John King Vanderbilt House

1197 Clove Road | Grymes Hill | built 1901

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1832

    Manhattan grocer John King Vanderbilt buys the Corson farm where his house will stand

    John King Vanderbilt, born in 1781 and a first cousin of Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, kept a grocery at Vesey and Church streets and dealt in land on the edge of the growing city. After moving his extended family to Staten Island in 1825, he bought eighty acres of the old Corson farm in 1832 from relatives of the late Richard C. Corson. His stepdaughter's family, the Vredenburgs, settled into the 18th-century Corson farmhouse nearby.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1836

    Onlookers travel for miles to watch the Vanderbilt House go up

    A family history of J. Mortimer Vanderbilt, quoted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, says that people drove in from miles around to see the house under construction in 1836. The account notes that the workmen were paid by the day, which was unusual then, and that the hand-hewn timbers came across from Bayonne in rowboats.

    “…people would drive from miles around to view it, for the labor was being paid for by the day…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1908

    Amy Vanderbilt's father sells the family house the year she is born

    After John King Vanderbilt died in 1871, the house stayed with Vanderbilt and Vredenburg relatives. In 1889 Joseph Mortimer Vanderbilt, grandson of John King's brother Oliver, received it from John Frederick Smith. He was the last of the family to live there, selling it in 1908, the same year his daughter Amy was born; she later became a well-known authority on etiquette.

    “Joseph Mortimer Vanderbilt, the father of Amy Vanderbilt, noted arbiter of social decorum, sold the house in 1908, the year in which she was born…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1955

    Author Dorothy Valentine Smith buys and restores the house, returning it to the family

    In 1955 Dorothy Valentine Smith, a member of the family and author of the book Staten Island: Gateway to New York, bought the house and restored it, bringing it back into family ownership. The work rebuilt the brick chimneys from the roofline up, replaced worn clapboard siding, and swapped in new shutters while reusing their original hardware.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 3 buildings with stories in Grymes Hill