Word comes from Los Angeles that Philip Van Rensselaer the socialite/memoirist and biographer died last week in Los Angeles in a convalescent home. He would have been 86 this year.
Mr. Van Rensselaer was something of a media celebrity when I first came to New York out of college. A well known man about town with a very old family name in a world where that still had gravity in society and in the press.
![]() | ![]() | | Philip Van Rensselaer, photographed by Slim Aarons for the back cover of his book, "That Vanderbilt Woman" about Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, mother of Gloria Vanderbilt and grandmother of Anderson Cooper. | ![]() |
The Van Rensselaers were Dutch, and acquired their land grant in 1631 in what is now New York State and part of Massachusetts. It was 48 miles long by 24 miles wide. It extended up the Hudson and as far east as what is now the Western part of Massachusetts. The first Van Rensselaer who was Lord of the Manor was Kilian. He was a founding member of the East India Company that settled New Amsterdam as part of their business plan. He never came here to this country but managed his property like a major investment from Holland. His son came to visit but his grandson was the first to live on the ranch (my word, not theirs of course): Jon-Baptiste Van Rensselaer.
These domains were not like your ordinary land ownership. The Van Rensselaer tract was theirs and you were a guest who lived according to and by their rules which were those of a colony. They were independent with their own police and judicial forces. They had great power in the New World. Once when Peter Stuyvesant got into a serious disagreement with the first Mr. Van Rensselaer, he said that the only way to win with a Van Rensselaer was to go to War with them.
When the British took over “New Netherland” and renamed it “New York,” the Van Rensselaers got to keep theirs. When the French and Indian Wars occurred over the Northeastern area, the Van Rensselaers were not under siege. They had already made their agreements with the Native Americans and it was negotiated to everyone’s liking. At the time anyway. Their vast property covered 700,000 acres including the area that is now Albany.
![]() | ![]() | | Van Rensselaer was a serious writer penning 3 books. | ![]() |
The Van Rensselaer family’s patrimony held sway in the real estate world, financial world and the social world well into the 19th century. By the age of Edith Wharton, their place in New York society was acknowledged by her in the characters the Van der Luydens. By the time that Philip Van Rensselaer came along (he was born in 1928), the name had lost its power and punch financially, but not its social gravitas.
He was a tall handsome fellow, judging from the photographs. He was gay and although it was before the time that people were “out,” he lived in a sophisticated world where those realities were recognized, accepted and acknowledged, albeit privately not publicly. He had a very close relationship with, among others women, Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress. (Hutton was also first cousin of the Donahues and Jimmy Donahue was her only “friend” and confidant). Hutton also had a lot of husbands and what the late John Galliher (ten years older than Van Rensselaer), called “inconsequential generosity.” It was presumed that a bond in that relationship between him and Hutton was that inconsequential generosity with a focus. Although Van Rensselaer was a sincere and caring man with Hutton.
He had the public reputation for being one of those boys in society who were escorts and houseguests and with a name very useful to those hosts and hostesses who liked letting the name slip to impress. Furthermore he dressed a table and a room with an attractive and agreeable presence.
But he was also a serious writer and very readable. His book “That Vanderbilt Woman” refers to the mother of Gloria Vanderbilt (and grandmother of Anderson Cooper) who was the very young second wife of Reginald Vanderbilt. The book is written in the novel-form as history. Highly readable and of course impossible to know if it’s accurate. However it’s a good bet that Van Rensselaer had access to the inside story on the lives of these people because he was one of them (the Van Rensselaer name, for example was impressive to the Vanderbilts who were also Dutch latecomers to the Colonies – 18th century).
I was told that Mr. Van Rensselaer had been ailing for a long time – which was why he was in a home. He’d been living in Los Angeles, the City of the Angels, for many years. That would have been the real New World to the patroons– had they known. Philip Van Rensselaer surely knew that too. May he rest in peace.
Meanwhile, in the real estate department. I read in the Realestalker.com and then the Real Deal, that Vince Camuto, the Nine West shoe tycoon, had sold or was about to sell his fabulous oceanfront estate in Southampton for $48 million. Evidently the deal also includes the houses on the same (original) property which were once the garages and stables of the original estate for an additional $20 million plus.
It’s a spectacular piece of property as you can see from the aerial view. It sits right next door to the Southampton Bathing Corporation (the beach club). |
