C. K. G. Billings

Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings (September 17, 1861 – May 6, 1937) was an American industrialist tycoon, and Augusta S. Billings née Farnsworth. He was raised in Chicago, Illinois, from the age of three, attended schools in Chicago, and then Racine College in Racine, Wisconsin. When he finished college at 17 in 1879, he joined the Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company – of which his father was a principal investor and president – beginning as a laborer. After becoming the firm's president in 1887, He became chairman of the board of the company in 1901, a position he held until 1911.

The site was conveniently near the Harlem Speedway, built in 1894-89 for the exclusive use of riders on horseback and horse-drawn carriages. It ran from West 155th Street to Dyckman Street. and was used by rich New Yorkers to train their horses and size up those of their friends and competitors. The Speedway was eventually paved and became the beginning of the Harlem River Drive.

In 1903, when the stable was completed, Billings was a prominent member of the Jockey Club and part-owner of the Jamaica Race Course in Jamaica, Queens;

Dinner on horseback

Billings wished to celebrate the completion of his trotting stable, and his selection to be the head of the New York Equestrian Club, by giving a dinner for 36 of his male horse-riding friends in the stable on March 29, 1903. He engaged the noted restaurateur Louis Sherry to cater the event, but then to avoid reporters who staked out the estate after news of the dinner had spread, changed the venue at Sherry's suggestion to the grand ballroom of Sherry's restaurant at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street. The ballroom was decorated to look like an English country estate, complete with imitation brooks. The floor was covered with turf. Billings and his guests ate mounted in a circle on 32 docile horses that were rented from nearby riding academies and brought to the fourth-floor ballroom via the freight elevator; specially built silver trays were attached to their saddles and diners drank through rubber tubes connected to iced bottles of champagne in their saddlebags. The waiters, one for each diner, served the numerous courses dressed as grooms at a fox hunt, while an elaborately dressed groom attended each horse, and near the end of the evening elaborate troughs filled with oats were brought in for the horses to eat from. The evening concluded with a vaudeville show.

Two days later, Billings officially opened his new stable with a luncheon for members of the Equestrian Club and other wealthy horsemen and dignitaries from around the country. Some rode there on horseback, but most traveled by elevated train to the 155th Street station located at the Harlem Speedway, and were conveyed to the stable by automobiles.

Estates

Tryon Hall The Billings' mansion at West 196th Street and Fort Washington Road In the nearby Hudson, Billings kept his yacht, , which was built in 1908.

The entrance to the estate was originally at the top of the hill, approached via Riverside Drive and West 181st Street to Fort Washington Road, but the upper part of Riverside Drive was completed at about the same time as Billings' mansion, and he wanted a driveway connecting the mansion directly to that section of the roadway. Unfortunately, there was a steep cliff between the road and the mansion. Billings hired the firm of Buchman & Fox to find a solution, which they did: granite was removed from the cliff to allow a passage for a zig-zagging driveway, and the stone was then used both as a retaining wall and for the construction of an arched viaduct that supported the driveway. The arched passage became known as the "Billings Arcade". At the entrance to the driveway were gates tall and wide, supported by granite pillars, which are still extant and were renovated in 2020. The Billings family had already moved into a 21-room apartment on Fifth Avenue and 63rd Street, for which he paid $20,000 a year in rent. Rockefeller was assembling parcels, including the neighbouring Hays and Shaefer estates

Farnsworth After leaving Tryon Hall, Billings moved to another grand estate he had built, this one called "Farnsworth" for his mother's family

Despite its grandeur, Billings did not stay in Farnsworth any longer than he had in Tryon Hall. With World War 1 raging and his health failing, he began to sell off his East Coast properties in preparation for moving to California. In 1924, Billings ordered a second yacht, long, which he also named Vanadis. This ship was later renamed Lady Hutton after the actress Barbara Hutton, a later owner, and is anchored at Riddarholmen in Stockholm, where it is now the Mälardrottningen hotel.

Other estates At various times, Billings also owned a estate on the James River in Virginia called Curles Neck Farm, which he bought in 1913 and developed into one of the country's prime horse-breeding facilities, an estate in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a summer home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. In 1928 he realized $4 million for the sale of the Johnson Building, located on Exchange Street from Broad Street to New Street. He was also part of a group of investors who built the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan, which opened in 1930. and he died from pneumonia on his estate at Billings Park, near Santa Barbara, on May 6. At the time of his death, he was still the chairman of the board of the Union Carbide Carbon Company, and was described as "one of America's wealthiest men" and "Santa Barbara's wealthiest and most philanthropic citizen". His funeral was held in Santa Barbara on May 8, and he was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. The CKG Billings Amateur Driving Series, a trotting event, is named for Billings.