt of anything like the wonderful times we are having. It is impossible to describe the kindness and hospitality we are having showered upon us—never have I dreamt of anything like it!!!
“I will relate today’s engagements. Lunch at Lady Cunard’s. A lot of very gay, amusing, clever people…Then a drive with Sidney Herbert who is deep in the elections. Then I went to tea at five at Buckingham Palace with the beloved King and Queen. It was all very interesting and wonderful. They received me quite alone and we sat at a small tea table, the Queen pouring tea for the King and me! They kept me with them one hour and we talked of everything and everybody—of course a great deal about you, and he said you did not like ‘going out’ any more than he did!!!…They were both so dear and kind and touching, I felt I was with very dear and true friends—more like one’s family than just friends….Then I rushed home, jumped into my prettiest gown and, with Grace, drove off to Crewe House for a large and beautiful and most delightful dinner where they kindly put me on Lord Crewe’s left, the Turkish Ambassador on his right. There were lots of our mutual friends and we stayed until 12. I have had flowers from about thirty people. Beautiful, bushels, etc. etc.—it’s all like a wonderful dream—only I wish I were not so dead tired all the time. You never could stand the strain—it is killing, but well worth while. Well, goodnight—or good morning, darling Neily. And lots of love from your devoted Grace.” (Ibid., p. 300.)
13. Ibid., p. 301.
14. The heavy antique furniture and paneling were removed, the dining saloon turned into an operating room, the study into an X-ray room, and the ballroom into a ward. “This stuff will have to go,” the Red Cross representatives noted, pointing to the autographed pictures of the German and Austrian monarchs hanging on the walls. “We cannot depend on the self-control of the wounded men, don’t you see?” (Vanderbilt, Farewell to Fifth Avenue, p. 133.) The British found it quite shocking when the North Star was fired upon by a German submarine, for it was in bad taste to assault a ship belonging to a fellow member of the British Royal Yacht Squadron; the emperor of Germany was an honorary member, and had dined on the North Star on many occasions. There was only one thing to do and that was to strike the emperor’s name from the Yacht Club roster and to deprive him of clubhouse privileges. This, in fact, the British did. At the end of the war, the British Admiralty tried to return the North Star to the Vanderbilts, but the thought of dining again in a cabin that had served as an operating room was not appealing. It was sold to King Constantine of Greece, and later to a gambling syndicate, and later still operated out of Hong Kong in the opium and hashish trade.
15. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 291. Neily avoided 640 Fifth Avenue like the plague, though he would occasionally stop at Beaulieu in Newport. When Neily was in failing health, Grace had an elevator installed at Beaulieu, and Grace and her son, Neil, were on hand when Neily arrived so that they could proudly show him how it worked.
Neily took one look at it and pointed his walking stick at his wife. “I suppose you put this in the house hoping it would fall and I would be killed in it—you and your son!” Grace burst into tears. Neily turned and walked out of the house, never to return to Newport. (Vanderbilt, Man of the World, p. 301.) Later, a committee of Vanderbilt relatives said that Neily could no longer see Grace or his son without the committee’s permission because “his heart accelerated at the sight of us [Grace and Neily].” (Ibid., p. 302.)
16. Amory, Who Killed Society?, pp. 494-495.
17. McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, p. 257.
18. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 308.
19. Amory, p. 494.
20. New York Times, November 22, 1892.
21. New York Historical Society, letter to Frank Millet, July 9, 1895.
22. Wilson, McKim, Mead 6 White, Architects, pp. 156-157.
23. Kaschewski, The Quiet Millionaires, pp. 52-53.
24. Andrews, The Vanderbilt Legend, p. 341.
25. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 146.
26. One Morristown lady remembered that “my grandmother and Mrs. Hamilton McK. Twombly were on calling card—but not calling—terms. Once a year, Grandmother was driven to the Twombly mansion and announced herself to the butler. After ushering her into the main drawing room, he would disappear for a discreet interval. He would return to say that Mrs. Twombly was not receiving today, which Grandmother already knew. She then left her card. Within the year, Mrs. Twombly would go through the same performance, to keep the lines of communication open, I suppose.’ (Kaschewski, p. 9.)
27. Vanderbilt, Queen of the Golden Age, p. 308.
28. Kaschewski, p. 113.
29. Amory, p. 110.
30. Ibid.
31. Burden, The Vanderbilts in My Life, pp. 104, 217.
32. Tomkins, Merchants and Masterpieces, p. 190.
33. James, The American Scene, pp. 216-217.
34. Amory, p. 497.
35. New York Times, August 19, 1988.
36. Frederick Vanderbilt’s Hyde Park estate on 212 acres overlooking the Hudson, with its three-story Italian Renaissance mansion, filled with furnishings from the palace of Napoleon and the empress Josephine, is a national historic site administered by the National Park Service.
37. Plimpton, ‘The Voices of Two Venerable Vanderbilts.’
38. New York Times, February 6, 1879.
39. Croffut, The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune, p. 133.
40. Amory, p. 46.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MA
NUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
Architects Information Center, Washington, D.C. Contains library and papers of Richard Morris Hunt.
Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Catherine Howland Hunt (Mrs. Richard Morris Hunt), ‘The Richard Morris Hunt Papers, 1828-1895” (edited by Alan Burnham), unpublished manuscript. Scrapbook assembled by Mrs. Richard Morris Hunt, July 31, 1900, on the fifth anniversary of Richard Morris Hunt’s death. Susan Brendel, “Documentation of the Construction of Biltmore House Through Drawings, Correspondence and Photographs” (thesis, 1978).
Columbia University Libraries, New York, N.Y. Belmont Family Papers.
Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Mich. Mrs. Frank Crawford Vanderbilt Papers are contained in the Burton Historical Collection.
Friendship Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Florham-Madison Campus, Madison, N.J. Documents and clipping files relating to Florence Vanderbilt Twombly and her estate, Florham.
Melvin Gelman Library, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Chauncey Depew Papers.
Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. The log of the Alva, 1891. Papers of Harold S. Vanderbilt.
Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. The C.E.S. Wood Collection includes a first-draft autobiography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, prepared by Sara Bard Field in 1917, as well as notes for the autobiography taken while in conversation with Mrs. Belmont in July and August of 1917, and some correspondence of Alva Belmont.
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. Papers of the National Woman’s party. Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, including documents concerning Biltmore.
Museum of the City of Mobile, Reference Library, Mobile, Ala. Papers of Mrs. Frank Crawford Vanderbilt.
Newport Historical Society, Newport, R.I. Collection on women’s suffrage relating to Alva Vanderbilt Belmont’s Newport rallies.
New York Genealogical Society and Biographical Library, New York, N.Y. Laurus Crawfurdiana, “Memorials of That Branch of the Crawford Family Which Comprises the Descendants of John Crawford of Virginia, 1660-1883” (New York: privately published, 1883). “Lines Written on the Death of Mrs. Phoebe Vanderbilt by her Granddaughter Anna V. P. Root of Staten Island.”
New York Historical Society, New York, N.Y. Diary of Mrs. Frank Crawford Vanderbilt. Harold Seton Collection of sixty photographs of those who attended the March 26, 1883, fancy dress ball of the William K. Vanderbilts. Correspondence concerning the construction of Florham.
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