Frederick William Vanderbilt

Frederick William Vanderbilt (February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938) was a member of the American plutocratic Vanderbilt family. He was a director of the New York Central Railroad for 61 years, and also a director of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and of the Chicago and North Western Railroad.

Biography

A son of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam, Frederick Vanderbilt graduated in 1876 from Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School, to which he donated $500,000 in 1902.

In 1878, he married Louise Holmes née Anthony the divorced wife of his first cousin, Alfred Torrance, the son of Daniel Torrance and Sophia née Vanderbilt. Louise was the daughter of Charles Lee Anthony (1820-1874). Though they were unable to have children, they enjoyed a close relationship with their nieces and nephews. Frederick Vanderbilt died on June 29, 1938.

Legacy

Vanderbilt maintained residences in New York City (he lived for a while at 450 Fifth Avenue), Newport ("Rough Point"), Bar Harbor ("Sonogee"), Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks ("Pine Tree Point"), and a country palace in Hyde Park, New York ("Hyde Park") now preserved by the National Park Service as Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. He built the nearby Howard Mansion and Carriage House for his nephew Thomas H. Howard in 1896.

Vanderbilt was the owner of 10 East 40th Street in Manhattan, a prominent example of art deco architecture, until his death; he also owned the steam yachts Vedette, Conqueror and Warrior. He commissioned a number of campus buildings at Yale University by architect Charles C. Haight that survive to this day, from campus dormitories comprising the present-day Silliman College, to Vanderbilt Hall, Phelps Hall, the Mason, Sloane and Osborn laboratories, and his secret society, St. Anthony Hall.