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"The Gardener's Cottage." Resettled farther up Fifth Avenue in a 28-room pile which she termed "The Gardener's Cottage," Mrs. Vanderbilt lost none of her queenly manner. Convinced that Vanderbilts were a breed apart, she sometimes described herself as "all alone in the house," when there were, in fact, 18 servants there with her. ("She was quality" explained one devoted retainer.) Despite increasing feebleness, she continued to maintain at least nominal sway over what remained of high society. At the 1949 opening of the Metropolitan Opera, she appeared in a wheelchair, persuaded to suffer this discomfort by a friend's remark that Queen Mary was upset because "so few were left to uphold traditions."
Within little more than a year, however, Grace Vanderbilt, now in her mid-80s, was bedridden. Within two years she was blind. Last week, she died of pneumonia. Totally dependent on others in the last years of her life, and confined to the little world of her bedroom, she sometimes remembered the great days at Beaulieu. She would say to whoever was near by: "Come, let's go for a drive, darling." Then her companion, sitting down by Mrs. Vanderbilt's bed, would take her on an imaginary tour of Newport. "There's a sparkle on the water today," she would say. "There's Mr. So-and-So bowing to you . . ."