Have you ever dreamed of being a part of the Gilded Age, of entertaining lavishly, of being the envy of even your wealthest friends? Let the dream begin. This house was the dream of Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt. Not that it began as a dream. They had purchased the house that stood on this site only to find that it was not salvagable. It had to be torn down and a new house built. The building where you purchase your tickets and begin the tour is where Mrs Vanderbilt lived while supervising the construction of her new home.

The guides on our tour were a husband and wife team: Jane and Richard Kelley. They are park service volunteers who work every Friday to take groups through the house.

Frederick Vanderbilt was the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt .He inherited 10 million dollars and turned this fortune into 78 miliion dollars. This house was built as a Spring and Fall Retreat. The style is 95% French, 5% Italian. It was state of the art for its time with central heat and electricity. Louise and Frederick never had children and he was not a social person. Louise on the other hand loved to have parties and for years she had a "walker" or a personal paid escort who would attend parties with her. One interesting fact we learned about Louise was that every dress she had was a double; this way on warm evenings if she began to perspire she would go upstairs, freshen up, get powdered by her maid and come down fresh as a daisy in a new but identical dress. She had a French maid, a French cook and a French dresser. Another interesting fact was that Frederick hated French cooking and the first thing he did after his wife died was fire the French cook. You get to vist several rooms on the first floor including Frederick's office which has a secret bar behind the bookcase (Prohibition). Because there is no airconditioning we almost didn't get to visit the second floor but luckily we were allowed to quickly go up. We also visted and exited through the basement where the male servants had their rooms and where the kitchen, laundry and ironing rooms were.

One thing that suprised me was that the house doesn't have a name; it's not the Breakers or the Elms, or Marble House. It made me wonder why. The house was left to Mrs. Vanderbilt's niece, Daisy Van Allen. After trying to sell it for 2 years she decided to give it away. One of the last things Daisy did was to take Fred and Louise's personal items and burn them on the lawn.

This is a beautiful and interesting place to visit and the views from the grounds to the river are spectacular.

The cost for a ticket is $8 per adult and you must be part of a tour.