sister: Muriel Vanderbilt (1900–1972), who married three times, the first in 1925 to Frederic Cameron Church, Jr. She later married Henry Delafield Phelps and John Payson Adams. Consuelo Vanderbilt (1903–2011), who married Noble Clarkson Earl (1900–1969) William Kissam Vanderbilt III (1907–1933), who inherited his father's love of fast cars and exotic travel, was killed in an automobile accident in South Carolina while driving home to New York City from his father's Florida estate. The Vanderbilts separated after ten years of marriage but did not formally divorce until 1927 when he wanted to remarry. Divorce proceedings were handled by his New York lawyers while he and Rosamund Lancaster Warburton (1897–1947), a former wife of Barclay Harding Warburton II, an heir to the John Wanamaker department store fortune, waited discreetly away from the media at a home in the Parisian suburb of Passy, France. When the divorce was final, the couple were married at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) in Paris on September 5, 1927. Vanderbilt became a legal stepfather to Barclay Harding Warburton III once they wed. Vanderbilt died on January 8, 1944, of a heart ailment. He was interred in the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum on Staten Island, New York. Legacy In 1931, Vanderbilt had the Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel, Germany, build for him the 264-foot diesel yacht Alva. The Alva was donated by Vanderbilt to the U.S. Navy on November 4, 1941. The Alva was converted to a gunboat and commissioned as the USS Plymouth (PG-57) on December 29, 1941. The Plymouth was primarily employed as a convoy escort on the East Coast and in the Caribbean and was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat on August 5, 1943, at 21.39 with the loss of 95. By the 1940s, Vanderbilt had organized his will so that, upon his death, the Eagle's Nest property along with a $2 million upkeep fund would be given to Suffolk County, New York, to serve as a public museum. Since 1950, the site has operated as the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum. References External links William K. Vanderbilt Jr. (VanderbiltCupRaces.com) 1878 births 1944 deaths 20th-century American railroad executives American male sailors (sport) William Kissam II Harvard University alumni Land speed record people American people of Dutch descent St. Mark's School (Massachusetts) alumni Racing drivers from New York City People from Centerport, New York People from Lake Success, New York Burials in