Newport Weekend

I had been meaning to visit my friend Amanda in Connecticut for quite a while, as I had only been up once while she was getting her PhD. Unfortunately, I chose the week after the most horrendous early snowstorm in CT (you probably read about it in the news) and my poor friend was still without power a week after the storm. Since she and her boyfriend Brandon were already camped at a hotel, we decided to road trip. Amanda picked the town of Newport, RI for its historic mansions and generally lovely seaside vibe. And then brandon got the flu. He decided to be a trooper and make the trek anyway, so they picked me up in Hartford and we drove to Newport. Having picked out a local cafe for breakfast and planned to hit historic mansions the next day, we called it a night. ...and then Amanda got the flu too. Bummer. I therefore conducted my Newport photo safari solo until we met up later for some pizza and football in the hotel.

Since it was still gorgeous, I'll share a few photos and a little history from Newport. Here is what constituted a "summer cottage" for Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railroad baron from New York whose fortune was estimated at around $75 million IN THE 1890s! Think about that for a minute. Using an online currency calculator, that would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.8 Billion in 2010 money (the latest year it would figure). So spending $12 million (~$318 million now) on a Renaissance style palazzo on the water was no biggie.

lamp post and part of the front facade of the house

Facade from another angle with an ornamental urn

Just a wee summer cottage of 65,000 sq ft and 70 rooms, ho hum. It was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, and started a fashion for period houses in America. He practically became the Vanderbilt family architect and also built the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina that you might know. The real disappointment was that no photography was allowed inside the house, so I just listened to my interactive audio tour and kept my lens to myself...but it was hard. The walls had beaucoup gold leaf on walls and ceilings with carved putti (cherubs), murals, mosaics and in interior fountain in a "grotto" under the grand staircase.  One room with grey-green paint had platinum painted panels featuring the Muses- not silver, platinum, the world's most expensive metal. The grand entry hall was meant to impress and entertain everyone from business titans to politicians and visiting foreign diplomats. Its ceiling soars 50 feet high, has an upstairs balcony, and the Vanderbilt crest featuring 3 acorns (gilded, of course) is prominently featured. It makes quite the impression. 

Here's an image I found online: 

Apparently it became a family tradition to slide down the stairs on large serving trays at parties. The shape of the stairs is based on the grand staircase at the Opera House in Paris, which I can actually vouch for. Here are some mediocre pics I took of the opera house stairs (it's not the most well-lit space). You can tell that it's one main staircase created from 2 branching off to each side at a graceful angle. And, yes those are large bronze reclining ladies holding up the lights. 

The left side of the stairway

The left side and upper levels in Paris

The middle of the main part of the staircase

See the resemblance? The level of ornament and detail in the house's grand hall is only slightly less. The Vanderbilt ladies had the stairs built 2 inches shorter than normal to accomodate gliding down the stairs in long gowns. The rooms weren't as crazy as this part of the opera house...

A room at the Paris Opera House

The Vanderbilt's dining room

...but they were close, as you can see by comparing the photos. The Dining room shot is by John Corbett, of The Preservation Society of Newport County. I have no other interior shots to share, so you should really go see it in person- here's their website. Here are some shots from the rear of the house, which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean from a cliff with, you guessed it, breaking waves. 

A view from the porch, if you can call it that

An upper story window, complete with putti and Corinthian capitals

The Breakers from the back. Yowza. 

Here are a few detail shots before we push on to the Cliff Walk. 

Some lichen on a trademark acorn ornament 

The side view of the house with a bush and one errant bit of ivy

Out behind al the mansions there runs a lovely paved path that goes pretty much all the way into downtown Newport. I only took maybe 1/4 of it, but it was very scenic and well worth a walk. Here are some shots of the views, waves, and the last optimistic blooms of some wild roses. 

The Breakers' neighbors

Waves coming in

Some of the neighbors' "cottages" down the coast

Mr. Bee, working it for the camera

Looking along a small bay

A late rose bud 

In Newport you can get a 1, 2, or 5 mansion pass, so I headed up the road a bit to Marble House, built by Alva Vanderbilt, wife of William K. Vanderbilt, who was Cornelious's younger brother. She was quite a firecracker, it seems, and designed the whole house very collaboratively with Richard Morris Hunt, who was made famous by The Breakers. The house cost around $11 million and includes 500,000 cubic feet of marble, mostly in a sort of warm beige tone, except for the formal dining room, which is red marble from Algeria. Alva incorporated lots of relatively feminist symbols in her home from Athena to female chemists. Alva was very involved in securing the right to vote for women, holding many suffrage fundraisers at the house. She even had special china made that said "votes for women" on it. I tried to sneak a picture of the china, but the glass case was faking out my lens. Of course, the Interwebs have an example here. She was never thrilled with her marriage to William, and soon blazed another trail for upper class women: divorce. Alva married a Frenchman for love, but had 3 children with Mr. Vanderbilt. She groomed her only daughter from birth to marry into European aristocracy, and the stuffy red bedroom complete with darkly carved 4-poster bed certainly gives you that message. Poor Consuelo (yep, that was her name- eesh) was a famous beauty and became a Duchess of Marlborough to a rather impoverished Duke. Consuelo produced her "heir and a spare" before following in her mother's footsteps to divorce and remarriage. (don't feel too sorry for him, he got $2 million a year for life from her family) I'm reading her memoir now, which is interesting. Anyway, here is the outside of Marble House. 

It's hard to tell from this angle, but she based the plans on the petit trianon palace at Versailles where Marie Antoinette lived. Alva was a huge fan of Louis XIV and XVand had a large portrait of XV in their dining room. 

The rear of the house

Alva built a Chinese tea house out back...I wasn't a fan.  

View of the sea from the back yard. I like how the shadows turned out. 

That concludes the photographic portion of my trip. My poor sickly friends weren't feeling too photogenic, so there aren't any of us, but we had a good visit despite the ongoing adversity. I would definitely return to Newport, and if you have a cool $4 million lying around, you can buy the house just down the street from Marble House and I'll come to visit.