My husband and I recently attended a family wedding in Newport, RI. The wedding was held at Oceancliff. The ceremony was so beautiful with the backdrop of sailboats sailing in the blue waters of Narragansett Bay. We had a great time celebrating and catching up with family. The next day we decided to take some time for ourselves to wander around Newport.
Newport Mansions
A visit to Newport is not complete without a tour of the opulent mansions of The Gilded Age.
The Breakers
The Breakers is a 70-room Italian Renaissance-style palazzo designed by Richard Morris Hunt for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. His grandfather, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), made his fortune in the steamship and railroad industry and Cornelius II became chairman of the New York Central Railroad in 1885. In that same year, he purchased a wooden house called The Breakers in Newport.
In 1893, Vanderbilt commissioned Hunt (who also designed the facade of The Metropolitan Museum of Art) to design a villa to replace the wooden house that was destroyed in a fire the year before. The Breakers is the grandest of all the Newport mansions, with a “Morning Room” containing platinum leaf wall panels and the use of marble, alabaster, and gilded wood throughout the home.
The Marble House
The Marble House was also designed by Hunt and built between 1888 and 1892 for Mr. & Mrs. William Vanderbilt (brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt II). Inspired by Versailles, The Marble House contains 500,00 cubic feet of marble. William’s wife Alva was a leading hostess in Newport society but they divorced in 1895 and Alva married Oliver H.P. Belmont a year later. After his death, she reopened Marble House, and had a Chinese Tea House built on the seaside cliffs, where she hosted rallies for women’s right to vote.
We also toured Chateau-Sur-Mer, an example of Victorian architecture as well as Rosecliff, which housed the exhibition called “Bohemian Beauty: The Aesthetic Movemnet and Oscar Wilde’s Newport.” This exhibition featured a collection of art, clothing, jewelry, and home decor from the Aesthetic Movement (1870-1890) which celebrated “art for art’s sake.” Oscar Wilde personified this movement. He toured throughout the US discussing “The Decorative Arts” and was a popular guest in Newport society.
Self-led audio tours were available for The Breakers, The Marble House, and Rosecliff and we enjoyed a guided tour at the Chateau-Sur-Mer. I recommend splitting up the visits across multiple days, depending on how many mansions you plan to visit.
Dining
After a full morning of mansion visits, we were hungry! We stumbled upon a great little place, The Corner Cafe. Everyone was so nice and the menu was pretty extensive with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and specials. We both ordered the Portuguese Sweetbread Scrambler, Portuguese toast topped with scrambled eggs, chorizo, and red peppers. It also came with a side order of the best potatoes I ever had for breakfast. It was all delicious!
Our first night in Newport was rainy so we enjoyed a drink at our hotel bar while we waited for our family to arrive. From there we stopped for appetizers at The Mooring Seafood Kitchen & Bar, followed by dinner at Clarke Cooke House.
International Tennis Hall of Fame
Both my husband and daughter are avid tennis players (I even took a few lessons for a little while) and we try to attend the US Open in Flushing, NY every year. So it was an unexpected surprise to find out that Newport is home to the International Tennis Hall of Fame! The Hall of Fame is set on the Newport Casino, another National Historic Landmark. The Casino was a social club for the Newport elite. In 1881, it was the setting for the very first US National Lawn Tennis Championship. There it remained until 1914, when it moved to New York, becoming the US Open.
Upstairs is a museum showcasing tennis history, equipment, trophies, and fashion as well as a tribute to the Hall of Famers. Outside the grounds consist of the historic stadium and twenty tennis courts still in use today! The Hall of Fame is located on Bellevue Avenue which, in addition to the mansions, is a great spot for shopping and more site seeing.
I highly recommend a visit to Newport, RI for great food, great history, and great times!
