The Vanderbilt Homes

New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Hardcover. Very Good. DJ has general wear. Bookblock has age toning.. Rust color stamped cloth, xiii + 194 pp., many BW & color illus. "Linked to wealth, power, and opulent, gossip-worthy living since the 1860s, the Vanderbilts have often been regarded as America's 'royal family.' Nowhere is this more evident than in the houses they built for themselves during the country's Gilded Age, the height of Vanderbilt preeeminence. [This book] features twenty-four of the most spectacular of these residences -- Fifth Avenue townhouses modeled n French chateaus; luxurious summer palaces in Newport, Rhode Island; vast Adirondack mountain retreats that more closely resembled Marie Antoinette's fantasy of bucolic life than they did rustic hideaways; even yachts that were in effect floating mansions... Many were the work of prominent names in architecture such as Richard Morris Hunt and the firm of Warren & Wetmore (who designed Grand Central Terminal in New York City.) Exclusive new color photography provides never-before-seen views from within existing houses; abundant archival photographs create a compelling historical record of the many homes that are no longer extant or that have been drastically altered." (dj) Chronicles the people who lived in them, too.