Cornelius Vanderbilt II's 1883 mansion at 1 West 57th Street ranked as the largest private residence in New York City and cost roughly $3 million, with 2,500 visitors admitted. Nouveau riche owners used elaborate homes to broadcast fortunes and manufacture a sense of heritage through architectural mimicry. Beaux Arts mansions and imported European relics established a Fifth Avenue "billionaires row." French and British styles occupied cultural prestige during the Gilded Age. Contemporary ultra-wealthy figures are constructing sleek, high-tech estates, raising questions about whether those houses will secure the same lasting public admiration and status as their predecessors.
"At the time-and still on record, though the home was demolished in 1926-it ranked as the largest private residence in New York City and quickly became the subject of heated debate. Old money circles scoffed at its outlandishness; construction had cost some $3 million (about $95 million today). Yet the broader public was captivated, not least because they were invited inside: Vanderbilt opened the doors to 2,500 curious New Yorkers."
"These robber barons who had quickly amassed fortunes-and found themselves in competition with old New York society-attempted to build a false sense of history into their mansions. "[These new billionaires] were trying to compete with families that had old New York blood in them," says Robert Khederian, author of " Second Story, " a newsletter about bygone New York real estate. "They needed to use architecture to give them the kind of heritage that they lacked.""
Read at Architectural Digest
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