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The stunning mansion was purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt II in the fall of 1885, for a price tag of $400,000 — in the largest real estate deal ever signed in the area at the time. And we’re here to walk you through the history of this national historic landmark. The mansion is set on 8,000 acres of green space that include rolling hills, manicured gardens, and natural wooded areas shaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect behind Central Park and the U.S. Founded by shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt in the 19th century, their legacy includes philanthropy, art patronage, and the creation of Vanderbilt University. The family’s impact spans generations, leaving an indelible mark on American business, education, and culture. Enjoy breathtaking views from rooftops and balconies of Biltmore House and get a closer look at its design and construction with this 60-minute guided tour of areas not seen on the regular house visit.
Learning in a divisive age: Peabody educators respond
It was built for engineer and contractor Lynn Atkinson,[3] who commissioned the property for his wife. She found it "pretentious", so the couple never lived there.[4] The house, located on 10 acres (4 hectares), with gardens designed by Henri Samuel, later was owned by Arnold Kirkeby and then Jerry Perenchio. Their niece, Margaret "Daisy" Van Alen, inherited the property when Frederick Vanderbilt died in 1938. The new estate featured 62,482 square feet of living space across a total of 70 rooms, set on a sprawling 14-acre oceanfront lot. The opulent Gilded Age mansion is divided across five floors, and it’s easy to lose track of all the rooms in the house. The grandest of Newport's famous "cottages," The Breakers was the summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, built in 1893 in the Italian Renaissance style.
Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, New York
The Vanderbilt Mansion is a home built expressly for the aristocratic lifestyle for a family whose name is the very definition of wealth and privilege. The children of William Henry Vanderbilt—at one time the wealthiest man in America—were the most prolific home builders of their era. The houses, often overbearing in their display of opulence, are a stark contrast to the stately house architects McKim, Mead & White designed for Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt at Hyde Park—an understated masterpiece of American design. The house was designed by Sumner Spaulding in 1933 in the style of a French chateau.
Biltmore Estate: Everything to Know About America's Largest Home - Architectural Digest
Biltmore Estate: Everything to Know About America's Largest Home.
Posted: Thu, 29 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
The Vanderbilt Family Homes: Here’s Your Guide
The most intriguing story (in our opinion) of Vanderbilt appears in the prologue, covering the move of Gladys Vanderbilt, the great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife Alice, out of the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. Gladys would be the last Vanderbilt to live in the 70-room mansion, one of the Newport “cottages.” This event took place, incredibly, just in 2018 and is full of Vanderbilt-style drama which we will cover shortly. Newport also figures as a setting for another story, that of Alva Vanderbilt, who was first married to William K. Vanderbilt and then later to Oliver Belmont. The deal included an agreement that Sylvia was granted life tenancy, and she continued to live at The Breakers until her death in 1998.
Mansion
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While communes are obviously known for their highly “communal” nature, the unique structure of the domes also allowed for an important level of privacy among community members. The domes’ prominent location and architecture, coupled with their bright white plexiglass exteriors, were also intended to draw attention to the community, and, by extension, to the issue of homelessness in America. The location of this commune within the heart of a large city is notably different than some of the back-to-the-earth communes we have studied, but its situation made sense due to the fact that it catered to an urban homeless population. Hayes’ goal was to replicate many such communities around the country, as the assembly of the domes was quick, cheap, and space-efficient. The Dome Village commune collapsed in 2006 when the rent in the area increased by 700% due to the skyrocketing value of properties in downtown Los Angeles.
When was this home built and last sold?
The Society then agreed to allow her family to continue to live on the property’s third floor, which has remained closed off to the public. Long Island’s Idle Hour Country Estate, one of the largest residences in the United States, was the home of William Kissam Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt and heir to the family fortune. After the original Idle Hour burned to the ground in 1899, it was rebuilt on an even grander scale. Although this historic treasure isn’t currently open to the public, Vanderbilt Berkshires Estate, formerly known as Elm Court Estate, is worth mentioning.
A Rich History
After his beautiful Newport summer house burned down in an unexpected fire, Cornelius Vanderbilt II wasted no time in gathering a team to rebuild the property. Vanderbilt then rehired Peabody and Stearns to remodel the property, spending roughly $500,000 more in upgrades and renovations. That means the railroad tycoon invested the equivalent of $26 million dollars (by today’s money) in his Newport mansion. The Vanderbilt star continues to shine bright in the public sphere, with Cornelius’s great, great, great-grandson, Anderson Cooper, who is a world-renowned journalist, author, and TV host.
Ted Hayes, however, a vocal Republican, suspected that politics played into the situation. The dismantled domes were sold on Ebay, at roughly $3,000 each, and the proceeds were supposed to go toward the creation of a similar community elsewhere in Los Angeles, which has yet to happen. A stone beaux-arts country house that clocks in at 44,000 square feet, the Vanderbilt Mansion boasts 54 rooms filled with rich wood paneling and European marble finishings. Admire the carved wood ceiling in the large living room, the finely furnished bedrooms, and the breathtaking views of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.
Now also a National Historic Landmark, Marble House was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and modeled after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. With its wood shingles, asymmetrical facades, and gambrel roofs, the 106-room, 55,000-square-foot home built by Emily Thorn Vanderbilt and her husband, William Douglas Sloane, in the 1880s remains the largest American shingle-style home in the U.S. Presidents and European royalty, and in 1919, the Elm Court Talks held at the estate helped create the League of Nations and draft the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. In addition to Rough Point, the Commodore’s grandson Frederick owned a mansion in Upstate New York. Built on 200 scenic acres overlooking the Hudson River for Frederick and his wife, the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park is just a short distance from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s boyhood home and final resting place. A close friend of Jackie Kennedy, Doris was a philanthropic heiress whose family purchased Rough Point in 1922, enlarging and renovating the property to its current state.
Experience America’s Largest Home®, as magnificent today as it was more than a century ago. Your self-guided house visit spans three floors and the basement of the luxurious family home of George and Edith Vanderbilt. Explore the stories of the Vanderbilt family, their guests, and employees through displays of vintage clothing, accessories, art, furniture, and more. Explore our history, architecture, gardens and grounds, cuisine, wine, and more with carefully curated experiences that showcase the breadth of the estate’s appeal.
The property, historically known as Hyde Park, was one of several homes owned by Frederick William Vanderbilt and his wife Louise Holmes Anthony. The 54-room Vanderbilt mansion was designed by the preeminent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. The interiors are archetypes of the American Renaissance, blending European architectural salvage, antiques, and fine period reproductions representing an array of historical styles. The site includes 211 acres (85 ha) of the original larger property (once around 600 acres) situated on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River and includes manicured lawns, formal gardens, woodlands, and numerous auxiliary buildings. Dome Village was a utopian community founded in 1993 in downtown Los Angeles by Ted Hayes, a prominent activist for civil rights and for the homeless. The commune was created in a neglected parking lot near a freeway (part of its mission was to help fight urban decay), and was intended to provide a transitional community for roughly 30 homeless citizens not yet ready to live in a traditional home environment.
Completed in 1895, this sprawling French chateau-like mansion remains the largest house in the United States. Its 33 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, three kitchens, 65 fireplaces, and many other rooms fill 175,000 square feet of living space, the equivalent of 4 acres! In addition to luxuriously appointed common areas, a grand staircase, an impressive library, and an inviting winter garden, Biltmore includes a cavernous indoor swimming pool and the nation’s first private indoor bowling alley.
George began building it in 1889 after visiting the area with his mother and falling in love with the Blue Ridge Mountain landscape, visible in the distance. An opulent bedroom inside the Vanderbilt Mansion, which is located in Hyde Park, New York, an idyllic Hudson Valley area that is also famous for its connection to the Roosevelts. Hyde Park is also the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential library, home, and burial place.
As one can imagine, The Breakers was a real estate property tough financial demands. There were extremely high maintenance costs for not only the house, but also for the thirteen acres of landscaped grounds, a stable, and two greenhouses. The $12.5 million ($340 million in today’s dollars) inherited by Gladys was not enough to keep up The Breakers, especially after Count Széchényi’s property and money were seized during World War II. The Breakers was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, a favorite architect of the Vanderbilts (Hunt also designed Alva Vanderbilt’s Fifth Avenue mansion and Marble House in Newport). Many of the wealthy had undertaken grand tours of Europe, during which they admired the estates of the nobility.
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