A look inside the luxe life of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt

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Stroll the streets surrounding Grand Central Station in Midtown Manhattan and you can’t miss the Vanderbilt name. It adorns street signs, building facades and a hall inside Grand Central, which was built during the 19th and early 20th century by “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt and his grandson William Kissam Vanderbilt.

It is here, in a pricey Italian restaurant, that a flesh-and-blood Vanderbilt sips her bellini and chats about her famous cousins — the late fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt and her son, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

“Anderson is my cousin; I met him twice and I thought he had a mesmerizing presence,” Consuelo Vanderbilt, seven generations descended from Cornelius Vanderbilt, told The Post.

“I have not read his book [‘Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty’], but I heard him being interviewed in August and I think he needs to do more research. It sounded like there were elements he didn’t know about members of the family.”

As for Cooper’s mother, Vanderbilt said, “Gloria was ostracized from the family due to reasons I don’t know. I heard it as a child and she has been public and vocal about it. She said it before she died. I never met Gloria.”

“From my understanding, Anderson talked about areas of the family that he does not know about … Was he inaccurate about saying there is no money in the family? Yes, that is inaccurate. Does he need to do more research on the matter? Yes. That is true.”

Vanderbilt’s publicist pipes in here: “The word in society is that Anderson wants to let the name Vanderbilt die with his mother as the last working Vanderbilt … He does not have Vanderbilt in his name. And he uses his mother’s name all the time, like when he executive produced his documentary [“Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper,” which tells the story of the mother and son] and co-wrote a book about the Vanderbilts and his mother [‘Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty‘].

“Gloria is gone,” the publicist declared. “There is a new Vanderbilt in town. Her name is Consuelo.”

She’s hardly new, of course.

Consuelo Vanderbilt, 44, was born in New York City, in 1979, to Serena Vanderbilt Van Ingen and Brackenridge Costin. Vanderbilt told The Post that her mother was “a model;” her father has been described as a life coach.

She grew up between the Big Apple, London (where she once served as the ball girl for Princess Diana and spent hours a day on gymnastics) and Los Angeles. The latter was the home of Serena’s second husband, the “Star Wars” producer Rick McCallum. Following her graduation from high school in Los Angeles, Vanderbilt attended Mountview drama school in London before pursuing a career in music.

At the restaurant, she pulls from her handbag a diamond ring that belonged to her great grandmother Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl — a Roaring ’20s socialite who grew up in a Fifth Avenue mansion.

“It’s scary to wear this ring because she was the grand dame of New York,” said Vanderbilt. “There is a lot of weight around this ring. I would be scared of losing it.” 

On her middle finger is another ring, topped by a giant pearl ringed with diamonds. “It was made for me by the jeweler who worked with my family,” she said.

Unscrewing the pearl to reveal a secret compartment inside, she swears this ring is the real thing but that she’s knocked it off herself.

“I came up with a pearl line, inspired by the women in my family, and it was sold on the Home Shopping Network,” Consuelo said. “There is no medium like HSN. You have 30 seconds to touch a consumer. [Her “inspired” ring] sold for $49.99 and allowed people to feel like a princess for a day. We did well.”

Asked how much money she made from the HSN bonanza — and what the real ring is worth — Vanderbilt answered with tight-lipped discretion: “I was brought up not to talk about money.”

Questioned to discuss the current state of the Vanderbilt fortune, Consuelo responded, “Are you crazy? Not in a million years.”

Anderson Cooper is more willing. During a 2014 “Howard Stern Show” appearance, he recalled his mother telling him “That there’s no trust fund.” An article in Forbes went further, pointing out that the Vanderbilt family lacks enough identifiable wealth to land it on its America’s Richest Families list.

Vanderbilt keeps a place in Tudor City, on the East Side of Manhattan. She also spends time at the family compound in the Adirondacks. Then there are her frequent jaunts to Miami and London, where “I am looking to buy a place.”

Under the name Consuelo Costin, she has recorded songs — including “Naked” and “Feel So Alive” — that made the Billboard Hot Dance Club chart and, as Consuelo Vanderbilt, co-founded SohoMuse, a social network that bills itself as LinkedIn for creatives.

She told The Post that she is the company’s CEO and that it is a full-time job. “I work on strategic planning,” she said. “We built a fashion show at the Guggenheim during Fashion Week.” The company is also developing a scripted series about Jimmy Dennis, a musician who was wrongfully convicted of a murder and placed on Death Row before “he was released six years ago, presumed innocent.”

In fact, she pointed out, the SohoMuse work is so taxing that “It took a toll on my marriage.”

Last month it was announced that Vanderbilt had legally separated from Rafael Feldman, an actor, filmmaker and real estate broker. They married 16 years ago, and Vanderbilt said, “We’re best friends. People change, chapters in life change, but your heart always remain with the person.”

Nevertheless, a friend of Vanderbilt’s told The Post, “Because of an ironclad prenup, [Feldman] will have no money from the Vanderbilt family trust, or use of any of the vast properties like their camp in Upstate New York.”

And she wouldn’t mind one day following in the footsteps of her great-great-great aunt Consuelo Vanderbilt-Balsan, who married her way into British aristocracy.

In 1895, the New Yorker tied the knot with Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. The 19th-century Consuelo became a duchess through an arranged marriage — which led to her being known as a “dollar princess,” a designation for wealthy American women who married titled Europeans.

“When [Great Great Great Aunt Consuelo] married, her mother Alva was very calculating and brilliantly smart,” said Vanderbilt of the arranged linking.

Alva “knew that with all the social graces of New York, the next move they could make was to cross the pond and, basically, for land or title, with their wealth, they could merge the two worlds.”

Vanderbilt, meanwhile, recently returned from Leicestershire, England, where she attended a dinner at Belvoir Castle, the home of Emma Manners, the 60-year-old Duchess of Rutland. “It was an elite dinner for 30 people … the people she brought there were very notable,” Vanderbilt said. “I met her children, who are lords.”

Vanderbilt’s publicist suggested that the Duchess could play matchmaker and hook her up with a duke.

“I am not ruling out a duke, but it is not what I am leading with,” Vanderbilt said. “The most important thing will be coming from the heart, whether the person has a title or not. If I am blessed with having a child one day, that will be the greatest gift.”

Alas, she sighed, “I can’t go on dating sites. I just don’t think it is my place.”

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