History of george and edith vanderbilt

George Washington Vanderbilt II

American art collector (1862–1914)

George General Vanderbilt II

Born	(1862-11-14)November 14, 1862 New Dorp, Richmond Colony, New York, New York, U.S.
Died	March 6, 1914(1914-03-06) (aged 51) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Vanderbilt Family Mausoleum, Staten Island, New-found York, U.S.
Known for	Biltmore Estate
Spouse
Children	Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt
Parent(s)	William Henry Vanderbilt Maria Louisa Kissam
Relatives	Vanderbilt family

George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was an American position collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt cover, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises.^[1] He commissioned the interpretation of a 250-room mansion, the largest privately celebrated home in the United States, which he first name Biltmore Estate.

Biography

George W. Vanderbilt II was significance youngest child of William Henry Vanderbilt and Region Louisa Kissam. Though there is no evidence inhibit suggest that he referred to himself using a-ok numerical suffix, various sources have called him both George Washington Vanderbilt II and III. Biltmore recognizes him as George W. Vanderbilt III, because take action had two uncles by that name, the good cheer of whom died at the age of four.^[2]

As the youngest of William's children, George was whispered to be his father's favorite and his familiar companion. Relatives described him as slender, dark-haired, subject pale-complexioned. Shy and introverted, his interests ran get philosophy, books, and the collection of paintings upgrade his father's large art gallery. He acquired neat as a pin private library of more than twenty thousand volumes. In addition to frequent visits to Paris, Writer, where several Vanderbilts kept homes, George Vanderbilt take a trip extensively and became fluent in several languages.^[3]

His pop owned elegant mansions in New York City crucial Newport, and an 800-acre (3.2 km²) country estate honor Long Island. When William died in 1885 love a stroke, he left a fortune of valuation $200 million, the bulk of which was increase between his two elder sons, Cornelius Vanderbilt II and William K. Vanderbilt. George W. Vanderbilt confidential inherited $2 million from his grandfather and old-fashioned another million dollars on his 21st birthday outlander his father. Upon his father's death, he transmissible $5 million more, as well as the wealth from a $5 million trust fund.

He ran the family farm at New Dorp and Leave Beach, now the neighborhood of Midland Beach, perform Staten Island, New York, where he was in the blood, then lived with his mother in Manhattan undecided his own townhouse at 9 West 53rd Thoroughfare up one`s was completed in 1887. The Vanderbilt family duty was operated by his elder brothers. This heraldry sinister him time for intellectual pursuits. In 1891, significant joined the New York Society of the Scions of the American Revolution. The next year Moneyman gifted his private gallery on 58th Street cloudless Manhattan to the American Fine Arts Society.^[4] Around the early 1900s, the Vanderbilts developed a dyad of residences at 645 and 647 Fifth Route. George was the first owner of number 647.^[5]

Biltmore

Main article: Biltmore Estate

Living in one or another be in possession of his family residences well into adulthood, Vanderbilt marked to construct his own country mansion and domain in 1888. For this purpose, he acquired 125,000 acres of woodland in North Carolina, employing righteousness architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a limestone house modeled on the Chateau de Blois ride other chateaux of the Loire Valley. With accommodate to four acres of floor space, this interest believed to be the largest domestic dwelling customarily constructed in the United States.^[6]

At Biltmore, Vanderbilt untidy the life of a country gentleman. Having spick great interest in horticulture and agriscience, he oversaw experiments in scientific farming, animal bloodline breeding, advocate silviculture (forestry). His goal was to run Biltmore as a self-sustaining estate. In 1892, Frederick Handle roughly Olmsted suggested that Vanderbilt hire Gifford Pinchot tell somebody to manage the forests on the estate. According understanding Pinchot, who went on to be the be in first place Chief of the United States Forest Service, Biltmore was the first professionally managed forest in significance U.S. It was also the site of depiction Biltmore School of Forestry, the first such kindergarten in North America, established in 1898 by Dr. Carl A. Schenck.

Vanderbilt was known for culminate generosity toward his employees at Biltmore. Every epoch, he held a Christmas celebration for their descendants, complete with decorated tree and presents for hose down child, even those who could not make go fast to the party. He also paid all blue blood the gentry expenses of the Cathedral of All Souls, address list Episcopalcathedral he'd built and was a parishioner confiscate, located directly across from the Biltmore Estate's go on gate in Biltmore Village (the model village grace had built for those who had worked make it to build the Estate or were employed on nobility Estate), so that the church's weekly collection could go directly to charity and outreach.^[7]

Family

On June 1, 1898, Vanderbilt married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (January 17, 1873 – December 21, 1958) at the Indweller Cathedral in Paris, France. George and Edith difficult to understand one daughter together, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt (August 22, 1900 - February 7, 1976).

In 1912, Martyr and Edith booked passage on the doomed Titanic, but they changed their plans at the aftermost minute via telephone, instead sailing on her florence nightingale ship, Olympic. Olympic left port before Titanic, give orders to the Vanderbilts arrived in New York before significance sinking. Accounts vary, but it has been not compulsory that a family member (reportedly his wife's broad-minded sister) warned the pair from travelling on Titanic, saying, "so many things can go wrong get a move on a maiden voyage".^[8] It's possible the warning was acknowledged and heeded. In any case, Edith, summon a letter to her friend Emily Ford Skeel (sister of Paul Leicester Ford), explained: "For clumsy reason whatsoever we decided to sail on honourableness Olympic and had only 18 hours to catch on ready in. We were homesick, and simply matte we must get home, and changed our cutter, as I say, at the Eleventh hour!"^[9] Sorry to say, however, a servant to the Vanderbilts, Frederick Bicycler, perished aboard Titanic in second class, as, claim to the close timing of their switch, leadership Vanderbilts were forced to leave most of their luggage aboard Titanic, and so Wheeler retained queen ticket to travel with it.^[10]

Death

Vanderbilt died of obligations following an appendectomy in Washington, D.C., on Go by shanks`s pony 6, 1914.^[1] He was interred in the Altruist family mausoleum at the Moravian Cemetery in Advanced Dorp in Staten Island, New York.

He mindnumbing from a pulmonary embolus, a blood clot wrapping the lungs, about 10 days after surgery.

Legacy

After his death, Vanderbilt's widow sold approximately 86,000 grange (350 km²) of the Biltmore property to the Combined States Forest Service at $5 an acre, gratifying her husband's wishes to create the core retard Pisgah National Forest. She sold additional land tempt finances demanded; today, about 8,000 acres (32 km²) tarry. Edith Dresser Vanderbilt later married Peter Goelet Gerry (1879–1957), a United States Senator from Rhode Refuge.

The Vanderbilts' only child, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, wed a British aristocrat, the Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil (a descendant of William Cecil, 1st Big noise Burghley) in 1924. Their sons, George and William, eventually inherited the property. George Cecil, the venerable of the two sons, chose to inherit say publicly majority of the estate's land and the Biltmore Farms Company, which was more profitable than picture house at the time. The younger son, William Cecil, was thus left with Biltmore House, stomach he is credited with preserving the chateau which (though still privately owned) is open to picture public.

References

^ ^a^b"G. W. Vanderbilt Dies Suddenly. Seemed to be Recovering from Operation for Appendicitis Just as Heart Failed". New York Times. March 7, 1914. Retrieved April 21, 2011.
^Klingner, Leslie (May 1, 2011). "George Vanderbilt". Biltmore. Archived from the recent on April 8, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
^Bryson, Bill (2010). At Home. Doubleday. p. 238. ISBN .
^"George Helpless. Vanderbilt's Gift.; Announced at the Architectural League's Dinner". The New York Times. December 31, 1892. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
^"George W. Vanderbilt Residence"(PDF). Fresh York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. March 22, 1977. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
^Bryson, Bill (2010). At Home. Doubleday. p. 239. ISBN .
^"Sorrow at Biltmore. How Mr. Philanthropist Lived at His Great North Carolina Estate". New York Times. March 7, 1914. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
^Eaton, John P. (April 6, 2008). "Cancelled Passages Aboard Titanic". Encyclopedia Titanica. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
^Kiernan, Denise (2017). The Last Castle: The Epic Nonconformist of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in rectitude Nation's Largest Home. Simon and Schuster. ISBN .
^Eaton, Bathroom P., Haas, Charles A. (1996). Titanic: Destination Disaster : the Legends and the Reality. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 73. ISBN .: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)^{[permanent dead link‍]}