The Vanderbilt family, once the undisputed titans of American wealth and high society, has collapsed into a cautionary tale of extravagance, mismanagement, and tragic decline, with a family reunion in 1973 revealing the stunning truth that not a single descendant remained a millionaire. The dynasty that built some of the nation’s most iconic mansions, yachts, and institutions has seen its fortune evaporate over generations, leaving behind a legacy of architectural marvels turned tourist attractions and a name that no longer commands the financial power it once did.
The story began in 1650 when a Dutch servant named Jan Aertson arrived in America from the Netherlands, working for a wealthy family called the Van Covens. His new life led to a new name, combining the Dutch word “van,” meaning “from,” with the name of his hometown, De Bilt, creating the surname Vanderbilt. It would take generations before the family gained its infamous reputation, but when it did, the name would become synonymous with staggering wealth and opulent excess.
It was Jan’s great-great-great-great-grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as “The Commodore,” who first amassed the family’s legendary fortune. Rising from a lower-class existence on Staten Island, he built his wealth in the shipping and railroad industries during the mid-1800s. He moved his family to Manhattan and constructed a house in what is now the affluent Greenwich Village, establishing the family’s foothold in New York’s elite circles.
By 1877, the sickly Commodore found himself restricted by his own ailments, rarely leaving his house for eight months. When he reached his deathbed, he had amassed over $100 million, equivalent to more than $3 billion in today’s money. Before dying, he faced a critical decision: how to distribute his vast riches among his many potential heirs.
The Commodore first allocated one million dollars to build Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Then came the ๐๐ฝ๐ธ๐ธ๐๐พ๐๐ revelation that would tear the family apart. When the will was read, the family discovered that the Commodore had left almost everything to just one heir, his eldest son William Henry Vanderbilt, known as Billy.
The rest of the family was furious and suspicious, as another son and nine daughters received nothing at all.
Three of Billy’s siblings took the matter to court, accusing him of hiring a spiritualist who duped their father into leaving him all the money. Billy, wanting to spare the family the public humiliation of a trial, settled with his siblings, though the amounts offered were minimal. As it turned out, Billy had precious little time to enjoy his grand inheritance.
In 1885, just eight years after his father’s death, Billy died of a stroke.
The remarkable aspect of Billy’s short tenure was that he had doubled the money his father left him. Despite his talent for amassing wealth, Billy had little need for it, often saying that money made him anxious. He blamed his poor health on being wealthy and was prone to looking at his poorer neighbors with envy.
Most of Billy’s fortune went to his two oldest sons, Cornelius Vanderbilt II and William Kissam Vanderbilt.
Cornelius II did not increase the family wealth due to his great generosity, while William Kissam was more interested in horses than amassing a fortune. In 1875, William married Alva Erskine Smith, whom many believed was simply out for his money. Alva had extravagant tastes, having her husband buy her a yacht and collecting mansions with such enthusiasm that she eventually boasted nine of them.
But this was not enough for Alva. She wanted something that money could not buy: acceptance into New York High Society, which rejected the Vanderbilts as “new money.” Their fortunes had not been strictly accumulated through inheritance, making them social pariahs among the established elite.
Alva decided to buy her way in through architecture, spending three years and three million dollars building a home that would force society to acknowledge her.
By this time, William and Alva had welcomed a daughter, Consuelo. Alva was a strict disciplinarian, striking her daughter with a riding crop and making her wear a steel rod to correct her posture. One thing Alva desperately wanted was a regal title to accompany her regal lifestyle.
Her plan was to press her daughter into marrying royalty, and the opportunity presented itself with Charles Spencer-Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough.
The Duke had his own ulterior motives. Neither Consuelo nor the Duke wanted to be together, but that did not stop the marriage from taking place. Through this union, Alva got her connection to royalty, and the Duke gained access to the Vanderbilt fortune to save his dukedom from financial ruin.
Surprisingly, the marriage lasted 26 years.
Just before Consuelo’s marriage to the Duke of Marlborough, Alva announced that she wanted a divorce from William Vanderbilt. Divorce was unheard of in High Society at the time, and she did so on the grounds that her husband had cheated on her. However, some people believed that William had not committed adultery.
Instead, they alleged that he hired a woman to act as his mistress, apparently thinking it would help him escape his tumultuous marriage to Alva. William eventually remarried and moved to France, doting on the horses he adored so much.
William did not really like money, reportedly saying that inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness, leaving him with nothing to hope for, nothing definite to seek or strive for. So far, Billy Vanderbilt’s children had not done well with the family fortune. Cornelius II had given too much away, and William was more interested in horses than amassing wealth.
Then there was the younger brother George, who had an idea to make a real name for himself no matter the cost.
George Washington Vanderbilt II wanted a big house, a really big house. He bought 125,000 acres in North Carolina and hired an architect to design a home with 250 rooms covering over 175,000 square feet. The Biltmore Estate remains to this day the largest house in America.
But it soon became a problem. Building a house this colossal made a deep cut into the Vanderbilt fortune, and maintaining it was not cheap either.
George and his wife Edith were in over their heads with this massive mansion, but their lives took a tragic turn in 1914 when George died during a routine appendectomy. Suddenly, Edith had the monumental house all to herself, including the financial responsibility. Eventually, the family had to do something that most Vanderbilts would have turned their noses up at.
Edith’s daughter Cornelia opened Biltmore Estate to the public in 1930, allowing anyone to glimpse the life of the Vanderbilts.
Speaking of lavish homes, in 1934 Gladys Vanderbilt inherited a summer residence called The Breakers. The 70-room, 138,000-square-foot palace was built in 1895 for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Gladys eventually began leasing it to the Preservation Society of Newport County for one dollar per year.
Gladys’s brother was Reginald Claypool Vanderbilt, who had a reputation for gambling away the family fortune and was also a notorious womanizer.
Reggie had a brother named Cornelius Vanderbilt III, who went by Neely. Neely spent loads of money just trying to keep up appearances in High Society, bragging that he was the first Vanderbilt heir to decrease the family fortune. In 1896, Neely fell in love with Grace Graham Wilson, and since his father opposed their relationship, they eloped.
This made his parents so angry that they disinherited him, meaning that when the time came, Neely received half a million dollars of the family fortune while his brother Alfred received almost 70 million.
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt seemed to have a good head on his shoulders except when it came to marriage. Seven years into his marriage to Ellen Tuck French, she abruptly moved out of their home, allegedly because he had been having an ๐ถ๐ป๐ป๐ถ๐พ๐. While he seemed like a cad, Alfred eventually became a hero.
In 1915, he boarded the RMS Lusitania on a business trip to Liverpool. Off the coast of Ireland, tragedy struck when a German U-boat sent a torpedo toward the ship, causing irreparable damage.
The ship was sinking fast, and it looked like Alfred was going down with it. As the ship sank, Alfred valiantly gave his life vest to a terrified woman clutching her baby. Over 1,000 people lost their lives that day, and Alfred was one of them.
This meant one fewer Vanderbilt, but there was still no shortage of heirs. The Vanderbilts were growing in number, meaning more people stood to inherit from the family fortune. Since the new generation did not seem particularly interested in running the business, the money was quickly drying up.
The fortune came chiefly from the railway industry, but America was rapidly changing. The railroad was no longer the only way to move people and products. In the 1930s, the Depression hit America hard, and it was not kind to the Vanderbilts either.
By this time, Reggie Vanderbilt had ended up in an early grave due to his drinking. Now his wife and daughter, both named Gloria, had little to live on. His wife was not born of Vanderbilt lineage, so she could not count on anything from the family fortune.
The 18-month-old Gloria, who was the great-great-great-granddaughter of the Commodore, was another story. When she turned 21, she would inherit a colossal sum of cash. The Vanderbilts were not fond of Gloria Morgan and her extravagant lifestyle.
Reggie’s sister Gertrude wanted custody of little Gloria, and so they all went to court. Because of the wealth and prestige of the Vanderbilts, the media was about to have a field day.
One of the first on the stand was Gloria Morgan’s nurse, who painted a rather unsympathetic picture of her. She claimed their home was filthy and even infested with rodents. The takeaway from this testimony was that Morgan was unspeakably cruel to little Gloria.
Another ๐๐ฝ๐ธ๐ธ๐๐พ๐๐ testimony came from the maid, who scandalously reported that she had seen Morgan in bed with another woman. The courtroom erupted, and the judge had to clear everyone out before continuing.
But perhaps the most stunning statements came from little Gloria herself, who said she was afraid of her mother. Morgan’s lawyers could not believe their ears. Gloria’s aunt Gertrude had coached her on what to say.
Her plan worked, and she won custody of the child. After the end of the “trial of the century,” Gloria Vanderbilt had very little connection with her mother. On top of that, Aunt Gertrude was not exactly motherly either.
Gloria had to turn to her nanny for a mother figure.
Gloria took her troubled childhood and decided to work in the theater, appearing on Broadway and in both live and recorded TV dramas. With her angelic face, she kicked off a career in fashion by working as a model when she was just 15. But she was more than just a pretty face.
She was also a skilled painter, and eventually her work featured on a line of scarves. An offer followed to put her signature and swan logo on the pocket of a pair of blue jeans.
At this time, the idea of a designer jean did not exist. Gloria and Indian designer Mohan Murjani had an idea to make their designer jeans very, very tight, and they were a huge success. After her third marriage, seven years with director Sidney Lumet, Vanderbilt married Wyatt Emory Cooper.
With Cooper, she had two sons, and it seemed that she had finally found the right guy. She spent 15 years with Cooper until he died on the operating table at the age of 50.
Ironically, he was the first younger man she had married. On July 22, 1988, her 23-year-old son Carter jumped out of their 14th-floor penthouse apartment in New York. Vanderbilt’s other son, Anderson Cooper, made his way in life through hard work.
Unlike some other Vanderbilts, he said that early in his life, his mother had assured him there would be no trust fund. Cooper does not use the Vanderbilt name and rose to prominence without it.
He is living proof that the Vanderbilt fortune has run its course, and there are a few reasons why. Back in 1973, the Vanderbilts got together for a reunion. As they looked around the room, they all had a stunning revelation: not one of them was a millionaire.
Opulent parties, fashion, horses, yachtsโthe Vanderbilts had been living deliciously for about a century, but the party was over.
Some people believe that the Commodore, the one who started the whole Vanderbilt fortune, forgot to teach his heirs an important lesson. He made their lives very easy, but he did not teach them how to stay wealthy. Some say he should have done what fellow wealthy patriarch John Jacob Astor did.
Astor’s idea was to set up a trust split 50/50 between his children and his grandchildren, requiring the same split for future generations. This way, the family learned to hold on to their money.
Another reason for the fall of the Vanderbilts was their homes. During their prime, the family employed the most sought-after architects, whether for a mansion in New York or a palace in the countryside. No expense was spared when it came to creating outrageously beautiful living spaces.
The thing about those homes was that they were often empty. The summer homes only had residents for a few weeks of the year. When it came to the city homes, the story was similar.
They had a problem passing them down to the next generation. No one seemed to want them. They built loads of properties in New York City for extravagant sums, and by the 1940s, they were all gone, reduced to rubble.
Even when it came to departing the Earth, the Vanderbilts did it with style and a hefty price tag. In Staten Island, there is a mausoleum that serves as a burial site for the family.
The designer was the famous architect Richard Morris Hunt, who took his inspiration from an abbey in France. The Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum remains a New York City designated landmark even today. The family that once defined American wealth and excess has become a footnote in history, a reminder that fortunes can be squandered and dynasties can fall.
The Vanderbilt name, once synonymous with unimaginable riches, now serves as a cautionary tale for the ages.