Business & Finance: Gentleman’s Estate

In college Harry Payne Whitney once declared in a questionnaire that he could trace his ancestry “out of sight.” To trace the fortune he left when he died in 1930 it was not necessary to go back farther than his father, William Collins Whitney, traction tycoon, Secretary of the Navy under Cleveland, who left him $24,000,000; and his uncle, Col. Oliver Hazard Payne, who left him about $12,000,000. Last week Harry Payne Whitney’s fortune at the time of his death was appraised by New York State for tax collection purposes at $62,808,000 net. That was considerably less than the estate left by his brother Payne Whitney who died in 1927. But then Uncle Oliver Payne had guessed that Payne was a better businessman than Harry Payne and had left him nearly $63,000,000. He was right. Payne Whitney’s estate was $191,000,000, the biggest ever recorded in the U. S. But Brother Harry Payne Whitney had more to leave behind than money. He had his reputation as the greatest sporting gentleman of the century.

The horses of the man who had organized the first international polo team to defeat England, and who was the only man to win the Kentucky Derby with a filly (Regret, 1915), were valued at nearly a million dollars. Among real estate and personal property worth over $6,000,000 were his 634-acre estate at Old Westbury, L. I. ($2,186,000), his private railroad car Wanderer ($25,000), his yacht Whileaway ($62,500), Van Dyck’s Portrait of Sir William Villiers ($60,000), Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of A Lady ($18,000), two pink Oriental shirt studs ($2,500).

As a businessman Harry Payne Whitney had invested more wisely than his uncle would have supposed. The stocks which were appraised at $47,462,000 at his death would have brought nearly $41,000,000 in last week’s markets&151;a record of which any investment trust might well be proud. Chief reason for the small decline (14%) lay in the fact that the Roosevelt dollar had pushed the value of his holdings in Hudson Bay Mining. The current demand for gold shares and the higher price of gold had pushed his holdings in Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting Co. from less than $4,000,000 in 1930 to nearly $10,000,000 last week.

In his portfolio were nearly 400,000 shares of worthless stock. But he had 14 blocks of stock each with a value of more than $1,000,000. In these 14 he had invested $35,000,000, principally in Guaranty Trust Co. ($6,918,000), Western Union ($4,456,000), Standard Oil of New Jersey ($3,590,000), National Cash Register ($2,762,000). Standard Oil of California ($2,530,000). Miscellaneous holdings : one share of Newport Reading Room common ($400) ; one share of Pocahontas Following Club ($5,000).

To get their hands on the Whitney estate, heirs had to pay state taxes of $9,513,000. Principal beneficiaries were his widow Sculptress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; his daughters (Mrs. Flora WhitneyMiller and Mrs. Barbara Whitney Henry); his son Cornelius Vanderbilt (“Sonny”) Whitney who got the largest share and is currently active in aviation, technicolor movies and other businesses.