We Found Our Dream House!

And we’d actually be able to afford it too, if they sold it to us for the same price as they offered it to the government, only $1!

Ok so maybe we couldn’t afford to live like the Vanderbilts even if we did own the house, as our tour of the (smallest) mansion of the wealthiest family in America quickly pointed out. Nonetheless, getting an idea of how a family with more money than anybody else in the world does with all that cash was certainly fascinating.

For instance the “summer” home we toured, located on prime real estate with views of the Hudson and the Roosevelts as next-door neighbors, furnished with all the most fashionable and lavish décor that could be bought. Here’s the first floor…

Entry Parlor

Women's Parlor

Drawing Room

Dining Room

The men's cigar room

Then of course you have the sleeping quarters, where guests were made aware of their rank in the family’s favor depending on how close their guest rooms were to Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilts’ rooms.

His Bedroom

Her bedroom (modeled after Marie Antoinette)

And of course (my favorite part), lots of closet space for all those hats and shoes Mrs. Vanderbilt owned.

Servant’s quarters were squished all over the house, and fun fact about Mrs. Vanderbilt, she was a supporter of women’s rights (though perhaps not as vocal as other women giving her standing in society), so her house was run by a housekeeper rather than a butler. The whole house had state of the art amenities included, like electricity. How could a house be outfitted with electricity in the late 1800s in rural New York? The Vanderbilt’s simply called up Mr. Thomas Edison to install one of his power plants down by the river and using hydroelectric energy, voila! No need for wax candles or oil lamps any longer.

Downstairs was the ice chest, storage, cellars, and kitchen, which apparently is haunted since the motion detector in the room kept chirping, even though no one was in the room. Creepy!

This is where the flowers were prepared each day

I'd probably haunt this kitchen if I was a dead cook too...

Total, the house cost about $2.5 million to build and furnish in the 1800s which means it remains ridiculously costly even by today’s standards. Lucky for the national park service, the niece to whom the house was willed decided she had no time between her other vacation homes for the “little house in the country.” Lucky for us poor folk, it means a look into the life of the first rich and famous people of America, and yes, I’d say they put the Kardashians to shame.