George Washington Vanderbilt II
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.
The fourth and youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, George Washington Vanderbilt II was named after the youngest child (George Washington Vanderbilt) of the family founders (Cornelius Vanderbilt and Sophia Johnson) who died in 1864 at the age of 25 just two years after his namesake (GWB II) was born.
George W. Vanderbilt II ran the family farm at New Dorp on Staten Island, New York where he had been born. After his father's death in 1885, he lived with his mother in Manhattan until his own townhouse at 9 West 53rd Street was completed in 1887.
An intellectual, this Vanderbilt lacked the family's work ethic and had little interest in the family business, preferring instead to spend his large inheritance on a lavish lifestyle frequently referred to as that of the idle rich. In addition to frequent visits to Paris, France, where several Vanderbilts kept a home, George W. Vanderbilt II traveled extensively.
In 1888, Vanderbilt undertook to have Biltmore House constructed near Asheville, North Carolina. Modeled after the great French Châteaux of the Loire Valley, the 250-room castle on 125,000 acres (506 km²) of land would be the largest and most costly of all the Vanderbilt houses and remains the largest home in the United States. On Christmas 1895, Biltmore House opened its doors for a family celebration.
In 1898, in Paris, France, he married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (1873–1958). An art connoisseur and collector, George W. Vanderbilt II filled his mansion with a collection of artwork by some of the greats such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and James Whistler as well as a chess set belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte.
Having a great interest in horticulture, Vanderbilt oversaw experiments in scientific farming, animal bloodline breeding, and silviculture. In 1892 Biltmore's Master Landscape Architect, Frederick Law Olmsted suggested that Vanderbilt hire Gifford Pinchot to manage the Biltmore Forest. According to Pinchot, who went on to be the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, Biltmore Forest was the first professionally managed forest in the U.S.
In 1912 George and Edith Vanderbilt booked passage on the Titanic but canceled due to a premonition of Mrs. Vanderbilt's mother. It was too late for them to get their servant and baggage off the ship; both were lost when the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912.
While George W. Vanderbilt II spent much of his inheritance on the Biltmore estate and its upkeep, bad investments also helped to deplete his once great fortune. He lived on the property until 1914 when he died unexpectedly in Washington, D.C. after an operation for appendicitis. He was interred in the Vanderbilt family mausoleum at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp on Staten Island, New York.
After his death, his widow sold much of the large tract of land around the Biltmore estate to the United States Forest Service that helped create the Pisgah National Forest. Edith Dresser-Vanderbilt later married Peter Goelet Gerry (1879–1957), a United States Senator from Rhode Island.
Edith and George W. Vanderbilt II's daughter, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt (1900–1976), married British aristocrat, John F. A. Cecil, and eventually she inherited Biltmore House. Her sons, George and William Cecil, preserved the estate.
