The private lives of history's wealthiest people are often shrouded in secrecy. In this remarkable collection of vintage photographs, we lift the gilded curtain to reveal how some of the richest figures of the past 150 years have lived behind closed doors.
From the Vanderbilt railroad dynasty and media mogul William Randolph Hearst to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and tech tycoon Bill Gates, these rare images offer a candid look inside the inner sanctuaries of the ultra-wealthy.
Click or scroll on to uncover the secret home lives of the world’s richest, captured on camera...
When socially ambitious Alva Erksine Smith married William Kissam Vanderbilt, grandson of business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, she was eager to make a statement. The couple built a lavish mansion on New York City's Fifth Avenue and marked its completion with an extravagant costume ball in March 1883. Alva is pictured here in her costume, inspired by a painting of a Venetian princess, in the mansion's ballroom.
The ball reportedly cost $240,000 to throw, which is around $7.7 million (£5.8m) today. Luckily, money was no object for William, who would go on to inherit $55 million following his father's death in 1892, the equivalent of just less than $2 billion (£1.5bn) in modern money.
By the time Scottish-born industrialist Andrew Carnegie retired in 1901, he had a fortune of at least $480 million, more than $18 billion (£13.5bn) today, from the sale of his steel company. Embracing a life of leisure, at least partially, Carnegie indulged in regular retreats to St. Andrew's Golf Club in Hastings-on-Hudson in New York State. Carnegie was a co-founder of the club and had a sprawling summer cottage constructed there.
The titan was photographed here at his retreat in 1911, golf club in hand. The cottage, which was said to be mansion-sized, featured exposed stone walls and a large brick hearth, where Carnegie liked to read.
Despite his so-called retirement, Andrew Carnegie ensured that his primary residence in Manhattan, a 64-room mansion completed in 1902, included a home office where he could oversee his philanthropic endeavours. This photograph from 1913 shows him at his desk, in front of a wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
Before he died in 1919, the wealthy benefactor had given away $350 million, just less than $6.6 billion (£4.9bn) when adjusted for inflation, in donations to cultural and educational institutions, as well as funding the construction of thousands of libraries across the US and the English-speaking world.
After filing for divorce from William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1894, Alva Vanderbilt remarried two years later to banker Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont. Alva kept Marble House, the magnificent mansion William had built for her 39th birthday in Newport, Rhode Island, but left it closed up and unused.
Following Oliver's death in 1908, Alva reopened the mansion and commissioned a Chinese-inspired tea house in the grounds. She went on to host high-society friends at the pavilion, along with suffragist rallies advocating for women's voting rights. Photographed here in 1914, Alva sits on the steps of the tea house alongside the Duchess of Marlborough and members of the Vanderbilt clan.
This 1921 image captures Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, and his family celebrating Christmas at Cliveden House, their estate in Buckinghamshire, England.
Part of the American Astor dynasty, Waldorf's father, real estate baron William Waldorf Astor, moved the family to the UK in 1890, the same year he inherited around $150 million, in the region of $5.3 billion (£4bn) today. William was given a peerage for his charitable giving, a title that Waldorf inherited.
Waldorf had a varied career as a newspaper proprietor and politician, while his wife Nancy made history as the first woman elected to the British House of Commons in 1919.
Founder of the Standard Oil Company, industrialist John D. Rockefeller is widely regarded as America's first billionaire. When he passed in 1937, his net worth was estimated at a staggering $1.4 billion, which equates to around $31.5 billion (£23.5bn) in modern money.
Rockefeller is pictured here in his twilight years in the 1930s, relaxing on the patio of his holiday home in Ormond Beach, Florida. The mogul bought the 9,000-square-foot (836sqm) house, called The Casements, in 1918 and spent his winters there, often entertaining prominent guests, like inventor Thomas Edison and fellow industrialist Henry Ford.
Newspaper tycoon William Randolf Hearst is shown here in 1930 entertaining esteemed dinner guests, including his long-time partner, Hollywood star Marion Davies, in the grand dining hall of his beloved home, Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Known as the Refectory, the medieval-inspired room features a 16th-century carved timber ceiling, silk banners, and towering silver candlesticks.
Hearst spent much of his fortune, estimated at $200 million upon his death in 1951 or $2.5 billion (£1.9bn) today, on constructing the extraordinary castle. His vision was so ambitious that the estate was never completed, even after 28 years of expansions and revisions guided by architect Julia Morgan.
Hearst installed a long list of luxury amenities at the San Simeon castle, from a private zoo and movie theatre to the gilded indoor Roman Pool and a tennis court. The elaborate display of wealth is said to have inspired Xanadu, the fictional Gothic castle from the movie Citizen Kane.
This photograph from 1934 shows the mogul on his 71st birthday in April 1934, hitting the estate's court for a doubles match with three of his five sons, William Jr., John, and George. All five of Hearst's sons followed their father into the family business, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Jr. rising to the role of editor-in-chief of the Hearst newspapers in the 1950s.
In addition to Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst owned St. Donat’s Castle on the south coast of Wales in the UK. He bought the 12th-century estate in 1925 for £130,000, around £6.9 million ($9.2m) in modern money, and hired architect Sir Charles Allom, knighted for his work on Buckingham Palace, to renovate it.
Photographed here at the estate in 1936 with his Old English Sheepdogs, Hearst only visited the castle five times, but his lavish parties left an impression. Guests included future British prime minister Winston Churchill, film stars Charlie Chaplin and Clark Gable, and playwright George Bernard Shaw.
But it wasn’t all castles and mansions. While studying at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1937, David Rockefeller, grandson of oil baron John D. Rockefeller, lived in comparatively modest student lodgings. These photos show him collecting milk and relaxing in his quarters. Still, the accommodation was luxurious by student standards. It belonged to LSE director Sir William Beveridge and included a laundress.
David paid £168 plus water rates for his stay, about £9,862 ($13,100) today. A minor expense, considering Rockefeller was worth $3.3 billion at his death in 2017, or around $4.4 billion (£3.3bn) when adjusted for inflation.
This photograph from 1937 shows William K. Vanderbilt II, son of William K. Vanderbilt and Alva Belmont, with his wife, Rosamond Vanderbilt, outside their luxurious mansion on Fisher Island, just off the coast of Florida's Miami Beach.
A rather unconventional business deal, William K. Jr. swapped one of his yachts for the waterfront land in the 1920s and set about constructing a remarkable estate, known as Alva Base, likely in homage to his mother. The mansion was designed by renowned Swiss architect Maurice Fatio and reportedly included a swimming pool, tennis courts, a seaplane hangar, and an 11-hole golf course featuring holes named after William K. Jr.'s yachts.
Founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford's automobile empire and pioneering assembly line methods left an indelible mark on the face of industrial America. They also made him a significant fortune – by the mid-1920s, Ford's net worth was estimated at $1.2 billion, in the region of $22.2 billion (£16.7bn) today.
This 1938 photograph shows Henry Ford and his wife, Clara, on the porch of their home, Fair Lane, on the day of their golden wedding anniversary, which was also Clara's 71st birthday. The estate in Dearborn, Michigan, encompassed a 56-room mansion and a laboratory where Ford perfected his cutting-edge vehicle designs.
Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton and Hollywood actor Cary Grant are pictured here with their dog in 1943 on the porch of their home. The couple were briefly married from 1942 to 1945 and lived between Grant's characterful house in Santa Monica and Hutton's stately home in London during their relationship.
The granddaughter of department store founder Frank W. Woolworth, Barbara received an inheritance of around $40 million in 1933 – $997 million (£749m) in modern money – at the tender age of 21. By the time she died in 1979, the fortune had shrunk to an estimated $3,000, or $13,400 (£10k) today.
Gloria Vanderbilt, daughter of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and part of the famous Vanderbilt dynasty, inherited upwards of $4 million on her 21st birthday in 1945, which equates to $72 million (£54m) when adjusted for today's inflation.
An artist and creative, 1954 marked Gloria's first foray into theatre, when she made her debut in a production of romantic drama The Swan at the Pocono Playhouse in Pennsylvania. This photograph shows the 30-year-old heiress unwinding at the cottage she was living in during the theatrical run. In her hands is a recording of a composition by famed conductor Leopold Stokowski, her then-husband. The pair divorced the following year.
Renowned for her flamboyance, the 18th Duchess of Alba, Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, known simply as Cayetana, was Spain's richest woman when she passed away in 2014. The world's most titled aristocrat, she was part of the House of Alba, one of Spain's most affluent noble families. Her fortune was said to be up to €3 billion at the time of her death, or €5.2 billion ($6bn/£4.5bn) in modern money.
In this image from 1959, the Duchess poses with three of her sons in one of the stately living rooms of Madrid's Liria Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Alba. The neoclassical mansion is among the Spanish capital's largest private residences.
American oil billionaire J. Paul Getty is pictured here in 1959, surveying the wood-panelled Great Hall of his new home, Sutton Place in Surrey, England. He bought the Tudor mansion for £60,000, around £1.2 million ($1.6m) today, and filled it with masterpieces by Rubens, Renoir, and Gainsborough. In contrast to the home's grandeur, he also installed a payphone for his guests' use.
Yet despite his selective frugality, money was not in short supply. Getty was named the world's wealthiest private citizen in 1966 by the Guinness Book of World Records, thanks to his fortune of $1.2 billion at the time, which is $12 billion (£9bn) when adjusted for inflation.
This photo from 1960 captures Getty and his guests listening to a piano recital in the imposing dining room at Sutton Place. The vast entertaining space is lined with ornate tapestries, regal candelabras, and soaring Gothic windows.
The home's 16th-century walls witnessed many a soirée during Getty's tenure. 1,200 high-society guests made the list for the billionaire's housewarming party, while hundreds are said to have gatecrashed the event. A dance floor was set up by the pool, while guests enjoyed a fireworks display, a fortune-teller, a milk bar complete with a real cow, and a lobster buffet served in the early hours.
Estée Lauder, founder of the eponymous multibillion-dollar cosmetics empire, is seen here with her husband, Joe Lauder, on the steps of their Florida mansion. The couple bought the Palm Beach trophy home in 1964, the year before this photo was taken.
At that time, business was booming for the Lauders. A far cry from mixing creams in her uncle’s kitchen, Estée now helmed a global brand. By the 1950s, Estée Lauder was a household name, thanks to the success of Youth Dew bath oil. As sales soared, so did her fortune – estimated at $400 million by the late 1990s, or around $778 million (£582m) today.
In 1963, heiress Gloria Vanderbilt married American writer Wyatt Emory Cooper. While the couple's base was in New York City, they spent summers at a grand home in Southampton, New York, an exclusive playground of the rich and famous. Tucked behind a high hedge, the gabled home was built in 1895 and designed by legendary architect Stanford White. Gloria decorated it in a riot of colour, pattern, and art.
Gloria is photographed here in 1972 in a bedroom in the historic home, reading a book to the couple's sons, Anderson and Carter. Anderson Cooper would go on to become a renowned broadcast journalist and CNN news anchor.
Gloria called a myriad of properties across New York City home over the years, including an apartment in the UN Towers. The space featured views of the city skyline and a spacious art studio with floor-to-ceiling windows, pictured here in 1976.
Art was an incredibly important part of Gloria's life. She'd been raised by her aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor and art patron, who founded New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art. With her aunt's encouragement, Gloria held her first art show in the Big Apple in the late 1940s, followed by a trail of one-woman shows across the US over the following decades.
This 1984 photo shows a 29-year-old Bill Gates running his software empire from his wood-panelled home office, complete with a world map mural on the ceiling. That same year, he told a reporter about his plans to build a computer-powered home – a vision realised in the 1990s with Xanadu 2.0, his high-tech mansion in Medina, Washington.
By then, Gates’s influence on technology was unmistakable. After co-founding Microsoft in 1975 and helping to spark the personal computing revolution, he debuted on Forbes’ list of America’s richest in 1986 with a $315 million fortune, which equates to about $931 million (£697m) today. A year later, he became one of the world’s youngest billionaires.
Once heir to the L'Oréal cosmetics empire, Liliane Bettencourt was the world's richest woman when she died in 2017 at the age of 94, leaving behind a fortune of €33 billion, or €42.2 billion ($49bn/£37bn) adjusted for inflation.
Born in Paris, Bettencourt didn't stray far from her roots, residing in a grand mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of the French capital. The billionaire and her husband, politician André Bettencourt, are seen here in 1988 in one of the home's opulent reception rooms. The five-storey property featured a basement pool, sprawling gardens, and walls adorned with masterpieces by Monet, Matisse, and Picasso.
This photo from 2003 captures German billionaire businessman Klaus-Michael Kühne posing by the pool of his holiday villa on the Spanish island of Mallorca. The vast estate reportedly spans an enormous 53,820 square feet (5,000sqm) and includes a tennis court and breathtaking waterfront views.
Kühne took over as CEO of Kuehne + Nagel International AG, the transport and logistics company founded by his grandfather, in 1966. In later years, he expanded his portfolio to become the largest single investor in German airline Lufthansa and a stakeholder in German football team Hamburger SV. His net worth today stands at around $37 billion (£27.7bn).
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