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Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings (1861-1937) was a wealthy industrialist, a noted horseman and tycoon. Born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1861, he was the son of Albert M. and Augusta S. Farnsworth Billlings. When he was 3 years old, the family moved to Chicago, where his father was a principal in the Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company during the time when Chicago was largely lit by gaslight. After graduating from Racine (Wisconsin) College in 1879, he joined his father’s firm and eventually inherited controlling interest in the company. In 1885, Billings married Blanche Eliza MacLeish (1864-1937) of Chicago, a graduate of Vassar College. The couple had two children: a daughter, Blanche Pauline, and a son Albert, who died quite suddenly in 1926 at the age of 31. In 1901, Billings became chairman of the board of the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation.

C.K.G. Billings Stables (1913)

At the age of 40, Billings retired from business to devote his time to his growing stable of horses. In 1901 he moved his family and his horses to New York City. Indulging in yachts and fast horses, Billings followed the recently opened Harlem River Speedway, an exclusive dirt track along the Harlem River between 155th and Dyckman Streets, and quickly fell in love with Manhattan’s northern edge. Although the Billings' residence was on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street (across from St. Thomas Church), he wanted to have a summer estate in northern Manhattan. Billings purchased 25 acres from the estates of A.T. Stewart, William Libbey, Augustus Johnson, William C. Muschenheim and William Tweed. On this property he built a 25,000 square foot, $200,000 trotting stable near 196th Street in what is now Fort Tryon Park.

"C.K.G. Billings Horseback Dinner at Sherry's"

To celebrate completion of the stables, Billings planned an exclusive dinner for 36 members of the Equestrian Club, of which Billings was president. The event was scheduled for March 28, 1903, and would be catered by fashionable restaurateur Louis Sherry. Word leaked out, however, and crowds of reporters gathered by his gates, hoping to see the fabulous stable and glamorous visitors. Billings decided to secretly move the party to Sherry's restaurant, at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street. He had the grand Rococo ballroom transformed into woodlands, complete with imitation grass on the floor and burbling brooks, so that he and his guests could sit on their horses (which had been taken up to the fourth floor ballroom by elevator) while having dinner. The diners ate from trays attached to their saddles and sipped champagne through rubber tubes from iced bottles in their saddlebags. Courses were served by waiters dressed as grooms, and each horse had a feedbag of oats to chomp on as well. The $50,000 bill included a photographer from the celebrated Byron Company to document the event.

	S-shaped Drive leading to Tryon Hall

More at ease in Fort Tryon than his Fifth Avenue home, Billings proceeded to build a mansion on the highest point of the property, 250 feet above the Hudson River on the site of Fort Tryon. Known as Tryon Hall, the mansion was designed in the Louis XIV style by Guy Lowell, and the landscaping was done by Charles Downing Lay. Tryon Hall featured an extravagant S-shape driveway costing $250,000 that was 1,600 feet long and rose 100 feet on a 6-degree grade. The estate included a heated indoor swimming pool, two-story squash court lined in maple, a "fumed oak" bowling alley, pergola and formal gardens. There was also a landing for his 232-foot yacht, Vanadis, on the Hudson River next to the Dyckman Street Ferry landing. Built at a cost of about $2 million, the mansion was completed in 1907 and became the full-time residence of Billings and his wife, two children and 23 servants.

In 1914, C.K.G. Billings commissioned Guy Lowell to design a Long Island estate in Matinecock, Oyster Bay, near the Piping Rock Club and "Planting Fields." Known as "Farnsworth" — named for his mother's family — the 65-acre grounds included a 52-room main house that contained a 3/65 Aeolian organ (1914, Op. 1306).

By 1916, Billings no longer wished to live in upper Manhattan, and sold the property to John D. Rockefeller Jr. for $35,000 per acre. Rockefeller intended to tear down Tryon Hall and give the land to the city for a new park. Architects protested destruction of the house and the city turned down the offer of a new park. Meanwhile, the house was rented to Nicholas E. Partos, President of the Partos Realty Company. Unfortunately, Tryon Hall burned in a spectacular fire in 1926. The city finally accepted Rockefeller’s gift of the new 67-acre Fort Tryon Park, which opened in 1935. All that remains today of the estate is the old gatehouse near the park entrance and its famous driveway.

After selling Tryon Hall, the Billingses leased a 21-room apartment on the eighth floor of 820 Fifth Avenue near 63rd Street. They also owned homes at Lake Geneva, Colorado Springs, Chicago, and Santa Barbara (where there was a 3/25 Aeolian organ, Op. 1691, installed in 1928). C.K.G. Billings died of bronchial pneumonia at Billings Park, their home in Santa Barbara, on May 7, 1937. Mrs. Billings was stricken by the same ailment two days before her husband's death, and died on May 17, 1937.