Alice, who was also raised in Cincinnati, was a daughter of lawyer Abraham Evan Gwynne and his wife, Rachel Moore Flagg.

Together, they were the parents of four sons and three daughters:[1][5] Alice Vanderbilt's husband died of a cerebral hemorrhage on September 12, 1899, in their New York home at 1 West 57th Street.

[14] Alice lived another 35 years until her death on April 22, 1934, in her home at 857 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where she had moved after the 1926 sale of the 57th Street mansion (which was then demolished).

[1] Her youngest child, Countess Széchenyi, inherited both the massive summer "cottage" (The Breakers in Newport) and the New York townhouse at 857 Fifth Avenue (the former residence of George Jay Gould).

Alice was responsible for constructing several massive family houses, including the enlargement of 1 West 57th Street, making it the largest private residence ever built in an American city at the time.

She and her husband donated Vanderbilt Hall to Yale College in memory of their eldest son, Bill, a student there when he died in 1892.