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

When the Cornelius Vanderbilts had acquired the land in the 1880s, it had cost $375,000 and the house $3 million more. Their new mansion had been hailed by the press as “a private house which must for a century or two elevate the standard of such houses, and tend, at least, to the improvement of domestic architecture.”8 Now in 1925 the land, a prim

“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.

Their loyalty strained to the limit, workers of the New York Central threatened to strike and destroy the Grand Central Depot. From his hotel room at Saratoga, William Vanderbilt considered bringing in the militia as the other railroad executives had, but instead tried quite a different approach. He issued an announcement to all the workers on the

Burning forty-two tons of coal each day, averaging thirteen knots, the North Star plowed across the Atlantic. Within several days, a routine had established itself. “There was discipline on board that ship, sir,” the Reverend Choules noted. “Each man attended to his own business. The Commodore did the swearing, and I did the praying. So we never di

How would the ladies make their investment decisions? That was easy, the Commodore responded. Mrs. Woodhull would go into a trance and predict the course of railroad stocks. “Do as I do,” he told one young man asking for stock advice, “consult the spirits.”100 The stock of the New York Central would be rising, he told another. How did he know? “Mrs

“If a man makes money, no matter how much, he finds a certain happiness in its possession, for in the desire to increase his business, he has a constant use for it. But the man who inherits it has none of this. The first satisfaction, and the greatest, that of building the foundation of a fortune, is denied him. He must labor, if he does labor, sim

Why had he left his fortune to one son, to Billy? To keep the wealth concentrated from generation to generation. “What you have got isn’t worth anything, unless you have got the power, and if you give away the surplus, you give away the control.”

“Society,” he had said, “is an occupation in itself. Only a man who has a good deal of leisure and a taste for it can keep up with its demands.’2 He found himself “assailed on all sides” by people wanting to enter society, and became, as he said, “a diplomat [who] committed myself to nothing, promised much and performed as little as possible.”