Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr. (October 20, 1877 – May 7, 1915) was an American businessman and member of the Vanderbilt family. A sportsman, he participated in and pioneered a number of related endeavors. He died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
Vanderbilt was born in New York City, the third son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt.
Alfred Vanderbilt attended the St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Yale University (Class of 1899), where he was a member of Skull and Bones. Soon after graduation, Vanderbilt, with a party of friends, started on a tour of the world which was to have lasted two years. When the group reached Japan on September 12, 1899, he received news of his father's sudden death and hastened home as speedily as possible to find himself, by his father's will, the head of his branch of the family.
His eldest brother, William, had died in 1892 at age 22, and their father had disinherited Alfred's second-oldest brother Neily due to his marriage to Grace Wilson, a young debutante of whom the elder Vanderbilts strongly disapproved for a variety of reasons. Alfred received the largest share of his father's estate, though it was also divided among his sisters and his younger brother, Reginald.
Soon after his return to New York, Vanderbilt began working as a clerk in the offices of the New York Central Railroad as preparation for entering into the councils of the company as one of its principal owners. Subsequently, he was chosen a director in other companies as well, among them the Fulton Chain Railway Company, Fulton Navigation Company, Raquette Lake Railway Company, Raquette Lake Transportation Company, and the Plaza Bank of New York.
Vanderbilt was a good judge of real estate values and projected several important enterprises. On the site of the former residence of the Vanderbilt family and on several adjacent plots, he built the Vanderbilt Hotel at Park Avenue and 34th Street, New York, which he made his city home.
Among Vanderbilt's many holdings were positions in the New York Central Railroad, Beech Creek Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, Michigan Central Railroad and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad as well as the Pullman Company.
On January 11, 1901, Vanderbilt married Ellen "Elsie" Tuck French, in Newport, Rhode Island, a close friend of Alfred's sister Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Elsie was the daughter of Francis Ormond French, President of the Manhattan Trust Company, and Ellen Tuck, who was a daughter of New Hampshire politician Amos Tuck and half-sister of Diplomat Edward Tuck.
On November 24, 1901, Elsie gave birth to their only child:
William Henry Vanderbilt III (1901–1981), later governor of Rhode Island.
In March 1908, Elsie moved to the home of her brother, Amos Tuck French, in Tuxedo Park, New York. Shortly thereafter, a scandal erupted in April 1908 after Elsie filed for divorce, alleging adultery with Agnes O'Brien Ruíz, the wife of the Cuban attaché in Washington, D. C. The publicity, which caused splits over whom to support, ultimately led Agnes Ruíz to commit suicide in 1909. Elsie, who remarried, died in Newport on February 27, 1948.
Vanderbilt spent considerable time in London after the divorce, and he remarried there, on December 17, 1911, to the wealthy American divorcée and heiress Margaret Emerson. Margaret was the daughter and only child of millionaire Bromo-Seltzer-founder Captain Isaac Edward Emerson and his first wife Emily Askew Dunn. Margaret had previously been married to Baltimore physician Dr. Smith Hollis McKim from 1902 to 1910. Together, Alfred and Margaret had two children:
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. (1912–1999) a businessman and racehorse breeder,
George Washington Vanderbilt III (1914–1961), a yachtsman and scientific explorer.
After Alfred's death aboard the Lusitania in 1915, Margaret bought a 316-acre estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, with a 47-room mansion. She remarried twice, first on June 12, 1918, in Lenox to Raymond T. Baker (1875–1935), a politician with whom she had a daughter, Gloria Baker (1920–1975).
Alfred's father Cornelius Vanderbilt II died in September 1899; during the following weeks the terms of Cornelius' will sparked a minor controversy within New York society when it was revealed that Vanderbilt's eldest surviving son, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, had been effectively disinherited, and was to receive a substantially smaller share of his father's estate compared to his siblings. In his place Vanderbilt's second surviving son, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, was named as the principal beneficiary under the terms of the will, inheriting over half of their father's $73,000,000 fortune. Cornelius Vanderbilt II also bequeathed to Alfred the Gold Congressional Medallion awarded to the founder of the family fortune Cornelius "The Commodore" Vanderbilt I by the United States Congress in 1864—this heirloom had come to symbolise headship of the Vanderbilt family. The final version of the will bore the date 18 June 1896, the same date originally intended for the wedding of Cornelius Vanderbilt III to Grace Wilson despite his parents' disapproval of the union.
As a result of his older brother's dispute with his parents, Alfred's inheritance amounted to approximately $42,000,000.
Following Alfred's death aboard the RMS Lusitania in 1915, his estate underwent extensive probate proceedings in the Surrogate's Court of New York. His widow, Margaret Emerson Vanderbilt, who had already remarried by 1917, made the formal claim on the estate. Estimates of its total value vary significantly depending on whether inter vivos gifts, trust funds, and divorce settlements are included.