Jay Gould, the "Robbingest of the Robber Barons" worth $84 million at death, left six children who built extravagant mansions across two continents including Castle Gould (repurposed as a $100,000-square-foot stable), Anna's pink marble Palais Rose in Paris, and Frank's Art Deco Hotel Provençal on the French Riviera where Hemingway and Picasso gathered.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
2:17 CHAPTER ONE: The Patriarch's Refuges
5:42 CHAPTER TWO: The Eldest Son's Palaces
9:05 CHAPTER THREE: The Castle That Became a Stable
12:22 CHAPTER FOUR: The Philanthropist
15:58 CHAPTER FIVE: The Pink Palace
19:43 CHAPTER SIX: What Survives
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Jay Gould died December 2, 1892, leaving an estate appraised at $84 million—equivalent to roughly $71 billion today.
He had controlled 15% of all American railroad track, plus Western Union Telegraph and a New York newspaper, earning him the nickname "Mephistopheles of Wall Street."
His attempt to corner the entire U.S. gold market in 1869 earned September 24 the name Black Friday and made him arguably the most hated man in America.
He left six children who each received substantial trust funds and built mansions that announced their presence to a society that never fully accepted them.
Jay's primary residence was a four-story brownstone at 579 Fifth Avenue, purchased for $250,000 from former NYC mayor George Opdyke's heirs.
He hired the Herter Brothers to refurbish interiors with silk damask, velvet, and French Romantic paintings by Delacroix, Millet, Rousseau, and Bouguereau.
His country estate Lyndhurst, a Gothic Revival masterpiece on 67 acres above the Hudson River, featured the largest private conservatory in the United States maintained by 16 full-time gardeners.
George Jay Gould inherited $15 million plus control of multiple railroad companies and built a 50-room Victorian mansion at 857 Fifth Avenue.
By 1906, George demolished the Victorian pile and commissioned Horace Trumbauer to build a new limestone mansion for $1.25 million featuring a 35-foot-high marble entrance hall.
His most magnificent creation was Georgian Court in Lakewood, New Jersey—a 30-room mansion with costs spiraling from $70,000 to over $500,000 as George and Broadway actress wife Edith Kingdon indulged in every luxury.
Howard Gould married actress Viola Katherine Clemmons in 1898 and purchased 300 acres at Sands Point on Long Island's Gold Coast.
Their first creation was Castle Gould, a staggering 100,000-square-foot limestone behemoth modeled after Kilkenny Castle in Ireland.
Katherine pronounced it unsuitable and the entire castle was repurposed as a stable, carriage house, and servants' quarters—perhaps the most expensive stable complex in American history.
After 19 rejected mansion designs and spending $1.7 million with still no suitable home built, the marriage collapsed in 1906 amid spectacular accusations.
Helen Miller Gould, the philanthropist daughter, enrolled in New York University School of Law in 1895 and converted the family mansion's second floor into a welfare office.
During the Spanish-American War, she donated $100,000 directly to the federal government on May 6, 1898, plus an additional $50,000 for military hospital supplies.
Newspapers called her "America's Sweetheart"—a remarkable counterpoint to her father's reputation as the most hated man in America.
Anna Gould married impoverished French aristocrat Count Boni de Castellane in 1895, bringing a $15 million trust fund yielding $500,000 annually.
Boni built the Palais Rose in Paris—a pink marble monument in the style of Louis XIV's Grand Trianon at double the height, completed in 1902.
In under a decade, Boni spent approximately $10 million of Anna's fortune on construction, art collecting, entertaining, and other women.
Frank Jay Gould moved to France in the early 1920s and commissioned the Hôtel Provençal in Juan-les-Pins in 1926—a magnificent Art Deco palace that became the social epicenter of the Riviera.
The hotel hosted Picasso, Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Jackie Kennedy before closing in 1977.
In 2014, British billionaire John Caudwell acquired the property and launched a £300 million restoration creating 41 magnificent residences.
The Gould dynasty left behind 11 major properties across two continents, with several demolished including the Palais Rose in 1969.
But Lyndhurst survives as a National Trust museum, Georgian Court as a university, Castle Gould and Hempstead House as the Sands Point Preserve, and the restored Hôtel Provençal breathing new life into Frank's greatest creation.
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