D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A son $500,000 and the income from a trust fund of $1 million. The bulk of his $70 million estate went to his third son, Alfred, who died 15 years later at the age of 38 in the sinking of the Lusitania. The marriage of Neily and Grace lasted, if not so happily for him. Eventually, Alice Vanderbilt came around to “accepting” her daughter-in-law (who bore two more Vanderbilts: Cornelius IV [or Cornelius, Jr.] and Grace). Ironically, 30 years later, the same family drama occurred: In 1927, daughter Grace eloped against her parents expressed wishes with a young man named Henry Davis, married in the city chapel and witnessed by a local patrolman.
Like the generation before them, Grace’s parents were outraged. Mother Grace had other ideas for her daughter marital future (for example, Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough and Neily’s first cousin Consuelo Vanderbilt). Like her mother, young Grace also had a “reputation” that linked her to several other men, including Prince George, Duke of Kent, son of Queen Mary and King George V. The year 1927 was also a milestone in the family. It was when the big house at One East 57th Street was sold for $7 million to Bergdorf Goodman and demolished. (The gates to the entrance of the house’s
porte-cochère on East 58th Street now act as the entrance to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park at 105th Street and Fifth Avenue.) Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt bought a “smaller” mansion, the George Gould house further up the avenue, where she lived out her days. She died in 1934. Her onetime nemesis, Grace Wilson, by that time had moved with Neily into the mansion on Fifth Avenue at 52nd Street, which had been built by Neily’s grandfather, William. The marriage was not a happy one for the groom. Grace Vanderbilt became the Vanderbilt hostess, much to her husband’s boredom and chagrin. She
was famous for her entertainments. Over the years, she played hostess to literally tens of thousands of guests who came to her dinners, her “at homes,” and her major banquets. Finally, in 1943, after the death of Neily, her house was sold and demolished, and she too, like her mother-in-law before, moved to a “smaller” house: the William Starr Miller house. It was a Louis XIII-style townhouse at 1048 Fifth Avenue at 86th Street, now the Neue Galerie. She left future generations to stand aside and watch the public argue over a proposed “visitors center” (with food) on the grounds of Cornelius and Alice’s famous palace in Newport. X
R A L P H L AU R E N ’ S S P R I N G 2 0 1 4 S H O W AT 5 6 0 W A S H I N G TO N S T R E E T
Dylan Lauren, Jessica Alba and Ricky Lauren 46 QUEST
Grace Coddington and Virginia Smith
Ralph Lauren
David and Lauren Bush Lauren
Anna Wintour and Jelena Ristic
Bruce Weber
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
The final walk on the runway