Consuelo Vanderbilt-Balsan was a socialite and a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Her first marriage to the 9th Duke of Marlborough has become a well-known example of one of the advantageous, but loveless, marriages common during the Gilded Age. The Duke obtained a large dowry by the marriage, and reportedly told her just after the marriage that he married her in order to "save Blenheim Palace", his ancestral home.
William Kissam "Willie" Vanderbilt I was an American heir, businessman, philanthropist and horsebreeder. Born into the Vanderbilt family, he managed his family's railroad investments.
From the late 1870s to the 1920s, the Vanderbilt family employed some of the United States's best Beaux-Arts architects and decorators to build an unequalled string of townhouses in New York City and East Coast palaces in the United States. Many of the Vanderbilt houses are now National Historic Landmarks. Some photographs of Vanderbilt's residences in New York are included in the Photographic series of American Architecture by Albert Levy (1870s).
Belcourt is a former summer cottage designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont and located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Construction was begun in 1891 and completed in 1894, and it was intended to be used for only six to eight weeks of the year. Belcourt was designed in a multitude of European styles and periods; it features a heavy emphasis on French Renaissance and Gothic decor, with further borrowings from German, English, and Italian design. In the Gilded Age, the castle was noted for its extensive stables and carriage areas, which were incorporated into the main structure.
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was an American socialite and United States Representative from New York. Belmont was a member of the banking firm of August Belmont and Co., New York City. He became publisher of the Verdict, a weekly paper.
John Albert Edward William Spencer-Churchill, 10th Duke of Marlborough,, styled Marquess of Blandford until 1934, was a British military officer and peer.
William Kissam Vanderbilt II was an American motor racing enthusiast and yachtsman, and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.
August Belmont Sr. was a German-American financier, diplomat, politician and party chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and also a horse-breeder and racehorse owner. He was the founder and namesake of the Belmont Stakes, third leg of the Triple Crown series of American Thoroughbred horse racing.
Marble House, a Gilded Age mansion located at 596 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, was built from 1888 to 1892 as a summer cottage for Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt and was designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It was unparalleled in opulence for an American house when it was completed in 1892. Its temple-front portico resembles that of the White House.
Robert Desha was an American politician who represented Tennessee's 5th Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.
George Lockhart Rives, was an American lawyer, politician, and author who served as United States Assistant Secretary of State from 1887 to 1889.
Richard Howland Hunt was an American architect and member of the Hunt family of Vermont who worked with his brother Joseph Howland Hunt in New York City at Hunt & Hunt.
Arthur Scott Burden was an American banker, equestrian, and member of the young set of New York society during the Gilded Age.
The William K. Vanderbilt House, also known as the Petit Chateau, was a Châteauesque mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street. It was across the street from the Triple Palace of William Henry Vanderbilt, which occupied the entire block between 51st and 52nd Streets on the west side of Fifth Avenue.
The Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont House was a mansion located at 477 Madison Avenue on the northeast corner of 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. The building was demolished in 1951.
Alva Erskine Belmont, known as Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was an American socialite and suffrage activist. She was a prominent multi-millionaire socialite and a major figure in the American women's suffrage movement, was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, as well as willingness to challenge convention.
Beacon Towers was a Gilded Age mansion on Sands Point in the village of Sands Point on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. It was built from 1917 to 1918 for Alva Belmont, the ex-wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt and the widow, since 1908, of Oliver Belmont.
Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd Vanderbilt was an American heiress known for her marriages to prominent men and her role in the development of the Sutton Place neighborhood as a fashionable place to live.
Fernando Alfonso Yznaga del Valle was a Cuban American banker who was one of the best-known men of New York and foreign society and club life. Described as "one of the most entertaining of men, very clever at epigram and repartee, and famous for quaint sayings. His life had been adventurous and, from a domestic point of view, somewhat of a stormy nature."
The Brookholt School of Agriculture for Women was an experimental American farm vocational school for women. Established on April 1, 1911, by Alva Belmont on her Brookholt estate, located in the hamlet of East Meadow, 3 miles (4.8 km) from Hempstead, Long Island, New York, it was believed to be the first institution of its kind for the exclusive benefit of women.
