Climb into a Time Machine, Take a Vanderbilt ‘Living History’ Tour

Filed under: Arts & Entertainment,Centerport,Events,News |

By Patrick Keeffe

It’s the summer of 1932. William and Rosamund Vanderbilt have just returned to the United States after an eight-month, around-the-world cruise in their new 264-foot yacht, Alva. The famous fashion designer Coco Chanel has come to New York to open a show of her first jewelry designs, and is a guest of the Vanderbilts at their Eagle’s Nest estate on the Long Island Gold Coast. Also on the guest list is Elsa Maxwell, the notorious gossip columnist, an intimate friend of the Vanderbilt women.

Vanderbilt Living History Tours

Vanderbilt Living History cast: Front row, from left, Susan Bowe, Carmen Collins, Florence Lucker, Jim Ryan. Middle row: Peter Reganato, Ellen Mason, Mary McKell, Beverly Pokorny. Back row: Rick Outcault and Vincent Ilardi.

For more than a decade, Living History tours of the Vanderbilt Mansion have given summer visitors a kind of time-machine trip to the 1930s. Museum staff member-actors, in costume and in character as household servants and famous guests, take visitors through the sprawling 24-room, Spanish-Revival waterfront mansion and regale them with stories about the family, its guests and its adventures.

Living History tours are given every Saturday and Sunday, beginning on Memorial Day weekend and running through Labor Day weekend. The 45-minute tours are offered at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. All visitors pay the general museum admission: $7 for adults, $6 for students and seniors (62 and older), $3 for children 12 and under. Visitors who wish to take a Living History tour pay general admission plus $5 per person.

Stephanie Gress, the Vanderbilt Museum’s director of curatorial affairs, said the stories told on the tours are based upon the experiences of people who lived nearby and worked on the Mansion staff as teenagers. The stories are also taken from materials in the Vanderbilt Museum archives, including Mr. Vanderbilt’s personal journals and letters, the privately-published books of his world travels and extensive sea journeys, as well as the visual record produced by his photographer and cinematographer.

“We always try to connect the Vanderbilts’ social history with the Museum’s present or with its collection,” Gress said. “In 1932, the jewelry designs that Coco Chanel exhibited in New York City were based on the astronomical constellations. That’s the historic part. Mr. Vanderbilt used celestial navigation on his voyages, and that’s why we have a planetarium — those aspects combine history and the present. In addition, while Coco Chanel was visiting, Rosamund Vanderbilt would have consulted with her on the selection of dresses she would wear at upcoming Manhattan parties.”

Cast members include Carmen Collins, who will play Coco Chanel. Jim Ryan will portray Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, Willie Vanderbilt’s brother. Peter Reganato will be Pietro, the Italian chef. Ellen Mason will play Ellin Berlin, the wife of Irving Berlin. Rick Outcault will portray the artist William Belanske, who was Mr. Vanderbilt’s curator and lived on the estate.

Florence Lucker plays Agnes Lancaster, mother of Rosamund, Vanderbilt’s second wife, and Charlie Russell and Tom Franklin will portray valet Herbert Stringer. Elsa Maxwell will be played by Susan Bowe and Beverly Pokorny. One of the Vanderbilts’ favorite dishes is Coq Au Vin. But the country is still in the midst of Prohibition, and cook Delia O’Rourke, played by Mary McKell, wonders how she will make Coq au Vin without the “Vin.”

The Vanderbilt Museum is located at 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport, NY. Directions and updated details on programs and events are available at www.vanderbiltmuseum.org. For information, call 631-854-5579.

 

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