Very interesting, the old mansions of New York

The Savoy Plaza

By early 1900's mid-town east from twenties north to 57th street was becoming ever more commercial. One by one mansions, townhouses, and other low rise buildings were being torn down and in their place new skyscrapers were going up.

Gertrude Vanderbilt was the widow of Cornelius Vanderbilt; he was the one who actually built 1 West 57th street, but Gertrude had been allowed to continue living there after his death.

Gertrude Vanderbilt by 1910 was rattling around that old barn of a house by herself along with nearly 40 servants. She knew the area had changed, finally saw sense sold up and moved out.

They're not very pretty.

V. gothic in style.

You can see from this picture that One West 57th Street, the Vanderbilt mansion was just out of place by 1910. The Plaza Hotel had already gone up across the street, and soon what was left of most townhouses/mansions and other low rise buildings on 56th, 57th and 59th would also be torn down and replaced by skyscrapers.

But not all; there are still a few old mansions/townhouses along sides streets between say 48th and 57th. Most have long been converted to other uses usually retail, but if you look closely some original details still can be seen.

Sadly many Vanderbilt family members had an unfortunate habit of squandering their inherited fortunes on what amounts to rich white people's stuff. They built one, two, or more homes, then subsequently plundered royal and noble homes of Europe along with churches, art dealers, etc... to bring back crates of furniture, furnishings, artwork, and so one. That or they commissioned "only the best" from American manufactures.

It is sad because many of these homes barely lasted twenty or ten years before they were sold up, contents auctioned off or whatever, and property redeveloped.

Old Savoy Plaza hotel property was sold and torn down to build GM building in 1965. This was just a few years after old Penn Station head house was demolished to make Madison Square Garden, but city's new landmarks laws couldn't (or didn't) stop owners from doing what they wanted.

Those whacky Vanderbilts! They made tons of money and they spent it! On houses! To be used for a few months out of the year! Any Vanderbilt of that era: "My house is bigger than your house! naaa naaa NA naaa naaa"

I'm sure you're all familiar with GW Vanderbilt's ridiculous Biltmore in Asheville, NC

Through George Washington Vanderbilt II, and his estate Biltmore in NC, the Vanderbilt family lays claim to the largest private residence in United States.

.....

Old buildings add character to a city if they can hold on to them during periods of "urban renewal" and building frenzies which are just developer money-making machines. A lot of small to medium sized towns in the US destroyed their downtowns during the 50s-70s to build generic Pittsiburgh-inspired "modern" city centers. All you need to see this are some of the Dover books on cities like Philadelphia Then and Now, or New York Then and Now.

Thank you for this post OP, this is very interesting!

Alfred had the largest swimming pool.

For you girls that like this sort of thing; floor plans/layout for a Fifth Avenue mansion that remains standing; the Andrew Carnegie house at Fifth avenue and 91st street. Today it is the home of Cooper-Hewitt museum.

R7

Outside of Cornelius (Commodore) Vanderbilt, then his eldest son William Henry Vanderbilt, very few of that family "made" very much money. What most were very good at is plowing through their inherited fortunes spending vast sums on houses, horses, art, etc.... This is one reason why today there are "poor" and "rich" members of Vanderbilt family.

Andrew Cooper is a very rich Vanderbilt (Gloria Vanderbilt's son), but mostly because of of his own efforts, not inherited wealth.

Large reason for this that many Vanderbilt children inherited their fortunes (usually trusts) with few restrictions; thus they committed the most grievous of errors in terms of wealth planning and financial management; they spent not just interest, but capital as well. Once you've blown that wad so to speak that is it; there isn't anymore.

How Vanderbilt family came to lose it all; well a good number of them anyway.

Speaking of the Carnegie family, if you've got about $26 million to spare, this lovely cottage in Southampton can be yours.

"The home was built in 1899 for Alonzo Castle Monson, who dubbed it “Mon Repos,” or, “my place of rest” in French. Virginia Beggs Carnegie—who was married to Andrew Carnegie’s nephew—purchased the home with her husband after Monson’s death and renamed the estate “Clyden,” after the Clyde River in Scotland."

Interesting that they incorporated aspects of the Vanderbilt Mansion @ OP, into the Sherry Netherland Hotel across the street.

For OP, the Savoy Plaza Hotel

Thank you, R18 - I especially love this pic.

I'm also a big fan of the General Motors Building which replaced it. It has an understated beauty - now overshadowed by that new monster behind it.

Well at least they put all that money back into the economy unlike the cockroaches of today who just sit on it.

[quote]Andrew Cooper

Who?

Ampersand Cooper

[quote]Andrew Cooper is a very rich Vanderbilt (Gloria Vanderbilt's son),

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

There's a famous story about an older member of the Marxist party taking a young Emma Goldman in the late 19th centiry to see the Vanderbilt mansions on 5th Avenue, and she asked him if it was because he was showing her the enormous unfairness of economic distribution. He replied, "Yes, it is very wrong the rich should have so much and the poor should have so little. But what I object to most is their terrible taste. Those houses are so ugly."

Those old pre-war (WWI) mansions were yes, often ugly both inside and out. Much of it had to do with Americans need to gild a lily. A simple and refined building based on French Gothic or Renaissance architecture is one thing, but often Vanderbilt and others went to excess.

The interiors reflected the still often dominate Victorian/Edwardian school of interior decorating; rooms shoved full of furniture to point walking directly across was nearly impossible. Worse they chose heavy and ornate furniture coupled with equally so furnishings.

To protect wallpaper and furnishings from sunlight damage rooms had those thick heavy curtains as well. It was all ghastly IMHO.

There were many good reasons so many of those old mansions though barely ten or twenty years old were pulled down.

For those interested blog Daytonian in Manhattan has interesting collection of exterior and some interior photos (along with history) of many Fifth Avenue buildings.

Ralph Lauren’s flagship store in New York is a former mansion, carefully and tastefully restored:

The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is a French Renaissance revival mansion located at 867 Madison Avenue on the corner of East 72nd Street in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1898, it was modeled after a châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. The plan was for this home to outshine the Vanderbilt limestone palace. Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo, the eccentric New York heiress who commissioned the mansion, made numerous trips to Europe to buy art, furniture, and statues, which were shipped back in crates and stored in rooms and hallways of the home.

Gertrude never actually moved in, never opened those crates. Widowed after two short years of marriage, she opted to live across the street in a town home with her unmarried sister, Laura V. Rhinelander. She was unable to maintain the building and it went into foreclosure in 1909. The crates of valuable furnishings, never opened, were the cause of multiple lootings of the property in 1909. She died in debt in 1914. The building remained vacant until 1921, at which time the first floor was converted into stores and two apartments were carved out of the upper four floors. It is sad to think that this masterpiece was never used as a home.

Ironically it was one of their own, John Jacob Astor, Jr who built the St. Regis hotel that helped finish off Fifth Avenue in 50's as a fashionable address for the wealthy.

To the fury and disgust of his peers Mr. Astor not only tore down several mansions belonging to members of his family (presumably purchased), but also bought up other properties on adjacent lots to get enough land for his grand commercial project.

That Beaux-Arts inspired building still stands presiding over a much different Fifth Avenue. When it went up there were still a good number of townhouses and mansions in area so it stuck out by virtue of height. Today of course area is full of skyscrapers and other tall buildings.

On a sad note barely twelve years after St. Regis went up John Jacob Astor, Jr. perished on the Titanic when it sank.

I think I'd like to step on the throats of every white twat here who uses the lazy term, "rich white people's stuff" or its similar phrasings, such as "white people's problems." The falseness from suburban millennials who are taken care of by others while being the great Victims of the West is disgusting.

Of course the robber barons and industrialists were outrageous spenders concerned about their bling and their status.

So is every contemporary African American celebrity and sports person who sits on a bronze toilet and keeps seven houses and condos around the country.

It ain't race. It's wealth. And pretending otherwise makes you KKK-adjacent.

^^^🤪🤪🤪🤪

[quote] It was all ghastly IMHO.

Thanks for weighing in, Gloria.

[quote] On a sad note barely twelve years after St. Regis went up John Jacob Astor, Jr. perished on the Titanic when it sank.

That's not a sad note.

And now the Vanderbilt's have nothing, when they could've had hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions between them today.

Very stupid family when it comes to $$$. I guess they were the Kardashians of their time, with the ostentatious display of wealth and flashing every they had.

At least Anderson Cooper earns everything he has. He's not ultra wealthy, but I'm sure CNN and CBS pays him well.

R33

Well yes, and no.

Yes, many of the second, third and subsequent generations of Vanderbilts blew through their fortunes as if they were water; there were other problems as well.

Commodore Vanderbilt built his fortune largely upon what became New York Central RR. However by 1920's New York Central just as with many other railroads in USA were facing financial woes. Arrival of the horseless carriage (automobiles, trucks, buses) meant changes in transportation for goods and people. Railroads began to lose their dominance (some called it monopoly) on transportation.

Long story short New York Central RR stock hit the skids, and with it the fortunes of Vanderbilt family. So on one end you had the Vanderbilts spending money is if there was no tomorrow, OTOH source of that money was drying up.

Mr. A. Cooper earns about $12 million per year, but neither he nor any member of his family are included in top ten or even twenty (IIRC) richest families in USA.

Just looking at that Vanderbilt house - it is VAST. The size of a palace and right in the very center of the city on one of its, at the time, most prestigious residential blocks. It was built just to show the world, or America or NYC, how much money they had. For no other reason.

More about the Vanderbilt mansion here.

It was referred to at the time as a chateau and emulated the look of a French chateau.

Apparently there's a sort of cultish retrospective interest in these houses.

R35

Yes, these houses were "vast" like the grand chateaus of France or a hôtel particulier of Paris they were emulated after; but there was a sad downside. Many of these homes for all the expense in building and furnishing were only used a few months of year.

Members of the Vanderbilt family like other wealthy Manhattan residents had one or more homes in the country (New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester). Then there were summer "cottages" in places like Newport, North Carolina, the Adirondacks, various spots in Maine or Rhode Island, etc.... This or they were off for months or years at a time in Europe.

W.K. Vanderbilt's house at 660 Fifth Avenue was one of these places that was empty nearly all year because Mr. Vanderbilt preferred staying in Europe. It took so much effort and bother to wake the house from slumber (only to put it back to bed a few weeks or even days later), Mr. Vanderbilt when in NYC often just stayed at one of his clubs or with other family.

Yes, there are those who still mourn many of these lost mansions. The blog one often refers to in this thread is one such place they meet. Cannot recall which mansion but there were efforts to have something on Fifth Avenue declared a landmark to save it from demolition. Think it was in the 1970's and house itself was in East 70's or East 80's. In any event it didn't work out, and the place was torn down.

It wasn't just along Fifth, but Madison avenue also had it's share of huge mansions such as the Charles Tiffany house.

The place was a huge 57 room mansion at Madison and 72nd street. It was sold in 1933 and torn down to make room for an apartment building.

The Frick Collection was one of the mansions that was saved.

Nothing special to look at.

Across town on UWS you had the vast estate of Charles M. Schwab on Riverside Drive.

Riverside Drive was originally intended to rival Fifth Avenue in terms of opulent mansions of the wealthy and privileged. Lots were sold with deed restrictions that prohibited anything but private family homes from being developed (no apartment buildings). Sadly for some RSD never quite fulfilled its promise; by time of Great Depression the avenue was already being abandoned by the truly wealthy of NYC who preferred UES instead.

Just as elsewhere many of the grand mansions were torn down and replaced by apartment buildings (deed restrictions be damned). However a number of small mansions and townhouses still remain.

Things did not end well for Mr. Charles Schwab; wiped out by the Great Depression that barn of a house became a millstone around his neck. Unable to afford much less keep it up Mr. Schawb moved to an apartment on UES where he died penniless.

And today.

I love that it's called The Schwab House.

These people were very irresponsible. All of the money these people had, gone just like that. They literally threw money away on status symbols, just to show people how wealthy they were.

Look where that got them.

I don't feel bad for any of these people. No wonder so many people hate the wealthy.

The Fifth Avenue mansion of copper baron William Clark, the father of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, was considered hideous even in its day.

One of the aspects of the destruction of these homes, not just in New York, is the unknown loss of some of the best and greatest works of artists and artisans around the world, who had skills that are rare today. There was no architectural salvage back then, most of it went to dumps when it was broken up; marble, mahogany, cast and gilded metals, plaster works, mirrors, tiles, et al. Some Frank Lloyd Wright houses are worth more for their parts than as a house alone. I read a copy of a newspaper report on the demolition of a mansion on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia where the reporter noted axes being used on the mahogany paneling and marble stairs being broken.

[quote]it was modeled after a châteaux

Oh, dear.

The Vanderbilt mansions on 5th Avenue were really ugly and so were some others. but some were/are really cool. The Felix Warburg mansion, also modeled after a French chateau,. is still standing: it's now the Jewish Museum in Manhattan. And it's aged very nicely, I think.

The Clark mansion would’ve cost almost $200,000,000 to build today!!! Probably more because those skilled workers don’t exist anymore.

R44

Agreed!

However that being said some things were saved from Vanderbilt and other mansions before the were reduced to rubble.

More:

The William C. Whitney Mansion...

Note in comments section someone states he is in possession of paneling from ballroom of now demolished mansion. So we can thus assume person or persons removed parts of interiors before the place was smashed.

Yet more on the Whitney mansion including interiors.

Final installment but this one has more pictures of interiors and information on what happened to some of the furnishings from the Whitney mansion.

IIRC Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (yes, the woman who took Little Gloria Vanderbilt away from her mother Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt) was the last resident of the place before selling it just a few days before her death.

From another website:

Harry & Gertrude (Vanderbilt) Whitney (1910-1942)

Harry and his wife, Gertrude Vanderbilt (1875-1942), maintained the mansion as their townhouse for the next twenty years. After Harry died in 1930, Gertrude - a talented and well-known sculptress in her own right - spent increasingly more time down at The Manse, their estate in Long Island where she kept her studio. By 1942, the world was at war, the Gilded Age was over and Fifth Avenue was no longer what it had been. Gertrude put the house and its contents up for sale just days before she died.

The auction - which in many ways represented the close of the Gilded Age era - was a well-publicized event that saw the contents of the house once again dispersed far and wide. The house itself was demolished and the apartment block at 870 Fifth Avenue now occupies the site where the "Palace of Art" once stood.

/quote

James B Duke house at 5th and 78th. How fucked up is it that Doris wasn't even his biological child as he thought she was before he died. SCANDALOUS!

The Duke mansion is so classic simple and elegant. I love it’s proportions and simplicity. I still think the streets off 5th between 69 and 96 Sts feel like Paris. Some of the most stunning townhouses in the world - if not as homogenous as Paris or London.

Some of these building look like sets from a Tim Burton movie.

This isn’t the pic I saw (which was better, in Architectural Digest), but Mrs. Vanderbilt’s bedroom in The Breakers was one of the first rooms that made me go, “Mmmmmmm....!” While it’s too ornate and fusty, the color scheme is very pretty. And the painted furniture, all the inlaid mirrors used as paneling, all the light...I remember thinking, “Oh! This has possibilities!”

I wouldn’t want that bedroom today, but there are elements of it that are dreamy.

One of many reasons these old piles were pulled down was something they shared in common with many great houses in Britain; they were huge barns of places that were cold in winter and inefficient to run. Visitors to Mr. Whitney's mansion noted the place was cold, drafty and not very comfortable; his response basically was "so what? it was huge, crammed with art and artwork, and that is what matters".

These homes were meant to be show pieces, comfort and whatever else be damned, hence one reason even their owners spent little time in them overall.

Andrew Carnegie's huge mansion on Fifth at 91st consumed two tons of coal for heating/hot water on an average NYC winter day. Consider back then we had real cold (or at least chilly) weather from about October until April or even into late May you get an idea of how much it cost to heat those piles of bricks each year.

Unlike great homes in Britain most in New York and elsewhere in USA had state of art mod cons when they were built; but technology was changing fast from late 1800's to between war years and after WWII. This meant these homes would need various upgrades which of course cost money, something not every owner had lying about spare. Mr. Carnegie spent 1.5 million to build his mansion, in 1995 $20 million was spent on renovations and other work both structural and required to better suit the place for purpose as a museum.