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From Primedia Publications
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All that Old Money Can Buy (cont.)
An intimate tour of Vanderbilt's Rhode Island dream home.
Given the sober habits of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, entertainments at The Breakers tended to be more staid and purposeful than those of their neighbors—but no less elegant. Fittingly, The Music Room—site of recitals and balls, as well as Gertrude Vanderbilt's 1896 wedding ceremony—is one of The Breakers' most ornate rooms. Designed by French architect Richard Bouwens van der Boyens, it was constructed and decorated in France by the venerable cabinetmakers Allard et Fils, then shipped to the United States and reassembled on-site by French craftsmen. With its twin Baccarat crystal chandeliers, gilded Italian furniture, and coffered ceiling adorned with a painting of the Classical muses, Music, Harmony, Song and Melody, the Music Room is a stunning jewel box, swathed in gold and silver leaf.

Mrs. Vanderbilt's bathtub, resembling an ornate Roman sarcophagus, was carved from a single piece of white marble.
More ornate still is the 2,400-square-foot Formal Dining Room where Cornelius II's youngest daughter, Gladys, married the Hungarian Count Laszlo Szechenyi in 1908. A dozen salmon-and-cream-colored columns topped with bronze Corinthian capitals, soar to a magnificently gilded and carved cornice that rises yet again to a gilded, carved, and vaulted ceiling decorated with a painting of Aurora at dawn. Two 12-foot-high Baccarat crystal chandeliers hang high above the 16th-century-style oak and lemonwood dining set, seating 34 on chairs upholstered in original hand-loomed red damask fabric matching the room's draperies. Spectacular as the Formal Dining Room is, it's almost a relief to learn the Vanderbilts took most of their meals in the adjoining Breakfast Room, a cozy but elegant salon removed whole from an 18th-century French townhouse. This was the setting for Gertrude Vanderbilt's 1896 wedding reception—at which cake was served from satin-covered boxes embossed with the Whitney family crest.



"Backstairs" at The Breakers, the two-story, mahogany-paneled butler's pantry, stacked with fine porcelain and china, features a 10-foot-deep vault for the family silver. The two-story-high kitchen, built in a separate wing to discourage the spread of fire, is bright and airy, with gleaming white tiled walls and the original brown terra-cotta tile floor. Polished copper pots and pans hang above the long zinc-covered kitchen island. Several ovens and broilers as well as an automatic rotisserie make up the massive coal-and-wood-burning stove, on which fine French cuisine was once prepared. Just off the kitchen, a small, north-facing room reserved for pastry-making contains the original 10-foot-long marble work table and iceboxes.

Upstairs in the family's five main bedrooms, the 16th-century grandeur of the first-floor public rooms gives way to restrained Neoclassical interiors designed by young Boston architect Harry Codman, whom Gilded Age novelist Edith Wharton, also a Newport summer denizen, introduced to Mrs. Vanderbilt. Mr. Vanderbilt's bedroom features its original carved walnut bedroom suite, while Mrs. Vanderbilt’s bedroom, with its off-white Louis XVI furniture, sports a 1920s-era telephone. All rooms (except the guest room) have private bathrooms with taps for both hot and cold freshwater and seawater. Mrs. Vanderbilt's bathtub, resembling an ornate Roman sarcophagus, was carved from a single piece of white marble. In leisurely moments, the Vanderbilts often repaired to the second- and third-story loggias gracing the mansion's east facade. Far from the din of commerce or the distractions of polite society, the Vanderbilts could enjoy their truest treasures—the green lawns and formal gardens that stretch endlessly toward the blue Atlantic breakers.
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