The record-union., 1895-02-09
HOW MlLLIONAIRS LIVE.
Housekeeping on Lordly Scale by
New York Nabobs.
Mrs. Havemeyer Keeps Sixty Servants.
Spending One Hundred Thousand
Dollars Annually.

women in New York who have this royal
allowance, and who would be puzzled
good deal to know how to manage if the
sum was reduced by $4,000.
Mrs. Theodore A. Havemeyer, accord
ing to the st. Louis Globe Democrat,
spends more upon her housekeeping
than any other woman in New York,
and Mrs. Arson Phelps-Stokes, who
lives on the opposite corner of Thirty
ninth street and Madison avenue, prob
ably comes next. There are sixty
servants on Mrs. Havemeyers pay roll;
twenty are in active service in the town
house, and the rest are scattered between
the houses at Newport, Tuxedo and the
farm at Stamford, Conn. The white
capped French chef draws salary OF
$4,000 year, and one taste OF the Nassel-
rode pudding he makes would make you
declare he was worth the money. he
has two assistants and four kitchen
maids; these he selects and is responsible
for. There are. besides, steward, but
Ter, four footmen, hOusekeeper and four
housemaids, two laundrasses, two LADIES'
maids, cOachman' and SIX StaDlemen.
The housekeeper engages all of the
servants for the house except the chef
and The ladies' maids, and these are
chosen by Mrs. Havemeyer herself.
All of the responsibility of the house
housekeeper: he supplies the pantries
and cold-storage rooms with everything
that the markets of the world contain,
and the housekeeper sees that each OF the
servants does her work in the most per-
feet manner. The work is not hard, but
the hours are. For the maids. day begins
at o'clock IN the morning, for windows,
marble floors, books, paintings and
everything in the magnificent house IS
carefully gone over every day, and all
must be finished and every servant eX-
cept the butler and tootman invisible be-
fore the earliest riser in the family saunt-
ers in for his o'clock breakfast. When
the family is assembled downstairs,
which is usually not much before o'clock
luncheon, the upstairs work is finished,
and so much work is TO be done, ana to
be done SO thoroughly, that each hour of
the day brings its duties, and there are
not many rest moments before the maids
have their o clock supper. The first of
each month Mrs. Havemeyer hands the
housekeeper check Tor S5OO-SlO0 for
herself, SlO0 for the steward, SO fpr the
butler and the rest to be divided among
the other ten servants. The chef has
$l25, in addition to his salary, to pay his
help; the two ladies' maids share 500 be-
tween them, and MIR. Havemeyer settles
with the coachman and the grooms, to
the tune of about 500 per month. This
is for only one OF four houses, but the
Each morning as Mrs. Havemeyer fin
ishes her dainty breakfast Of rolls and
chocolate, her maid brings to her the
menu made out for the next three meals
by the chef. She checks OFT what it would
please her to have, and the genii of the
kitchen do the rest. The amount the
steward spends in month is enormous,
the butchers bill often amounting to $3.50
per week, or the tidy sum Of 81 900 per
month. This, of course, includes game
of every kind, and the choicest cuts of the
most expensive meats in the market. The
amount spent for fruit almost equals the
meat bill. for the choicest grapes are
sometimes so per pound, and other hot
house fruit costs in the same proportion.
Counting the wines, 5000 would about
pay for the Havemeyer table for one
month.
Mrs. William Astor keeps house in the
most delightful manner, but on less ex-
penSive scale than Mrs. HaVemeyer. Her
beautiful home on Fifth avenue and
Thirty-fourth street is always perfectly
appointed, but since she has been in
mourning she has entertained very little,
andshas not needed the large staff of serv-
ants she kept when her husband and
children were with her. She has a stew
ard who Is matchleSs for worth in the
whole country. te engages, pays and
superintends the fourteen servants who
make up the Astor menage. When this
she said to him: II require my house to
be kept in perfect order from top to bot
tom. l have no day set in which things
are to be cleaned, but they must be spot
less, if all of the work has 20 be done
twice every day. Ifyou have not enough
servants, get Them" This simple com
mon sense rule has worked admirably,
and it would be difficult to find house
hold In which every portion of the house
hold machinery works so perfectly.
There is chef, and very good one, but
when Mrs. Astor gives state dinner or
ball Plnard always serves 1t, as he has
done for twenty years and more. The
table expenses rarely exceed 500 per
month, and SO per week is the limit of
the butchers, 's,bill.
Mrs. w. Seward Webb, Mrs. William
Douglass Sloane, Mrs, Elliott +. Shepard
and Mrs. IL. Mckay TwombIey, who
were the four Vanderbilt girls before their
marriages, live close to each other on
Fifth avenue. They all keep house in
about the same fashion as does their
mother, Mrs. William III. Vanderbilt.
They each have the regulation house
keeper, steward, tootman, ETC., but Mrs.
w. Seward Webb and Mrs. Twombley
have in addition trained nurse, a head
nurse and two nursery maids to care for
their little children in the study-rooms,
play-rooms, nurseries and dining-rooms,
which are all isolated from the show part
u
Tor these rich little men and women.
Each of these sciOns of the VanderbiIts
spends $4,000 per month for food and
drink twelve months III the year.
Elbridge Il. Gerry has many millions of
his own, and his wife has four or tive
more, and it is said Mr.. Gerry does his
very best to spend all of his income every
year. lie has new palace on Fifth ave-
nue. and SiXJy-irst street, just back OF
the Miilionaires' Club. Thirty servants
are employed TO run things, and his
yacht, the Electra, costs an extra Sl2, 900
per month during the five months she is
IN commission; so the gallant Commodore
has to double the SlO0,C00 most of the
very rich housekeepers allow themselves.
IL he makes himself and those about him
as comfortable as he likes them to be.
John Jacob Astor has not yet moved
into his white marble mansion on Fifth
avenue and SiXtyfifth street, but he
hopes to be settled by the first Of Febru-
ary, and not until then can we tell what
kind of housekeeper Mrs. John Jacob
VIII be. But Ii Is safe to say that she will
entertain in the lavish fashion OF all of
the Astors, and will spend vast amount
OF money IN doing it.
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt is a very re-
tiring, conservative woman, and while
her home, which covers half block and
Is the largest IN New York, requires the
care of many servants, there is no undue
extravaganza, and the amount spent for
housekeeping would not exceed that ex-
pended by her sisters-in-law for their
much smaller houses. 1t is strange
thing, but many of the servants who have
worked for Mrs. Vanderbilt, Mrs. sloane
and Mrs. Seward Webb for several years
have never seen their mistresses closer
than peep at them through the upper
H.