George Washington Vanderbilt II

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George W. Vanderbilt II
George W. Vanderbilt II

George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family, which had amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises.

The fourth son and youngest child of William Henry Vanderbilt (1821 - 1885) and his wife Maria Louisa Kissam, George II was named after his father's younger brother, George Washington Vanderbilt, third son of the family founders, Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794 - 1877) and Sophia Johnson. (Uncle George had died young at age 25 of tuberculosis contracted during his service in the Civil War.) As the youngest in William's family, George II was said to be his father's favorite and his constant companion. Relatives described him as slender, dark-haired, and pale-complected. Shy and introverted, his interests ran to philosophy, books, and the histories of the paintings in William's large art gallery. In addition to frequent visits to Paris, France, where several Vanderbilts kept a home, George traveled extensively, becoming fluent in eight foreign languages.

William H. Vanderbilt, who owned elegant mansions in New York City and Newport and an 800-acre (3.2 km²) country estate on Long Island, died in 1885 of a stroke, leaving a fortune of approximately 200 million dollars, the bulk of which was split between his two older sons, Cornelius II and William K. Vanderbilt. George W. Vanderbilt II had inherited $1 million from his grandfather and another million on his 21st birthday from his father. Upon his father's death, he inherited $5 million more, as well as the income from a $5 million trust fund. He ran the family farm at New Dorp on Staten Island, New York where he had been born, then lived with his mother in Manhattan until his own townhouse at 9 West 53rd Street was completed in 1887. In 1888, when he was twenty-six, George visited Western North Carolina with his mother, enjoyed the area, and decided to build a country home there.

The Vanderbilt family business was operated by his older brothers. This left George to spend his time in intellectual pursuits. In 1889, he purchased acreage near Asheville, North Carolina and began construction of Biltmore House. He continued buying land until the estate eventually encompassed 228 square miles (591 km²); it would have taken a week to travel on horseback around the property. Modeled after the great French Châteaux of the Loire Valley, the 250-room estate on 125,000 acres (506 km²) would be the largest of all the Vanderbilt houses and remains the largest home in the United States. The buildings were designed by famed architect Richard Morris Hunt and the grounds landscaped by the so-called "father of American landscape Architecture" Frederick Law Olmsted. On Christmas Eve 1895, Biltmore House opened its doors for its first family celebration.

At Biltmore, George led the life of a country gentleman. Having a great interest in horticulture, he oversaw experiments in scientific farming, animal bloodline breeding, and silviculture. His goal was to run Biltmore as a self-sustaining estate. In 1892, Olmsted suggested that Vanderbilt hire Gifford Pinchot to manage the forests on the estate. According to Pinchot, who went on to be the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, Biltmore was the first professionally managed forest in the U.S. Also an art connoisseur and collector, George filled his mansion with Oriental carpets, tapestries, antiques, and artwork, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir and James Whistler, as well as a chess set that had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

On June 1, 1898, George W. Vanderbilt married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (1873 – 1958) at the American Cathredal in Paris, France. They had one daughter, Cornelia Stuyvesant Dresser (1900 - 1976). In 1912 George and Edith booked passage on the Titanic but changed their plans before departure, due to what newspapers of the day labeled "a premonition of Mrs. Vanderbilt's sister, Susan Dresser", or in some cases, a premonition from George Vanderbilt's mother (who was deceased, making it difficult for her to have a premonition). It was too late to stop Mr. Vanderbilt's valet, Fred Wheeler, from boarding the ship; he was lost, along with the Vanderbilt's luggage, when the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912.

Unfortunately, George spent more than his annual income on the Biltmore and its upkeep and began withdrawing money from capital. In addition, bad investments helped to deplete his once great fortune. Some of the chateau's rooms were never completed. He lived on the property until 1914 when he died of a heart attack in Washington, D.C. after an operation for appendectomy. He was interred in the Vanderbilt family mausoleum at the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp on Staten Island, New York.

After his death, George's widow sold approximately 86,000 acres of the property to the United States Forest Service at $5 an acre, fulfilling her husband's wishes to create the core of Pisgah National Forest. She sold additional land as finances demanded; today, about 8,000 acres remain 12,500 acres (51 km²) remained. Edith Dresser Vanderbilt later married Peter Goelet Gerry (1879–1957), a United States Senator from Rhode Island. Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt (George and Edith Vanderbilt's only child) married British aristocrat, John F. A. Cecil, a descendent of William Cecil in 1924. Her sons, George and William, eventually inherited the property. William Cecil is the present owner and is credited with preserving the estate which remains open to the public.

[edit] References

Vanderbilt, Arthur T. II. Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt (Quill / William Morrow, New York); copyright 1989 by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II. ISBN 0-688-10386-3; p. 40 (the death of G. W. Vanderbilt 1), pp. 55-83 (William H. Vanderbilt), pp. 271-279 (George W. Vanderbilt II).