Spat over Vanderbilt mansion gets nasty; even descendant Anderson Cooper isn't spared

The Vanderbilt family has fallen into a full-blown public spat with the nonprofit organization that now owns their spectacular Rhode Island mansion called The Breakers.

The conflict includes intimations that the Preservation Society of Newport County might sue or that it might evict the two Vanderbilts who still summer rent-free on the third floor of The Breakers.

Even family member Anderson Cooper has not been spared from the fray. His cousin says he was snubbed after she arranged for him to deliver a lecture at the mansion last summer.

The disagreement centers a plan to build a visitors center on The Breakers grounds to serve the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the mansion annually. Twenty-one members of the family publicly oppose it.