She owned a ranch in Carmel Valley, California, where she built stables and kept thoroughbred racehorses. In 1930, it was reported that she received permission by the Chief of police of Middletown to carry a pistol after riding breeches were stolen from her.[6] In May 1946, Frank B. Porter and his son Paul bought the 1,100 acres (450 ha) farm from Vanderbilt for an estimated $200,000 (equivalent to $3,124,915 in 2023).[7]
In 1947, with her third husband, she bought Edenvale Farms, a horse farm south of San Jose, California, where she bred and raised Thoroughbreds and built her own private training track. Her horse, Miche, won the 1952 Santa Anita Handicap and Desert Trial captured several important West Coaststakes including back-to-back editions of the Ramona Handicap. In 1956, she sold Edenvale Farm to Samuel Hamburger of San Francisco, for $650,000, who in turn sold it to real estate developers for approximately $1 million.[8]
Later in life, Muriel Vanderbilt Adams owned an 80-acre (320,000 m2) horse farm in Marion County, Florida. Bred and trained at her Ocala farm in 1970, Desert Vixen was the most famous horse she ever owned and bred and in 1979 the filly was inducted into the United States' National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. The farm is now part of the exclusive gated community, Jumbolair.
Personal life
Muriel Vanderbilt married three times, the first in 1925 to Frederic Cameron Church, Jr., a Boston insurance executive.[9] The marriage ended in divorce in 1929 and in September 1931, she married New Yorker Henry Delafield Phelps (1902–1976).[10] Divorced from her second husband in 1936, she married for a third time in 1944 to John Payson Adams.
Muriel died in Florida on February 3, 1972, at the age of seventy-one.[8]
^"What is Doing in Society", The New York Times, New York, NY, January 25, 1901, Muriel Vanderbilt was the name given yesterday afternoon to the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, born on Nov. 23. The christening took place in the private chapel on the top floor of Archbishop Corrigan's residence.
^"Vanderbilt's Divorced Wife Dies In N. Y."Baltimore Sun. July 8, 1935. Retrieved 2011-05-30. Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt, daughter of a Nevada silver millionaire and first wife of the explorer-yachtsman William K. Vanderbilt, died of pneumonia and anemia today at her East Ninety-third street home. ...[dead link]