Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil

Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt was born at Biltmore House in 1900 and grew up between the estate, travel and schooling in Washington, D.C. After her father’s death in 1914, she and her mother remained closely associated with Biltmore and western North Carolina.

Cornelia helped preserve Biltmore as a family estate and public attraction and supported charitable and cultural work in Asheville and later in Britain. Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil also worked as Biltmore heiress and Philanthropist. Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil was born in Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina, United States and died in Oxfordshire, England.

Sarah Loudin Thomas’s These Tangled Threads places Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil at the real centre of Biltmore Industries in 1924, when a prestigious weaving commission is tied to her wedding. Alongside Edith Vanderbilt and Fred Seely, Cornelia anchors the fictional weavers’ disputes over craft, authorship, class and female ambition in the documented history of the Biltmore enterprise.