Comments by "Andrew Brendan" (@andrewbrendan1579) on "What is the Belcourt Mansion in Newport?" video.

  1. If you haven't already read this Vanderbilt book I'd like to highly recommend "Fortune's Children -- The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt" by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II. I could hardly put the book down I found it so engrossing. Alva's daughter Consuela wrote her autobiography "The Glitter and the Gold" with ghost writer Stuart Preston. I know of this book but haven't read it. I did read "The Vanderbilt Era" by Louis Auchincloss. If you're interested in the stories of wealthy Americans in fact and fiction, I think you'll like the work of Louis Auchincloss who was from a wealthy New York family himself. I've read maybe 40 of his many books. I'd like to particularly recommend his book "The House of Five Talents" told in the voice of an elderly spinster who grew up enormously rich durnig the Gilded Age. I don't recall the specifics but Louis Auchincloss and Jacqueline Bouvier became step-siblings or step-cousins when Jacqueline's divorced mother married a member of the Auchincloss family.
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  2. Well, the house is....interesting. Wasn't there a murder at Belcourt or a death situation with a contested will back in the 1980;s? As I recall, the handyman had become very involved with the elderly lady of the house and got her to go out in society and have a good time but there was concern that he was taking advantage of her. I remember watching an A&E network show, I think it was "City Confidential", that dealt with the case and I'm sure it involved people who lived and worked at Belcourt.
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