Vanderbilt collaborated with Richard Morris Hunt and created the Petit Chateau at 660 5th Avenue, as the proper house of her branch of the Vanderbilt family. The home was built in the French Renaissance style and created an architectural frenzy. Because the Petite Chateau was seen as the great swan song of the great New York City mansions. It was well balanced, had the perfect blend of historical influence and decorative restraint. To open her house Alva threw a great ball in honor of her best friend Consuelo Yznaga, the Duchess of Manchester. The party was the most anticipated party of the day and the greatest social coup ever to take place in New York. In planning her great party Alva purposely did not invite Mrs. Astor, because of social customs Alva was not allowed to call on New York’s queen because she had not yet called on Alva. This forced Caroline into a wall. Because her daughter so wanted to attend the party Caroline Astor sent her footman to the Petit Chateau with her calling card. This small piece of paper that read nothing more than “Mrs. Astor” said that the Vanderbilt’s were now part of society. The erecting of the Petit Chateau was so successful that 5th Avenue in the East 50’s would come to be known as Vanderbilt Row.
become the home of Rockefeller Plaza. Further up 5th avenue, the enormous chateau built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II dominated the street. The home was not significant in its style however it was the largest of kind with 130 rooms and took up almost the entire block. The home would later be tore down and its décor donated to the Met Museum. The palaces of 5th Avenue would continue to rise along the grid and with the commercial rift raft of NYC swiftly moving uptown they would then fall. Few of the homes still stand today but, remnants of them are sprinkled about, breaking from the tradition of the glass high rises of today, as they broke from the tradition of
Various pictures of Marble Row A portrait of Mary Mason Jones
William Henry Vanderbilt would build the Twin Palace at 640 5th Avenue. Two adjacent mansions in the Italianate style housed the heir to the Commodore’s fortune and the other housed two of his married daughters. The mansions would later be torn down and
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