During the Gilded Age, Cornelius Vanderbilt was America’s richest man with an estimated net worth of $100 million, or around $200 billion in today’s currency. Having amassed his fortune in the railroad business during a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, he would be wealthier than Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett if he were alive today.
His grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, succeeded him as the president and chairman of the New York Central Railroad in 1885. As heir to the family fortune, he built a 70-room, 138,300-square-foot mansion on the shores of Newport, Rhode Island, as a summer escape for his wife, Alice Vanderbilt, and their seven children.
The seaside residence, named “the Breakers” after the waves that break on Newport’s rocky shores, was one of many opulent homes that the Vanderbilts owned as one of America’s wealthiest Gilded Age families.
The mansion is now a museum open to the public. Take a look inside.
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