The estate, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, was modeled on the Chateau de Blois among other chateaux of the Loire Valley.

Her mother later married Peter Goelet Gerry (1879–1957), a United States senator from Rhode Island.

[13] The nationally renowned organist from St. Louis Charles Henry Galloway played organ at the wedding.

[3] A few months later, she moved to Paris where she divorced her husband in 1934, dyed her hair bright pink, and changed her name to Nilcha.

[21] After Paris, she moved to London, where she met and married Captain Vivian Francis Bulkeley-Johnson (1891–1968) in October 1949.

[3] One evening as she was having dinner with Edward Adamson in London, Cornelia met William Robert "Bill" Goodsir, their waiter with whom she fell in love.