In this blog post I highlight five of the Vanderbilt family homes that I have covered in the past. As I’m sure you know, members of the Vanderbilt family were master builders of massive homes - some were only used a few weeks or months of the year.

Naumkeag is the former Berkshire estate of New York City lawyer and U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Hodges Choate, and his wife Caroline, located in Stockbridge, Massachusettes. The Choate’s, who were part of the newly-rich, traveled in well-to-do social circles. They decided to build a 44-room shingle-style “cottage” with brick and stone details, designed by the architect of the day, Stanford White.

Robert Lincoln, the only child of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, retained the architecture firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge to built his summer home on 392 acres in Manchester, Vermont. Lincoln had served as Secretary of War and Minister to the Court of St. James, and made his fortune as a lawyer before becoming President of the Pullman Company. Robert Lincoln and his wife, Mary Harlan Lincoln, lived at Hildene in high style.

Blithewold is a 33-acre seaside garden estate that once the Bristol, Rhode Island summer home of Augustus and Bessie Van Wickle.

Charles Deering was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the son of William Deering, founder of Deering Harvester McCormick-International Harvester Company

The Edison and Ford properties are both on the National Register of Historic Sites and consist of 20 acres of historical buildings and gardens including the 1928 Edison Botanical Research Laboratory.

Crane created this lavish summer retreat for his wife, Florence Higinbotham Crane and three children, Cornelius and Florence. The Crane Estate would come to exemplify the American Country Place Era, which emphasized the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces.

The beautiful former estate of the world-respected innovator, George Eastman, houses two museums, the inventor’s 50-room fireproof home

It was the built in 1850 for a Scottish immigrant who became the city’s wealthiest ship owner and cotton merchant in 1849.

The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion has been painstakingly restored to show how Philadelphia’s rising middle class lived in the period from the 1860s to the 1910s.

Glencairn was originally built as the home of multi-millionaire businessman Raymond and Mildred Glenn Pitcairn and their nine children.

iMajor and Mrs. James H. Dooley transformed rough fields and pastures into a showplace many American millionaires were creating during the Gilded Age.

The Federal-style mansion in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. was originally the home of Martha Washington’s grandaughter Martha Parke Custis Peter and her husband, Thomas.

Marjorie Merriweather Post was a pioneering business executive, engaged citizen, generous philanthropist, distinguished collector and amazing party hostess.

The Cairnwood Mansion is an L-shaped, Beau Arts gem designed by Carrere and Hastings nestled in the serene countryside. The 26,000 square-foot, 28-room mansion was built in 1895 for John Pitcairn, Jr,

The Jekyll Island Club membership was like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the the late 19th and early 20th centuries and represented 1/6th of the world’s wealth at the time including Rockefeller’s, Vanderbilts, Pulitzers, Morgans, Gould and more.

The mansion that houses the Nassau Country Museum of Art, in Roslyn Harbor, was originally built by Lloyd Stephens Bryce utilizing the Neo-Georgian designs of architect Ogden Codman.

Savannah is the oldest city in the state of Georgia, established in 1733. The downtown Historic District, considered one of the largest in the U.S., largely retains the original twenty-two parklike square plans laid out by James Oglethorpe.

James Deering, socialite and antiquities collector built an elaborate Florida villa and estate named Vizcaya on Biscayne Bay in Miami.

Old Westbury Gardens is the former estate of John Shaffer Phipps who had the 44-room English manor house house commissioned as a wedding present to his wife, Margarita Grace Phipps. It was completed in 1906 by the English designer George A. Crawley on 200 acres of formal gardens, landscaped grounds, woodlands, ponds and lakes.