Charles M. Schwab - Personal Life

Personal Life

Schwab eventually became very wealthy. He moved to New York City, specifically the Upper West Side, which at the time was considered the "wrong" side of Central Park, and where he built "Riverside," the most ambitious private house ever built in New York. The US$7 million 75 room house combined details from three French chateaux on a full city block. After Schwab's death, New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia turned down a proposal to make Riverside the official mayoral residence, deeming it too grandiose. It was eventually torn down and replaced by an apartment block.

He also owned a 44 room summer estate on 1,000 acres (4 km²) in Loretto called "Immergrün" (German for "evergreen"). The house featured opulent gardens and a nine hole golf course. Rather than tear down the existing house, Schwab had the mansion raised on rollers and moved 200 feet to a new location to make room for the new mansion. Schwab's estate sold Immergrün after his death and it is now Mount Assisi Friary on the grounds of Saint Francis University.

Schwab became notorious for his "fast lane" lifestyle including opulent parties, high stakes gambling, and a string of extramarital affairs producing at least one child out of wedlock. The affairs and the out-of-wedlock child soured his relationship with his wife. He became an international celebrity when he "broke the bank" at Monte Carlo and traveled in a $100,000 private rail car named "Loretto." Even before the Great Depression, he had already spent most of his fortune estimated at between $25 million and $40 million. Adjusted for inflation, that equates to between $500 million and $800 million in the first decade of the 21st century.

The stock market crash of 1929 finished off what years of wanton spending had started. He spent his last years in a small apartment. He could no longer afford the taxes on "Riverside" and it was seized by creditors. He had offered to sell the mansion at a huge loss but there were no takers.

At his death ten years later, Schwab's holdings in Bethlehem Steel were virtually worthless, and he was over US$ 300,000 in debt. Had he lived a few more years, he would have seen his fortunes restored when Bethlehem Steel was flooded with orders for war material. He was buried in Loretto at Saint Michael's Cemetery in a private mausoleum with his wife.

Schwab had no children by Eurana Dinkey. He had one daughter from a mistress. The Schwab family maintained ownership in the company in the late 1980s when it had to be sold in order to avoid bankruptcy. According to US public tax records, the nineteen heirs of this sale each grossed over $40 million. Charles Schwab himself died bankrupt, living on borrowed money for five years before his death.

A fine bust-length portrait of Schwab painted in 1903 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947) was formerly in the Jessica Dragonette Collection at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming at Laramie, but has been donated to the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Müller-Ury also painted his nephew and namesake Charles M Schwab (son of his brother Joseph) as a boy in a sailor-suit around the same date.

Schwab is not related to Charles R. Schwab, founder of the brokerage firm Charles Schwab Corporation.