Why did they tear down the Vanderbilt mansions?

Alice Vanderbilt sold 1 West 57th street—the grand mansion lauded as the largest house in Manhattan—for $6.1M (about $83.2M in today's dollars) in 1925, citing how expensive the taxes were on the property. The mansion was demolished to eventually make way for the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.



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Though the family stopped living in the mansion in the 1950s, it is still owned and run as a tourist attraction by the fourth generation of Vanderbilt descendants.

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The Biltmore Estate is home to the largest privately-owned house in the United States. George Vanderbilt, a prominent businessman from the late 19th and early 20th century, began constructing the Biltmore House in 1889. Located in Asheville, North Carolina, the 250-room home took six years to build.

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Around 1932, reportedly finding life at Biltmore too dull, she moved to New York City to briefly study art, leaving her husband to manage Biltmore.

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Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

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Located on one of the most the iconic streets in the world, the Duke House was built during the Gilded Age and remains as one of Fifth Avenue's last true mansions, according to New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

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