The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House was a mansion located on 1 West 57th Street in New York City. The townhouse, occupying the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, was constructed for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, eldest grandson of the Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the family fortune, in 1883. The ground level contained a drawing room, dining room (which doubled as the art gallery), and a reception room. The second floor housed a salon, a music room and a conservatory, while the family bedrooms were on the remaining floors. Cornelius, feeling that others were trying to outdo his house, bought all the property on the 5th Avenue block. He then hired George B. Post and Richard Morris Hunt to construct a much larger mansion, filling the entire block front. The interiors were done by the French design firm Jules Allard and Sons, with many pieces in the house being imported from Europe. The first floor featured a five-story Caen stone entrance hall from which the principal rooms were accessed. These included the library, a small salon, grand salon, a watercolor room, two-story ballroom and a two-story dining room which doubled as the art gallery. Also on this floor were a two-story Moorish-inspired smoking room, a den, an office, a breakfast room and a pantry. On the second floor were Mrs. Vanderbilts bedroom, boudoir, bath, closet and dressing room. Mr. Vanderbilts bedroom was also on this floor, as well as his bathroom, dressing room, closet and private study. The house was six stories tall, not including the basement, and also had a stable and a private garden next door. The Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion was, and remains, the largest private residence ever built in New York City. Twenty years after moving into his new mansion (he also lived in The Breakers, a cottage in Newport, Rhode Island), Cornelius suffered a stroke which left him confined in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He died two years later. In his will he left his wife Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt a $7,000,000 trust fund and the use of 1 West 57th Street and The Breakers. After Cornelius died, Alice never remarried and continued to live here and in Newport but the house was never opened again to friends, and the only known function that happened were the funerals of her two sons. Subsequently it was just Alice and the 37 servants it took to run the mansion. As with the rest of the residences on Fifth Avenue, the mansion at 1 West 57th Street began to be encroached on by commercial skyscrapers, the most prominent being the Knickerbocker Hotel; but Alice remained. The trust fund Cornelius had left her produced a yearly income of $250,000, which was just enough to maintain both houses. Alice held on as long as she could, but by the outbreak of World War I Alice was forced to sell it. She had no hope for the houses preservation because she knew that developers had paid a hefty $7,000,000 for the land, and not for the house that stood on it. A week before the wrecking ball was scheduled to demolish the 40-year old home, Mrs. Vanderbilt arranged to have it opened to the public for fifty cents admission which would be donated to charity. Before selling it, she donated as many elements from the interiors as she could, including the baronial August St. Gaudens designed fireplace which had graced the entrance hall and the Moorish ceiling piece from the smoking room. She also donated the 10-foot-tall metal gates that had graced the entryway at the front of the house. After being forced to sell the house for $7,000,000, she later bought the George Gould Mansion for $800,000. 1 West 57th Street was demolished to make way for the Bergdorf Goodman department store.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 17:24:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015