NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND ROAD TRIP

One Christmas while I was living in Brooklyn, I rented a car and drove with my son to Newport, Rhode Island.  I’d wanted to see the summer “cottages” of the one-percenters of the Gilded Age that line Bellevue Avenue.  My interest had been captured years before when I watch a documentary produced by the Preservation Society of Newport County.

Newport is not a busy place in the winter – no regattas, no tourists to speak of – just a quiet island town with little pubs and restaurants.  It’s as quaint as an old-fashioned Christmas card, especially with snow on the ground.  We stayed on an island just off Newport and faced the town. 

Because it was Christmas, only a few of the “cottage” homes were open for tours and we chose The ^th Street.  Still standing at the southeast corner of 64^th Street and Fifth Avenue, it’s now a 9-unit coop.  The coops currently sell in the neighborhood of $25 million and rent in the neighborhood of $150,000.  Even though the front door is still on East 64^th Street, the building uses the address 828 Fifth Avenue as it is more posh.

Elms and The Breakers.  The Elms was the summer home of coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind, at one time the largest owner of coal properties in the world.  He built a 6-story house in Manhattan at 2 East 64

The Elms was built in 1899-1901 at 60,000 square feet and four stories – including the basement.  If you look at the photograph, two floors show, but there is a deceptive wall above the second story.  That wall is 8 feet high and it surrounds the servants’ quarters.  Berwind felt that servants should serve without ever being seen – except in the dining room or if specifically called into a room.  The servants could sit outside on the walkway surrounding their quarters, but should they ever be seen trying to look over that wall, they would be dismissed immediately.

The Elms had a servants’ staircase, and the chamber maids used it to get to work in the bedrooms on the second floor AFTER the rooms were vacated.  Guests might leave shoes in the hallway for buffing or clothing to be cleaned, but the servants were only allowed to pick them up at night after the guests had gone to bed. 

Deliveries to the house were made underground as well.  Coal was delivered at a door at the curb that lead to an underground tunnel from the street to the coal bins.  Food and other supplies were delivered to a covered lower driveway on the other side of the house.

Berwind’s psychology is a bit mystifying.  Perhaps seeing his servants’ lives contrasted with the splendor of the house and his life made him feel guilty.  At any rate, the tour made him very unlikable.

The Breakers, just down the street, is the same size at Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) and was built by Alice and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Alice and Cornelius II had a large townhouse at 1 West 57^th Street, but feeling that their friends and neighbors might outdo them, they bought the entire block on Fifth Avenue from 57^th to 58^th and built the largest house EVER in the United States.  The house in Manhattan has been torn down and Bergdorf Goodman department store now stands on that property.  I do not know if Bergdorf’s is as large as the destroyed Vanderbilt house.

Alice and Cornelius II outdid their neighbors in Newport by building a house just over 120,000 square feet on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  Only half of the square footage is actually usable because there is a large atrium in the center of the house with balconies on four sideson each floor.  The bathrooms are the size of a large bedroom and the kitchen is massive, and kindly, the servants were allowed to be seen.

Next door to The Breakers is Marble House, which we toured only externally.  It was built by Cornelius’s brother, William Kissam Vanderbilt who built the current Grand Central Station and his wife (at the time), Alva who was very independent and a suffragette.  She built a little tea house on the edge of the cliff and had a temporary railroad for the staff to bring all the tea and food.  The tracks were put away after tea time was over.  Well, if your husband works for the railroad…

She still owned the house when she divorced William and married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (Belmont Stakes is named for his father August Belmont).  Belmont was a playboy addicted to gambling and absinthe.  However, along with Marble House at Newport, Alva shared a home that Belmont built there when he received his inheritance – Belcourt.  It only merited a drive-by.  

Alva continued to host afternoon teas at her little tea house on the cliff and designed a tea service with “Votes for Women” inscribed on it.  Replicas are available for sale at the gift shops in the different houses.

Post by Alana Cash