Trip on a Tank: A glimpse at Newport’s ‘Gilded Age’

Date: 7/11/2022

A 17th century Dutch wall tapestry depicting the life of Alexander the Great. Hand-carved marble bathtubs with hot and cold running salt water. Fireplaces that originally graced French chateaus. A dining table that sat 16, and a ballroom that could hold 400.

If you were a Vanderbilt, or a Berwind or an Oelrich – these were some of the accoutrements of your late 19th century “summer cottage” along the Newport, RI, shoreline.

Thanks to the Preservation Society of Newport County, these opulent homes – and their astonishing artwork, grounds and furnishings – have been rescued from demolition, preserved and are open to the public.

So, if you’re a fan of last fall’s hit HBO series, “The Gilded Age” by Julian Fellows, or are just curious about the opulent lifestyle of America’s 19th century upper class, a trip to Newport to tour these grand homes should be on your to-do list this summer.

Newport and the mansions

A little under a two-hour drive from Western Massachusetts, Newport is a bustling vacation destination boasting a vibrant downtown with a mix of historic buildings, upscale shopping, local artists and charming restaurants. Parking to explore this part of the city is either in public lots (a pricey $8 per half-hour during the day, a flat $10 after 5 p.m.) or if you are lucky, at an on-street meter, where parking is more affordable (and monitored by license plate and depositing the appropriate amount in cash or by credit card).

But the main draw for Gilded Age fans are the mansions, located up the hill from the downtown area along Ochre Point and Bellevue avenues. Each property has its own free parking lot. Admission to any one property except The Breakers and Hunter House is $25 for adults, $10 for children 6 to 12 years of age (The Breakers is $29 and $10); any two properties, with the same exclusions, is $38 for adults, children $14; and any three properties, with the same exclusions, is $46 and $16. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time at NewportMansions.org or at any of the properties except Chateau Sur Mer or Kinscote. All offer a self-guided audio tour downloadable to your cell phone (pack your earbuds).

The Breakers

My husband and I toured three of the mansions – The Breakers, Rosecliff and The Elms – during a recent visit to Newport. Of the three, The Breakers was the most impressive, and according to the Preservation Society’s literature, also the grandest of the remaining Gilded Age mansions (there were once 40 such properties, most were demolished in the 1960s because they were thought to be old and out-of-style). Constructed after the original wooden “Breakers” was destroyed by a boiler fire in 1892, Cornelius II and Alice Vanderbilt’s 70-room stone “cottage” designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, was rebuilt on the site in a mere two years.

Named “The Breakers” for the sound of the waves crashing at the foot of the cliffs below the sprawling back lawn, the home was modeled after Italian Renaissance palaces, and the 50-foot by 50-foot Great Hall – with doors that open to the ocean breezes and carved dolphin fountains – is a visitor’s impressive introduction to this grand property. According to the Preservation Society’s free audio tour, beyond the obvious use for grand parties, Vanderbilt children were known to have ridden tricycles in the hall and employ silver dinner trays to slide down the massive, carpeted staircase. The dining room, at the left end of the hall, features 12 rose-colored alabaster columns, a table that could seat up to 16 and twin massive glittering chandeliers that could be lit by both electricity – which was unreliable at the time – and piped-in gas. The Billiard Room and Morning Room – which houses a portrait of Cornelius Vanderbilt II by American portrait artist John Singer Sargent – also reflect the opulence of the day, with the furnishings and walls of both it and the Morning and Music rooms constructed in France and shipped to Newport for installation.

The Morning Room also contains a portrait of the Vanderbilt’s youngest daughter Gladys, who became Countess Szechenyi when she married Hungarian Count Lazlo in 1908. The countess was the first person to support the Preservation Society, opening The Breakers for public tours as a fundraiser in 1948, and leasing the mansion to the Society for $1 a year and maintaining the property until the Society purchased The Breakers in 1972.

The second floor offers a glimpse into the home’s elegant, but more modestly decorated bedrooms – including the bath with hot and cold running fresh and salt water – and the majestic view from the Upper Loggia – an outdoor “sitting room” with a painted sky scene on the ceiling that overlooks the great lawn and the bay. The tour concludes with a walk through the mansion’s kitchen – housed in a separate wing to prevent another fire – with a French-style cast-iron stove that fills one wall and a zinc-topped worktable, and the butler’s pantry crammed with elegant dinnerware and the floor-to-ceiling flatware safe.

Rosecliff

Our second stop was at Rosecliff – a much more modest mansion by Newport standards, but one with beautifully appointed gardens. Built by Nevada silver heiress Teresa (Fair) and Hermann Oelrich, the 30-room mansion, opened for the 1900 summer season but not completed until 1902, was modeled after the Grand Trianon at Versailles by architect Stanford White. Movie buffs might recognize rooms and grounds, as Rosecliff has appeared in films including the 1974 version of “The Great Gatsby” starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow (costumes are on display on the second floor), “True Lies” (1994), “Amistad” (1997) and “27 Dresses” (2008). The tour of this home, which changed hands many times after the Oelrichs sold it in 1941, includes four downstairs rooms, bedrooms and an upstairs exhibition space currently hosting “Anything You Want” – decorative items purchased by mansion owners, and why they collected them, on display through Oct. 30.

Rosecliff was a home built for entertaining, reflected by the grand ballroom at its heart. Flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows that open to the ocean on one side and gardens on the other and a ceiling painted to resemble a windswept sky (“Gilded Age” fans will recognize it from the opening credits), the room has been – and continues to be – the site of countless parties, balls and weddings. Other rooms that visitors can tour include the Salon, built in the French Renaissance style; the Library, furnished with antiques by the home’s final owners, Mr. and Mrs. J. Edgar Monroe of New Orleans; and the Dining Room, which other than the walls being painted white and the Louis XV dining table being replaced with 19th century English one, is similar to the room in the time of the Oelrichs.

The Elms

Our final tour took us to The Elms – the summer home of Philadelphia coal magnate Julius Berwind and his wife, Herminie. The “cottage” was designed by Horace Trumbauer, modeled on the 18th century French estate Chateau d’Asnieres (photo in the entrance hall), with the interior designed by Jules Allard of Paris, who also worked on The Breakers.

The Elms features a Conservatory – a greenhouse room modeled on the orangeries of France, which the Berwinds outfitted with wicker furnishings and potted palms, and which opens onto the estate’s massive gardens. The Drawing Room hosts an 18th century painting depicting Darwin chasing away the Darkness of Night. Mounted permanently on the ceiling, the room was designed around the massive image. Like all the great homes, the Ballroom – executed in Louis XV style – is the heart of the first floor, but it is the K’ang Hsi lacquered panels – examples of Chinoiserie (western interpretation of Chinese decoration) – that set the home’s Breakfast Room apart from other mansions. This is also one of the few surviving lacquer rooms in the world.

The upstairs features a peek into the daily life of the home, with tours through seven bedrooms, Mrs. Berwind’s elegant, white tiled and, for the time, modern bathroom, as well as the many storage areas and closets, showing how tasks such as storing linens were performed unseen (through hallway access so servants didn’t have to enter bedrooms) and the elaborate fashions of the day were cared for. Visitors also get a look at servant life with a peek inside the dimly lit lady’s maid’s sewing room (where delicate undergarments would be unstitched for laundering, and then reassembled), as well as the servants’ entrance, the Cold Kitchen with its modern-for-the-day ice box and electric dumbwaiter, and the massive Main Kitchen. A tour of the gardens of this cottage are also a must, just to see the intricate and elegantly carved statuary.

Planning your trip

You can easily tour three homes in a day, as hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (Rosecliff 3 p.m.) The Breakers has a self-service café for light luncheons or snacks, Marble House has a restaurant in its Oriental Tea House and every home has a gift shop with cold drinks and restrooms, but to see all six mansions would take at least two days. Plan a weekend visit if you wish to see Chateau Sur Mere and the Isaac Bell House, as these properties are only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For more information visit the Preservation Society’s website at https://www.newportmansions.org.