Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America

Belmont, Alva, 1853-1933 print view role Collector dates 1853-1933 city Loiret other cities Mobile, AL; Sands Point, NY; Newport, RI; New York, NY; Paris, France; East Meadow, NY; country France sex F historical notes Alva Eskrine Smith Vanderbilt Belmont was an art collector, architecture authority, member of the American Institute of Architecture, and was active in the Women's Suffrage Movement in the U.S. Belmont collected Italian primitives, portraits by Clouet, 15th and 16th century Flemish Tapestries, and was an avid patron of William Morris Hunt. She built three Vanderbilt homes: a French Renaissance style chateau at 660 Fifth Avenue in New York City, A Queen Anne style retreat on Long Island “Idle hour”, and Marble House in Newport, RI. When married to Olivier Belmont she built Beacon Towers at Sands Point, L.I., the neoclassical mansion “Brookholt” in Hempstead, Long Island, a neoclassical three-story New York City townhouse at 477 Madison Avenue, and restored “Belcourt” in Newport, RI. She owned and restored three residences in France; 9 Rue du General Lambert, Paris; the Villa Isoletta at Eze-sur-Mer; and Château d’Augerville-la-Rivière, in the Department of Loiret (40 miles south of Paris). Alva founded the Metropolitan Opera Association at the Metropolitan Opera House, she gave $100,000.00 to the Nassau Hospital in Mineola, L.I., and organized the National Woman’s party convention in 1915 where she presented the organization with a home in Washington, DC. Alva’s first marriage was to William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849 – 1920) from 1875-1895, they had three children; Consuelo Vanderbilt ( 1877-1964), William Kissam Vanderbilt II ( 1878-1944), and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884-1970). In 1896 she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (1858-1908). decades of activity 1880-1890 1890-1900 1900-1910 1910-1920 1920-1930 updated 10/31/2024 13:33:21 bibliographic search Search Frick Art Reference Library Catalog Search Photoarchive Search Worldcat Search Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF) Search Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) Search Wikidata Entry Archives/Repository Collection Title Collection Details Vanderbilt Museum Reference & Archives collection Vanderbilt Museum of Suffolk County (Centerport, N.Y.) Scrapbooks, logbooks and photo albums, ca. 1885-1952, ca. 1900-ca. 1940 (bulk) see details... Duke University Library Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library Matilda Young Papers, 1932-1933. see details... The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road Papers of C. E. S. Wood, 1829-1980 (bulk 1870-1940). see details... Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives ALVA SMITH VANDERBILT BELMONT, 1965 - 1998 see details... Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Margaret Floey Papers, 1847-1968 (inclusive) 1909-1929 (bulk) see details... Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Laidlaw, H. B. (Harriet Burton), b. 1874. Papers, 1851-1958 see details... Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Milholland, Inez, 1886-1916. Papers, 1906-1916 see details... Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Page, Mary H. (Mary Hutcheson), 1860-1940 see details... see also: Belmont, Oliver H. P. (Oliver Hazard Perry), 1858-1908 Vanderbilt, William K. (William Kissam), 1878-1944 «  back