Hyde Park estate persistent lure to Frederick Vanderbilt, wife

By Allan Dailey
For the Poughkeepsie Journal

Frederick attended the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University, graduating in 1878. The same year, he married Louise Anthony Torrance, an act that caused consternation within his family — and society as a whole — because Louise was 12 years older and recently divorced from Frederick’s first cousin.

Against his father’s wishes, the couple eloped. By all accounts, the couple had a happy and successful marriage. Louise eventually won her way into the good graces of the family. The couple had no children.

Little is known of the couple’s personal life, as they were extremely private members of a very public family. Frederick was the only one of his siblings to increase his inherited fortune. Eventually, he participated in the operation of dozens of railroads and was for a time heavily invested in Western Union.

The couple maintained many residences, traveling between New York City townhouses and country estates they either owned or rented. At times, they lived in Paris, Bar Harbor, Maine, the Adirondacks, Newport, R.I., and Hyde Park. Only their home on the Hudson seemed to have any hold. They continued to make improvements and increase their time at the estate each year.

Louise Vanderbilt died in 1926 while in Paris. Frederick lived in Hyde Park until his death in 1938. His fortune of nearly $80 million was dispersed to pay estate taxes, fund charities, remember a favorite niece and leave some money to employees of the Hyde Park estate.

Allan Dailey is a supervisory park ranger with the National Park Service at the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Site in Hyde Park.