Cornelius Vanderbilt II House

The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House was a mansion built in 1883 at 1 West 57th Street in New York City. It was sold in 1926 and demolished.

The townhouse, occupying the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, was constructed for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, eldest grandson of the Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the family fortune, in 1883. The ground level contained a drawing room, dining room (which doubled as the art gallery), and a reception room. The second floor housed a salon, a music room and a conservatory, while the family bedrooms were on the remaining floors.

Cornelius, feeling that others were trying to outdo his house, bought all the property on the 5th Avenue block. He then hired George B. Post and Richard Morris Hunt to construct a much larger mansion, filling the entire block front. The interiors were done by the French design firm Jules Allard and Sons, with many pieces in the house being imported from Europe. The first floor featured a five-story Caen stone entrance hall from which the principal rooms were accessed. These included the library, a small salon, grand salon, a watercolor room, two-story ballroom and a two-story dining room which doubled as the art gallery. Also on this floor were a two-story Moorish-inspired smoking room, a den, an office, a breakfast room and a pantry. On the second floor were Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom, boudoir, bath, closet and dressing room. Mr. Vanderbilt's bedroom was also on this floor, as well as his bathroom, dressing room, closet and private study. The house was six stories tall, not including the basement, and also had a stable and a private garden next door.

The Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion was, and remains, the largest private residence ever built in New York City. Thirteen years after moving into his new mansion (he also lived in The Breakers, a 125,000 sq. ft. beach "cottage" in Newport, Rhode Island), Cornelius suffered a stroke which left him confined to a wheelchair for the remaining three years of his life. In his will he left his wife Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt a $7,000,000 trust fund and the use of 1 West 57th Street and The Breakers. After Cornelius died, Alice never remarried and continued to live in the mansion and in Newport but the house was never opened again to friends, and the only functions that are known to have happened there were the funerals of her two sons. Subsequently, it was just Alice and the 37 servants needed to run the mansion.

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