Her father was the president and chairman of the New York Central Railroad and part of the prominent Vanderbilt family.

She grew up in the largest private house ever built in New York City, The Vanderbilt II family mansion on Fifth Avenue and at their summer "cottage" called The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1951, she donated her mother's iconic Electric Light dress to the Museum of the City of New York.

[5][6] In 1913, there were rumors that she was going to leave her husband due to his financial woes,[7] including gambling away all of her dowry.

The couple visited Hungary[13] almost every summer with their five daughters: In March 1912, Countess Széchenyi's jewelries worth $200,000 ($8 million today) was stolen from her town residence in Budapest, the detective afterward found the jewels in a motor car garage, where they had been hidden by being wrapped in a piece of newspaper behind a barrel.

[citation needed] Her daughter, Countess Sylvia Szapáry, maintained a residence at The Breakers[17] on the third floor until her death on March 1, 1998.

Through her daughter Gladys, she was the grandmother of Christopher Denys Stormont Finch-Hatton, the 16th Earl of Winchilsea (1936–1999) and the Hon.