The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #170885   Message #4133914
Posted By: keberoxu
26-Jan-22 - 11:44 AM
Thread Name: BS: who will buy the Vanderbilt cottage
Subject: RE: BS: who will buy the Vanderbilt cottage
Leeneia's metaphor of several "McMansions" squashed together
describes the Elm Court main house, oddly enough.
Except these are called "wings" but they are pretty monstrous wings!
There is, for example, a bachelor wing ... need I say more??
Then there is the wing which Emily Vanderbilt Sloane had built on
for her namesake daughter Emily.
Daughter Emily had just married John Henry Hammond and begun a family.
So, daughter and family got their own custom-built wing.
Guess who is descended from Mrs. John Henry Hammond?

John Hammond, the record producer of popular American music (20th century). So this could almost bump the subject into the music threads.

Meanwhile, back at the cottage ...

A descendant of Emily Vanderbilt Sloane is an alumna of Smith College.
I'm going to include, in this post, a link to a page for
alumni of Smith College,
because it profiles said descendant.
The lineage, as I can piece it together, looks like this:

grandfather: Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)
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Emily Vanderbilt Sloane , married Henry White, built Elm Court
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Lila Sloane Field, daughter: bred cattle at High Lawn Farm, Lenox
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Marjorie Field Wilde, inherited Elm Court Estate in Lenox
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Lila Wilde Berle, Smith '58, lived at High Lawn Farm (her brother owned it)
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Robert "Bob" Berle: bought, renovated, then sold Elm Court estate



And here, in her own words (interview) is Lila Wilde Berle, Vanderbilt descendent.
"I haven't been to a hairdresser in forty years"