Ariana Rockefeller On Her Grandfather’s Life, Legacy And Art | CNBC

thank you so much for joining us today so your family has always been so private and so under the radar they have always chosen to speak through their philanthropy what is it like to have this much exposure and to have people paying so much for your family's stuff well I think there's a time for private life and then there's a time for public life and to step forward and this was really my grandparents vision and so it's an amazing time and it's so exciting to see the public's you know reception and appreciation of this incredible

sale and Kris used to has done just an amazing job curating it and you know protecting our family's privacy but putting it out to the public in just a spectacular way now everyone's wondering well what is the family think about especially the younger generations that so much stuff is being sold off didn't they want that stuff all the family members including yourself were allowed to choose some items of your grandfather David Rockefellers up to a million dollars what did you choose well I was very happy to keep a beautiful bracelet that my grandfather had picked

out for my grandmother and I was happy to wear it to the Met Gala on Monday and honor my family's you know legacy and tradition and so to be able to keep that sentimental piece among some other things and it's been it's been wonderful to see my grandfather's vision come to life for the collection and you are an equestrian athlete very you know have won so many events you also have your own design company you're very entrepreneurial do you think some of your great-great-grandfather's entrepreneurial genes have been passed down to you I think so you

know there's such a value of having a work ethic and my family and of working at working hard at whatever it is we choose to do and focus on so I definitely try and honor that and I love to work hard and I'm excited to have founded my own business and to carry on in my grandparents tradition back to the auction for a minute these prices that we're seeing even today are sometimes 5 or 10 times the estimate what is it are you surprised by some of those values and what does it feel like to

see your family name have such a premium on these things well it gives me great pride because I thought my grandfather had such amazing taste and he really cherished beautiful things and so so to see the public also be excited about things that he and my grandmother chose and loved is a wonderful thing now I know our anchors Tyler and Michelle and myself are all obsessed with the picnic basket hopefully if we show that did you guys use that did you ever have a picnic with that picnic basket estimated at five to ten thousand probably

gonna sell for a lot more we did yes my grandfather would use it we'd take he would drive the carriage around and upstate and you know we'd often have picnics on Sunday and he really used every almost every piece in his collection and loved it so yeah Michelle Arianna its Michelle here in the studio I met your grandfather at the Council of the Americas quite often he was a big supporter of that institution it was a fine gentleman and he's he's very missed he was famous for having a huge rolodex in which he wrote down

everybody's name the first time he met them what happened to that rolodex and did you ever look through it it must have been amazing it was amazing and he really was meticulous about recording his meetings and the names of people that he would meet and so it was wonderful it was in his office and it had its own room and it's it's an incredible it has incredible history and you're right it wouldn't really know him right because it was so big yeah yes exactly and our amazing family historian Peter Johnson has you know been working

on preserving it and so you know it's it's in the process of being preserved and it will of course go to the Rockefeller family archives fantastic Michelle we're gonna we're gonna have to get access to that rip rolodex um that must be amazing and one of the things about the Rockefeller family that so fascinates people is that most families lose their wealth after three generations Rockefeller family is now in its seventh generation still together as a family still preserving their wealth still incredibly philanthropic David has given away now up to two billion dollars in his

in his past lifetime what's the secret to being such a successful family well I would say that it is incredibly important to be close as a family and to work hard and to budget wisely yeah you were saying as a kid when you got your allowance you had to record every dollar that went in and everything that you spent and that's something gets started with john d rockefeller himself is it yes I think the message was a dollar it's a dollar and to value that and put a lot of value on hard work and the

enjoyment of life of course and to give back all right well there's a lot of giving back here guys because as you said we're already at seven hundred and sixty some odd million with a full day to go so this is already by far the single largest auction of a collection ever Arianna thank you so much for joining us congratulations on the office thank you hey there thanks for checking out CNBC on YouTube be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on all of the day's biggest stories you can also click on any of

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