James Vanderburgh Parker

James Vanderburgh Parker (December 15, 1830 – January 11, 1917) was an American heir and social leader who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.

Early life Parker was born on December 15, 1830, in Troy, New York, and grew up "in the old Parker home at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street" near Stuyvesant Square. Of the four children, he was the only to live to maturity. In 1892, Parker was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times. Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom. Parker was noted as a "wit and a linguist" with a striking personal appearance due to his tall, military bearing and white hair. and one of the last to leave. In Newport, he was a member of the Newport Reading Room, where he socialized with August Belmont, C.C. Baldwin, and General Prescott Lawrence (who donated the land to build the Groton School). At the time of his death, he was considered one of Newport's oldest summer residents.

Parker died at his home, 253 Madison Avenue in New York City, on January 11, 1917, at the age of 86, leaving an estate worth $2,000,000. His relatives contested the validity of the will as he later tore out the page of the will where he left the Newport home to Mrs. Richmond. After his death, Ogden Codman, the Boston architect and interior decorator, leased Sans Souci for the summer.