John Jacob Astor IV Alida Rebecca Armstrong, Astor was also a great-grandson of Senator John Armstrong, Jr. and Alida Livingston of the Livingston family. His maternal grandparents were Abraham Schermerhorn, a wealthy merchant, and socialite Helen Van Courtlandt White. He was also a nephew of financier and philanthropist John Jacob Astor III, and grandnephew of occasional poet John Jacob Astor, Jr. His sister Helen's husband was diplomat James Roosevelt "Rosey" Roosevelt, half-brother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Roosevelt family. Another sister, Carrie, a noted philanthropist, was the wife of Marshall Orme Wilson (brother of banker Richard Thornton Wilson, Jr. and socialite Grace
Beechwood (Astor mansion) ballroom to fit the famous "Four Hundred". Beechwood became the show place for many of Mrs. Astor's dinner parties. Beechwood also boasts a library, dining room and a music room with wallpaper imported from Paris. When Mrs. Astor died she left it to her son John Jacob Astor IV, who married his second wife Madeleine in its ballroom. After John's death on the "Titanic" in 1912, it passed to his son Vincent, by his first wife Ava. In 1940, Countess Allene T. deKotzebue purchased Beechwood from Vincent Astor. Between 1940 and 1980 it was owned in succession by: James Cameron