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Monuments to New Wealth
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F.W. Vanderbilt Mansion in
Hyde Park,
New York under construction in 1895. |
Fifth Avenue, New York City |
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| Splendid mansions filled
with things of the past implied a rich ancestral heritage for
millionaires who lacked social credentials. For this they summoned
the Beaux-Arts architects. Richard Morris Hunt, the standard-bearer
of the era, was the first American to train at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts in Paris. Others, notably Charles Follin McKim, followed.
Invoking a design vocabulary based on the classical principles
of antiquity and the Renaissance, the Beaux-Arts men were avant-garde
for their time. No single family was more conspicuous as patrons
of architecture than the Vanderbilts. |
| William Henry Vanderbilt initiated the
family building campaign with a mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue,
completed in 1880; he built its twin next door for two daughters.
Soon the avenue was lined with the residences of the Commodore's
grandchildren. William K. commissioned Hunt to build an 80-room
"little Chateau de Blois" across the street from his
father. A few blocks away, Cornelius II built a five-story, red
brick palace also of French influence, "the largest dwelling-house
occupied by a single family in the city of New York." William
K. gave his wife Alva the classic Marble House for her birthday
in 1888. It was the most opulent of the summer cottages at Newport
until 1895, when Cornelius built The Breakers, Hunt's version
of a 16th-century Italian palace. Frederick began his Hyde Park
country place the next year. Meanwhile, George Washington Vanderbilt,
the youngest of the clan, surpassed everyone with his North Carolina
retreat Biltmore, also by Hunt. It was - and still is - the most
spectacular of the great Vanderbilt mansions. |
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Roosevelt-Vanderbilt
National Historic Sites
4097 Albany Post Road
Hyde Park, NY 12538
Last updated: February 9, 2001
http://www.nps.gov/vama/monuments.html
Author:ROVA
Webmaster
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