Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt

“My life was never destined to be quite happy,” he told them. “It was laid out along lines which I could not foresee, almost from earliest childhood. It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for. Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness. It is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.”

If ever Scott Fitzgerald needed evidence to substantiate his aphorism that “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it was here in spades in this portrait gallery of extravagant crazies that is the unique saga of the Vanderbilt family.

The important thing is knowing how to live. Learn a lesson from my mistakes. I had too much power before I knew how to use it and it defeated me in the end. It drove all sweetness out of my life except the affection of my children. My trouble was that I was born too late for the last generation and too early for this one. If you want to be happy, l

(Alva and a friend had once been at Woodlawn Cemetery, looking at a tomb of pink marble that an heiress had built for her husband. “Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!” Alva opined. A workman who was nearby heard her. “Well,” he said, “if you think this is funny, go and look at that tomb over there where the crazy woman who built it has put cats on

As would be expected, while everyone attended to his or her own business, the Commodore attended to everyone else’s business. One evening after dinner, he walked up to his thirty-three-year-old son Billy, who was enjoying a cigar on the deck. “Billy, I wish you would quit that smoking habit of yours. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you do.” “

Harry laughed. “I don’t suppose you have any idea of the way I live. Well, I shall have to enlighten you. I live not on my wits, but on my wit. I make a career of being popular.’39 Bessie did not understand, so Harry patiently explained to her just how he had been living so well on so little.

“If a boy is good for anything,” the Commodore remarked, “you can stick him down anywhere and he’ll earn his living and lay up something; if he can’t do it he ain’t worth saving, and you can’t save him.”

Two of William’s sisters, Ethelinda Allen (the beneficiary of a $400,000 trust fund) and Marie Alicia La Bau (the recipient of $250,000 of railroad bonds), along with William’s brother, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt (who had been given only the income from a $200,000 trust fund to be controlled by William), ganged up and decided to contest their fa

Grace was spending $250,000 each year to entertain her friends and maintain her position as Mrs. Vanderbilt, $125,000 more each year than her and Neily’s annual income. The expenses of running 640 Fifth Avenue and of paying taxes for the privilege of having a home on a piece of the world’s most expensive urban real estate amounted to over $1,000 do