Temples of unbridled luxury, the opulent Vanderbilt mansions epitomise the soaring wealth of the Gilded Age. Beginning in the late 1870s, the family's scions competed against each other to build the biggest, most lavish homes with platinum walls, mountains of marble and even parts of New York's original Grand Central Station thrown into the mix. But within a couple of generations, all but one of these properties was lost as their fortune dwindled. Click through to feast your eyes on the illustrious dynasty's most magnificent manses and uncover their intriguing secrets.

The family fortune derives from patriarch Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who rose to become America's richest person by the 1850s off the back of a thriving shipping and railroad business. Following his death in 1877, the lion's share of the fortune passed to his eldest son William Henry. It is William's youngest child George Washington Vanderbilt II (pictured) who commissioned Biltmore, the largest and grandest private home in the US.

Having inherited millions from his father William Henry, who died in 1885, George Washington Vanderbilt II set about constructing the ultimate country estate in scenic Asheville, North Carolina. Beginning in 1889, over a thousand workers were hired to construct the colossal 178,926-square-foot residence on 700 parcels of land, totalling 125,000 acres, purchased by George W. The final bill came to an incredible $1.6 billion (£1.2bn) in today's money.

The 250-room mansion was designed in the palatial Châteauesque style by Richard Morris Hunt, the Beaux-Arts architect behind the Statue of Liberty pedestal and the Met Gallery's facade and Great Hall. George W named Biltmore after the Dutch town of De Bilt, where the Vanderbilts originated. Upon its completion in 1895, George W – who was an avid collector of art and antiques – packed the sprawling manse with extravagant furnishings and paintings dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries.

The estate hosted the great and good of American society, from presidents to writers such as Edith Wharton, but the family was actually looked down upon by old money individuals, at least initially. Wharton slammed the flashy clan for being “entrenched in a sort of Thermopylae of bad taste,” while established dynasties such as the Astors considered them vulgar nouveau riche arrivistes.

After George W died in 1914, his wife Edith would spend hours in the library speaking to her deceased husband; it is said that his ghost, along with that of Edith, and a phantom orange cat, haunt the property to this day. Adding to its notoriety, the manse is awash with secret doors and passageways, and features a sinister space filled with headless mannequins. If that weren't enough, in 1922 the estate was the scene of a grisly double-murder. And then there's the creepy Halloween room.

The Halloween room was painted with eerie murals of witches, black cats and other spooky imagery by inebriated guests who'd attended a wild three week-long party in 1925. But it wasn't all good times. Stung by taxes and the cost of maintaining Biltmore, Edith disposed of large swathes of the estate and it was opened to the public in 1930. However, Edith's shrewd moves ensured the property stayed in the family, unlike the other Vanderbilt mansions, which were all sold off in their entirety.

The glorious abode was completed in 1882, garnering glowing reviews for its “distinction, elegance, dignity and even repose”. Critics were blown away by the finely crafted interiors, replete with treasures acquired from antique shops and hard-up European aristos. Highlights ranged from the 60-foot-long grand hall and the Gothic-inspired banquet hall, both of which were faced in Caen stone imported from France.

The salon was equally awe-inspiring. It was designed and assembled in Paris by prestigious interior decorating company Jules Allard and Sons and boasted a painted ceiling by celebrated artist Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry, as well as an ebony secretary that once belonged to the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette.

William K dropped a whopping $317 million (£233m) in today's money on the 50-room manse, with an inflationary adjusted $202 million (£148m) spent on half a million cubic feet of marble. Presented upon its completion to his wife as a 39th birthday gift, the beautiful Beaux-Arts property was modelled after Queen Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles, with nods to the White House.

Wonderfully decadent, the interiors were designed by Jules Allard and Sons, and dazzle with copious gilding, breathtaking 18th-century ceiling paintings, friezes by Giuseppe Moretti, exquisite Louis XIV furniture and wall-to-wall marble. The dining room for example features pink Numidian marble and a replica of the fireplace in Versailles' Salon d'Hercule.

Like many of the spaces in the mansion, the grand salon, which served as a ballroom and principal reception room, is Louis XIV in style. It positively wows with carved wood and gilt wall panels inspired by those in the Louvre's Galerie D'Apollon, as well as an 18th-century ceiling painting with a surround based on the Queen's Bedroom at Versailles.

That same year, Alva commissioned the Chinese Tea House, which emulates 12th century Song dynasty temples. A tireless campaigner for women's voting rights, she regularly held suffragette meetings there. The socialite-turned-activist vacated the property in 1919 and it was bought in 1932 by stockbroker Frederick H Prince, who sold it in 1963 to the local preservation society, which has saved the manse for posterity.

Around the time the Petit Chateau was undergoing construction, William K's father William Henry Vanderbilt was building his very own statement mansion across the street at 640–642 Fifth Avenue. Completed in 1882, the imposing residence consisted of a single-family south section together with a two-family unit to the north, and was dubbed the “Triple Palace” by the press.

Not to be outdone by his father William H and younger brother William K, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the favourite grandson of the patriarch of the clan, commissioned a showstopping Châteauesque mansion of his own on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 57th Street that would end up becoming the Big Apple's largest and grandest ever home.

Following Cornelius' sudden death in 1899 of a brain haemorrhage, Alice remained in the property until 1926. By this time, Fifth Avenue had transformed from a street resplendent with stately mansions to one lined with skyscrapers. Sold for $108 million (£79m) in today's money, the mansion was unceremoniously demolished and the Bergdorf Goodman department store was built in its place.

In 1883, Cornelius and Alice snapped up the Breakers, a Queen Anne-style “cottage” in Newport that had been built in 1878 for tobacco tycoon Pierre Lorillard IV. The couple paid around $13.5 million (£10m) in today's money for the property, which when they bought it was regarded as “unquestionably the most magnificent estate” in the salubrious resort town.

Absolutely zero expense was spared on the Italianate palazzo, which was finished in 1895 at an estimated cost of at least $198 million (£144m) in 2021 dollars. The largest and most lavish Newport “cottage”, it easily surpassed Marble House in splendour, brimming as it was with premium marble, extensive gilding and fixtures and furnishings lifted from some of France's finest châteaux.

While fairly restrained by Vanderbilt standards, the manse was described by next-door neighbour Franklin D Roosevelt as “a hideous albatross in the Hudson River Valley”. Although the Beaux-Arts interiors are comparatively understated, they nonetheless exude grandeur with bounteous marble, exotic wood panelling, 17th-century tapestries and a bedroom that mimics Queen Marie Antoinette's boudoir at Versailles.

Dubbed the Eagle's Nest, the property was originally intended as a modest holiday home for the young heir and his first wife Virginia and actually started out as a compact English-style cottage, morphing into a sizeable Mediterranean-style villa over the following decades. During this time it hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Coco Chanel and other VIPs. To design the house, Willie K turned to New York architectural firm Warren and Wetmore.

A keen yachtsman, Willie K spent his early years sailing around the world and collected a plethora of curios and artefacts on his travels. As might be expected, the interiors are fantastically eclectic, featuring everything from furniture salvaged from an Italian monastery to a 15th-century Portuguese mantelpiece and replicas of a bed and desk owned by Napoleon.

The couple had purchased 1,200 acres on the so-called Millionaires' Row in Madison, New Jersey, which was home to several famed Gilded Age estates owned by the Rockefellers, Mellons and other mega-rich dynasties. Chiefly inspired by Sir Christopher Wren's Hampton Court Palace extension, the 110-room stone and red brick manse is among the ten largest homes in the US.

The grounds were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also landscaped New York's Central Park, and contained Italianate gardens and a farm that supplied the estate with meat, dairy products and fresh produce. Equally impressive, the interiors were filled with coveted antiques and artworks, including Chippendale furniture, enormous crystal chandeliers, scores of paintings by important artists and 37 Barbarini Tapestries woven in 1640 for France's King Louis XIII.

The bathtubs were so big, they were later removed out of fear someone would drown in one of them, while the doorknobs and other fixtures were crafted from solid silver. The Twomblys resided in the property for just four months annually yet the manse had a year-round staff of over 100 that included Joseph Donon, “the world's richest and most famous private chef”. His annual salary amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's money and he even had his own personal chef.

Florence died in 1952, 42 years after her husband, and the estate passed to the couple's unmarried daughter Ruth. A free-spirited party girl – she once dressed as Cleopatra for a family bash and was carried into the function by hunky athletes – Ruth died in 1954. The estate was subsequently broken up, with some of the furnishings ending up in the White House, and the manse was bought in 1957 by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

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