Golf in the Gilded Age:
Robber Barons, Railroads, and Resort Hotels
3: Robber Barons
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American golf had its birth in the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s),
and by the close of the 19th century the United States had more golf
courses than Britain. This start is inextricably intertwined with the
dominant Tycoons of the day, and this in turn entangles the foundation
of golf in America with the expansion of their railroads and their associated
Grand Hotels in exclusive resort locations.
From 1900 to the advent of WWII, golf in America added
sinew and muscle on this underlying frame to make the Resort golf experience
truly spectacular and widely accessible outside the echelons of elite
society. The enduring legacy has been that the popularization of golf
in America is indelibly stamped with the watermark of excellence set
by these fabulous early Resorts.
Robber Barons
 B.
Astors
The
Astor Tramp (1899), James H. White film (Edison Manufacturing Co., b/w
short comedy)
SUMMARY From Edison films catalog, no. 105: A side-splitting
subject, showing the mistaken tramp's arrival at the famous New York
hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. The tramp inquires as to changing his nationality
and asks also as to the results of this prospective change. The music
and words accompanying are explanatory and can be either sung or spoken.
The tramp calls to ask Waldorf's opinion as to whether he should become
an English citizen, and finding no flunky at the door, he climbs up-stairs.
He sees an inviting bed and says he will lie down and wait for Waldorf.
A lady discovers the tramp asleep. He was arrested, but is discharged.
He is extremely humorous, as he uses a puff box and powder, standing
very vainly before a mirror as he makes himself up. Length 100 feet,
complete with words of song and music. 20.00. Without words and music.
15.00. From Edison films catalog, no. 94: A side splitting subject,
showing the mistaken tramp's arrival at the Wm. Waldorf Astor mansion
and being discovered comfortably asleep in bed, by the lady of the house.
NOTES Copyright: Thomas A. Edison; 27Nov1899; 77520. Duration: 1:57
at 16 fps. Filmed ca. June to September 1899, probably in Orange, New
Jersey.
C.
Vanderbilts
Cornelius Vanderbilt A wealthy, corrupt railroad tycoon
and innovator. Vanderbilt was one of the first in the industry to make
rails out of steel instead of iron and also established a standard gauge
for his railroads. Despite these innovations that led to the improvement
of the railroad industry, he and his son were notorious "robber
barons" who issued unfair rebates, hiked rates arbitrarily, and
cared little for American consumers.
The Vanderbilt Family
The Vanderbilts were one of the oldest and best-known
families in America. Jan Aertsen van der Bilt emigrated from Holland
around 1650. Although his descendants prospered as farmers on Staten
Island, New York, they lived modestly; it was only during the lifetime
of Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), known as the "Commodore,"
that the family name became synonymous with extraordinary wealth.
Patriarch to a sizable family--including his wife of 53
years, Sophia, 13 children, 37 grand-children, and 27 great-grandchildren--Cornelius
established what became the Vanderbilt custom of luxurious residences.
He also began the tradition of philanthropy, contributing $1 million
in 1873 to Central University, a Methodist school in Nashville; it was
later renamed Vanderbilt University.
Upon his death, the Commodore left most of his $100 million
estate--a sum that made him the wealthiest industrialist of his time--to
his eldest son, William Henry (1821-85). William Henry took over the
family empire and eventually doubled its assets. He, too, was generous
toward worthy causes, funding the Metropolitan Opera in 1883 and endowing
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, now the Medical School of Columbia
University. The shrewd financier proved to be an equally astute collector,
assembling more than 200 paintings. These were displayed in the 59-room
mansion he built in 1881 at 640 Fifth Avenue--the largest and most splendid
house in Manhattan.
Only one of the eight children of William Henry and his
wife, Maria Louisa (1821-96), was still living at home when the house
was completed--the youngest, George Washington Vanderbilt, born in 1862.
Quiet and intellectual, he had been greatly influenced by his mother's
cultural interests, starting his own collection of art and books at
an early age. Significantly, George would inherit the house and its
contents after his mother's death.
Unlike the rest of his family, however, George Vanderbilt
was little attracted to commerce and fashionable society. He preferred
the world of learning and travel, visiting Europe at age 10 and journeying
to Europe, Asia, or Africa about once a year throughout his adult life.
It was while traveling in the mountains of North Carolina that Vanderbilt
first glimpsed the site for his future country home.
Vanderbilt
Family
Splendid mansions filled with things of the past implied
a rich ancestral heritage for millionaires who lacked social credentials.
For this they summoned the Beaux-Arts architects. Richard Morris Hunt,
the standard-bearer of the era, was the first American to train at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Others, notably Charles Follin McKim,
followed. Invoking a design vocabulary based on the classical principles
of antiquity and the Renaissance, the Beaux-Arts men were avant-garde
for their time. No single family was more conspicuous as patrons of
architecture than the Vanderbilts.
William Henry Vanderbilt initiated the family building
campaign with a mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue, completed in 1880; he built
its twin next door for two daughters. Soon the avenue was lined with
the residences of the Commodore's grandchildren. William K. commissioned
Hunt to build an 80-room "little Chateau de Blois" across the street
from his father. A few blocks away, Cornelius II built a five-story,
red brick palace also of French influence, "the largest dwelling-house
occupied by a single family in the city of New York." William K. gave
his wife Alva the classic Marble House for her birthday in 1888. It
was the most opulent of the summer cottages at Newport until 1895, when
Cornelius built The Breakers, Hunt's version of a 16th-century Italian
palace. Frederick began his Hyde Park country place the next year. Meanwhile,
George Washington Vanderbilt, the youngest of the clan, surpassed everyone
with his North Carolina retreat Biltmore, also by Hunt. It was - and
still is - the most spectacular of the great Vanderbilt mansions. Hyde
Park, Family History, NPS
1878-1879 William Kissam Vanderbilt, I [1849-1920]
Summer residence [destroyed by fire 1899] "Idle Hour", Oakdale, Long
Island, NY Richard Morris Hunt, Architect
The main business of all the villages except, perhaps,
Bohemia, is summer-boarding; and summer boarders, especially of the
class which seems to have taken hold of Islip, want modern improvements;
for Islip has become fashionable. Its splendid hotels and clubhouses,
and the magnificent estates of W. K. Vanderbilt, F. G. Bourne, W. K.
Aston, the Cutting family, as well as the hundreds of palatial villas
which have been erected mainly by New Yorkers for their summer homes,
have drawn to it people of the very highest class, people who by their
means and tastes made even much of its sandy wastes bloom into veritable
gardens. There is an air of exclusiveness outside the villages and hotels
which seems to be especially pleasing to those who regard themselves
as the fashionable world, while such enterprises as the group of Moorish
houses, erected by H. O. Havermeyer at Bayberrry Point, near Islip,
is an experiment in the way of co-operation among the very rich which
will be watched with curious interest.
The Vanderbilt estate at Oakdale, with its new mansion
costing, it is said, $1,600,000, and its thousand acres of farm garden
and wood land, and its iron fence, beautiful entrances, lodges, farm
buildings, game preserves, and it is hard to tell all what, is a veritable
fairy-land and one of the wonders of Islip. It is a part of the old
Nicolls patent, and when it first passed into the hands of the Vanderbilts
was a mass of brush and shrub, half-starved fields, and broken-down
steadings. Now its gardens, its groves of oak and maple, its well kept
lawns and smiling fields seem to speak eloquently of how man can triumph
over nature with the aid of determination, taste, ambition and money.
During late years trees have been planted liberally all along the line
of population, and Islip now boasts of her pine and other forests, while
nature has also been at work replacing the damage done by the depletion
of a generation that has now passed, and it is safe to say that the
value of such forests is now too highly appreciated to permit again
of their wanton destruction for purposes of firewood. BABYLON,
SMITHTOWN & ISLIP, LONG ISLAND, NY, HISTORY The History of Long Island,
from its earliest settlement to the present time. Peter Ross. NY Lewis
Pub. Co. 1902
1879-1882 William Kissam Vanderbilt, I [1849-1920]
Townhouse [demolished 1926] 660 5th Avenue, New York, NY Richard Morris
Hunt, Architect
1879-1882 William Henry Vanderbilt, I [1821-1885]
Margaret Vanderbilt [Mrs. Elliott Fitch] Shepard [1845-1925] Emily Vanderbilt
[Mrs. William Douglas] Sloane [1852-1946] 3 Townhouses ["The Triple
Palace"] 640 & 642 5th Avenue and 2 West 52nd Street, New York, NY John
Butler Snook, Architect
1879 Eliza Vanderbilt [Mrs. William Seward] Webb
[1860-1936] Townhouse 680 5th Avenue, New York, NY John Butler Snook,
Architect
1879 Florence Vanderbilt [Mrs. Hamilton] Twombly
[1854-1952] Townhouse 684 5th Avenue, New York, NY John Butler Snook,
Architect
1882-1883 Florence Vanderbilt [Mrs. Hamilton] Twombly
[1854-1952] Summer residence [purchased 1896; now McAuley Hall, Salve
Regina University] "Vinland", Newport, RI Peabody & Stearns, Architect
www.salve.edu
1882-1894 Cornelius Vanderbilt, II [1843-1899]
Townhouse [demolished 1927] 1 West 57th Street, New York, NY George
B. Post, Architect
1886-1887 George Washington Vanderbilt, II [1862-1914]
Townhouse 9 West 53rd Street, New York, NY Richard Morris Hunt, Architect
1886-1901 Emily Vanderbilt [Mrs. William Douglas]
Sloane [1852-1946] Summer residence [now private] "Elm Court", Lenox,
MA Peabody & Stearns, Architects
1888-1892 William Kissam Vanderbilt, I [1849-1920]
Summer residence "Marble House", Newport, RI Richard Morris Hunt, Architect
www.newportmansions.org
Marble House
Railroad baron William K. Vanderbilt spared no expense
when he built a house for his wife's birthday. Vanderbilt's grand "Marble
House" cost $11 million, $7 million of which paid for 500,000 cubic
feet of white marble. The architect, Richard Morris Hunt, was a master
of Beaux Arts. His other projects include the pedestal of the Statue
of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Yorktown Monument.
For Vanderbilt's Marble House, Richard Morris Hunt drew inspiration
from some of world's most majestic architecture: the Temple of the Sun
at Heliopolis (upon which Marble House's four Corinthian columns were
modeled), the Petit Trianon at Versailles, the White House, and the
Temple of Apollo. Marble House was designed as a summer house, what
Newporters called a "cottage." In reality, Marble House is a palace
that set the precedent for the Gilded Age, Newport's transformation
from a sleepy summer colony of small wooden cottages to a legendary
resort of stone mansions. Alva Vanderbilt was a prominent member of
Newport society, and considered Marble House her "temple to the arts"
in the United States. Did this lavish birthday gift win the heart of
William K. Vanderbilt's wife, Alva? Perhaps, but not for long. The couple
divorced in 1895. Alva married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont and moved
to his mansion down the street. Vanderbilt
Marble House, AboutArchitecture.com
1888-1895 George Washington Vanderbilt, II [1862-1914]
Country house "Biltmore", Asheville, NC Richard Morris Hunt, Architect
www.biltmoreestate.com
1888-1899 Eliza Vanderbilt [Mrs.William Seward]
Webb [1860-1936] Country house "Shelburne House", Shelburne, VT Robert
H. Robertson, Architect www.shelburnefarms.org
1891 Frederick William Vanderbilt [1856-1938] Summer
residence "Rough Point", Newport, RI Peabody & Stearns, Architects [remodeled
by Horace Trumbauer, Architect, for James B. Duke] www.newportrestoration.com
1892-1895 Cornelius Vanderbilt, II [1843-1899]
Summer residence "The Breakers", Newport, RI Richard Morris Hunt, Architect
www.newportmansions.org
The Breakers
1894-1895 Margaret Vanderbilt [Mrs.Elliott Fitch]
Shepard [1845-1925] Summer residence [now Sleepy Hollow Country Club]
"Woodlea", Scarborough, NJ McKim, Mead & White, Architects
1896-1899 Frederick William Vanderbilt [1856-1938]
Country house [now Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site] "Hyde
Park", Hyde Park, NY McKim, Mead & White, Architects www.nps.gov/vama/vamahome.html
Hyde Park
Design
History of Hyde Park Mansion
Like most of the prominent Hudson River families, the
Vanderbilts used their retreat only for a few weeks in spring and fall,
and for an occasional weekend in winter. They spent summers at Newport
or cruising on their yacht, and the winter social season at their New
York City townhouse. A staff of 60 or so, drawn mostly from local farm
families, maintained the house and grounds year-round.
Hyde
Park,, Family History, NPS
Stanford White in 1897 went to London, Paris, Rome and
Venice buying furnishing and decorative arts for the Hyde Park property.
Hyde
Park, Style, NPS
1894-1897 Florence Vanderbilt [Mrs. Hamilton] Twombly
[1854-1952] Country house [now Administration Bldg., Madison Campus,
Fairleigh Dickinson University] "Florham", Convent Station, NJ McKim,
Mead & White, Architects www.fdu.edu/visitorcenter/florham.html
1899-1903 William Kissam Vanderbilt, I [1849-1920]
Country house [now Dowling College] "Idle Hour" [2], Oakdale, Long Island,
NY Richard Howland Hunt, Architect Warren & Wetmore, Architects www.lihistory.com
1902-1904 William Kissam Vanderbilt, II [1878-1944]
Summer residence "Deepdale", Great Neck, Long Island, NY Horace Trumbauer
and Carrere & Hastings, Architects 1905 William Kissam Vanderbilt, II
[1878-1944] Townhouse 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY McKim, Mead & White,
Architects
1910-1936 William Kissam Vanderbilt, II [1878-1944]
Summer residence "Eagle's Nest", Centerport, Long Island, NY Warren
& Wetmore, Architects Ronald H. Pearce, Architect
The "Eagle's Nest" mansion is unusual for estate architecture
on Long Island because of its Spanish design, a style that is seldom
seen in the region. The palatial, Spanish Revival style is actually
less "Spanish" than it is a personal evocation of Vanderbilt's Mediterranean
impressions as interpreted by his architects during a period of estate
building that lasted over twenty-five years. The mansion was begun in
1910 as a modest bachelor's retreat, built at a comfortable distance
from the legendary concentration of Gold Coast estates located closer
to New York City. The original bungalow was perched high above Northport
Harbor where a boathouse and wharf accommodated Vanderbilt's greatest
passion, sailing. His other passion, motor car racing, is represented
on the estate by the two-story automobile Garage [now the museum's Education
Center] and by a large revolving turntable located on the lower level
of the Memorial Wing, where Vanderbilt's custom built 1928 Lincoln touring
car is displayed. Two building campaigns followed the original construction
of the house, transforming it into the extensive mansion complex that
visitors see today. Each was prompted by incidents in Vanderbilt's life,
the first by his inheritance of $21 million after his father's death
in 1921 and subsequent marriage to Rosamund Warburton in 1927, and the
second by the tragic death of his son Willie K. III in 1933. A visit
to the "Eagle's Nest" mansion today provides visitors a glimpse at the
life of William K. Vanderbilt II through the estate that memorializes
his legacy.
1915 Virginia Fair Vanderbilt [1878-1935] Country
residence Jericho, Long Island, NY John Russell Pope, Architect 1920s
William Kissam Vanderbilt, II [1878-1944] Winter residence Fisher Island,
FL www.fisherisland-florida.com
1925 Harold Stirling Vanderbilt [1884-1970] Summer
residence "El Solano", Palm Beach, FL Addison Mizner, Architect
1930 Harold Stirling Vanderbilt [1884-1970] Summer
residence "Villa Lantana", FL Treanor & Fatio, Architects
Vanderbilt
Museum
Biltmore Estate, summer home of George Vanderbilt (constructed
1889-1895), Asheville NC
The History of America's Largest Home
Building
Biltmore was, at the time, one of the largest undertakings
in the history of American residential architecture and the results
were astounding. Over a six-year period, an entire community of craftsmen
worked to build the country's premier home. The estate boasted its own
brick factory, woodworking shop, and a three-mile railway spur for transporting
materials to the site.
A New World Chateau
The celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt modeled the
house on three ch‰teaux built in 16th-century France. It would feature
4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65
fireplaces. The basement alone would house a swimming pool, gymnasium
and changing rooms, bowling alley, servants' quarters, kitchens, and
more.
An Environmental Wonder
The grounds of the 125,000-acre estate were designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted, the creator of New York's Central Park and the
father of American landscape architecture. He not only developed acres
of gardens and parkland, but in his efforts to protect the environment
and reclaim over-farmed land, Olmsted established America's first managed
forest.
A True Family Home
George Vanderbilt officially opened the home to friends
and family on Christmas Eve in 1895. He had created a country retreat
where he could pursue his passion for art, literature, and horticulture.
After marrying the American Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (1873 - 1958) in
Paris during the summer of 1898, George and his new bride came to live
at the estate. Their only child, Cornelia (1900 - 1976), was born and
grew up at Biltmore.
Biltmore Southern Railroad Depot
The village of Best, named for owner of the Western North
Carolina Railroad ,William J. Best, was the location of Asheville's
first railway station with its initiation October 3, 1880. Railway passengers
traveling to Asheville and surrounding areas used the small depot in
Best for 15 years, until George W. Vanderbilt purchased the small town
as the site for his Biltmore Estate and surrounding village. The small,
undistinguished station was replaced with a symmetrical, one-story depot
with half-timbered pebbledash walls and a brick foundation, designed
by Richard Morris Hunt. A central porte cochere, low-hipped roof, wide
overhanging eaves and heavy, chamfered brackets distinguish the exterior.
The depot, along with Hunt's other designs in the village, stands in
striking contrast to Hunt's more monumental efforts, such as the Biltmore
Estate.
National
Park Service - Historic Register
Biltmore
History
Vanderbilt Houses
- Emily
Thorn Vanderbilt (Wife of William Douglas Sloan) built "Elm
Court" in Lenox,
Massachusetts, in 1887. It is the largest shingle-style house
in the United States. The 1919 "Elm Court Talks," held at Elm Court,
led to the creation of The League of Nations and The Treaty of Versailles.
Vanderbilt
Houses, Wikipedia
D.
Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie Scottish immigrant who built a steel empire
in Pittsburgh through hard work and ruthless business tactics such as
vertical integration. Carnegie hated organized labor and sent in 300
Pinkerton agents to end the 1892 Homestead Strike at one of his steel
plants. He eventually sold his company to Wall Street financier J. P.
Morgan, who used it to form the U.S. Steel Corporation trust in 1901.
Around the turn of the century, Carnegie became one of the nation's
first large-scale philanthropists by donating more than $300 million
to charities, hospitals, libraries, and universities.
E.
Morgan
J. P. Morgan A wealthy Wall Street banker who saved the
nearly bankrupt federal government in 1895 by loaning the Treasury more
than $60 million. Morgan later purchased Andrew Carnegie's steel company
for nearly $400 million and used it to form the U.S. Steel Corporation
in 1901.
F.
Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller Industrialist who founded the Standard
Oil Company in 1870. An incredibly ruthless businessman, Rockefeller
employed horizontal integration to make Standard Oil one of the nation's
first monopolistic trusts. Rockefeller's partner Henry Flagler retired
to Florida and built a railroad from Jacksonville to Key West, developing
resort towns along the way (St Augustine, Ormond Beach, Palm Beach,
Miami, Coral Gables). Rockefeller himself retird to Ormond Beach, where
he died in 1937 in his mansion Casements.
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