Rosecliff
Whenever Newport, RI is mentioned, Bellevue Avenue with its row of elegant mansions that served as “summer homes” for the wealthy in the early 1900’s comes to mind. Growing up in Newport, I, along with most of the other “natives,” only visited these mansions when we had company from out of state. This summer I decided that it was time to revisit a few of these impressive estates.
The Breakers
Mike and I started with a tour of The Breakers, perhaps the grandest of the Newport mansions. I remember visiting it when I was in my teens and guided tours by docents were conducted. Times have changed and the tours now include audio guides that give excellent room by room descriptions along with a history of the people who lived in these “summer cottages.”
The Breakers, which epitomized the Gilded Age, is a 4 story limestone mansion that was modeled after Renaissance Italian palaces. It was built in the mid 1890’s as a summer home for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and replaced the first Breakers which was destroyed by fire in 1892. This 70-room mansion, 33 for staff alone, is located on 13 acres and was designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Many of its rooms were designed and built in Europe then shipped to Newport and reassembled on site.
The Breakers Gates
While one of the most luxurious of the Newport Mansions, the Breakers is not located on Bellevue Ave, but rather two blocks away on Ochre Point Avenue. The first sighting of this “stone palace” is through its ornate monogrammed gates.
The Breakers Grand Staircase
Once inside the mansion, it’s easy to feel the imposing scale of this building. While all the rooms are impressive, the Grand Staircase in the Great Hall is exceptionally striking. Glittering chandeliers and marble fireplaces adorn massive rooms but the view from the second floor open air loggia made our visit complete — beyond the well-kept, massive green lawn, lay the Atlantic Ocean.
View of the Atlantic Ocean from The Breakers
On another day trip to Newport, we chose to visit Rosecliff. We were more familiar with this mansion since it is the site of the Newport Flower Show which we have attended as judges for the rose horticultural entries for the past several years.
This is not the original Rosecliff which was a wooden cottage owned by George Bancroft, a horticulturalist who maintained a rose garden here (hence, the name Rosecliff). After Bancroft died, his estate was sold to Mrs. Oelrichs and her sister who increased the size of original estate by purchasing an additional 11 acres off Bellevue Ave. They hired Stanford White to design a new Rosecliff, the same architect who designed the Newport Casino. Rosecliff was modeled after the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and is a far cry from the original Rosecliff of George Bancroft.
Rosecliff’s Grand Staircase
After entering Rosecliff and obtaining the audio tour for the mansion, the first thing seen is the red-carpeted, rococo, heart-shaped grand staircase. It’s no wonder that this venue is so popular with brides.
Oscar Wilde
On the day of our visit, the exhibit “Bohemian Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement and Oscar Wilde’s Newport” was on display on the second floor which we reached by walking up this majestic staircase. The exhibit featured a selection of furniture, ceramics, paintings and costumes, among other objects, that revealed the belief of “art for art’s sake,” a movement which Oscar Wilde supported. Below are photos from the exhibit.
Bohemian Beauty Exhibit
Bohemian Beauty Exhibit
After viewing the exhibit, we continued on our tour which took us to the focal point of Rosecliff — the 40’x 80’ ballroom, the largest of the Newport mansions. This was where parts of The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford was filmed in the 1970’s, as well as the movie True Lies starring Arnold Schwarznegger in 1994.
Rosecliff Ballroom
One of my favorite rooms was the library with its wood paneled walls and low, intricately designed ceiling.
Close up of Library Ceiling
Rosecliff’s Rose Garden
Rosecliff, like The Breakers, overlooks the Atlantic. On our way to the back of the mansion to see the ocean, we walked through the rose garden which had recently been renovated. The hardscape, including statues and urns was fantastic; however, the garden roses were disappointing, as you can see from the photo above.
Rosecliff Terrace Facing Atlantic Ocean
There are many other Newport Mansions left to explore. I think the Marble House and The Elms are next on our list. For more information about visiting the Newport Mansions visit http://www.newportmansions.org
Last, but high on my wish list, was the Anne Frank House. Buying tickets wasn’t easy — they were available only on-line 2 months prior to a desired date. I had almost given up hope until I realized, just by playing with a few dates, that the closer I got to the date of our visit, the greater the availability of tickets. I felt lucky when I managed to get 2 tickets for the day before we were to fly home.
I left with a feeling of melancholy and great sadness to know that Anne Frank survived two years in those rooms, only to be discovered, arrested, and killed months before the end of the war. Who betrayed the Frank family? It seems that, even all these years later, nobody knows the answer the that question.
One of my favorite meals was a bowl of chicken stew with roasted potatoes and a fresh salad.
As we approached the coast, the landscape changed with the mighty North Sea on one side of the highway and Dutch farmland and huge wind turbines on the other. Half of The Netherlands lies below sea level and Dutch history is replete with periodic floods. Late one night in February 1953, a fierce winter storm crashed ashore at high tide breaching dams and dikes and flooded almost a half million acres of fertile farmland — the mother of all floods. While the Dutch quickly repaired the damage, they realized that a stronger system of barriers were necessary to prevent such a re-occurrence.
Our route took us along the top of one of the storm surge barriers with an exit at Neetltie Jans, an artificial island created as part of the barrier. We parked and walked to the massive barrier and saw 62 steel gates that open and close as needed. The tide was coming in, rapidly rolling and roiling, a sober reminder of the power of the North Sea.
This year I worried whether we would have roses to exhibit in the Rhode Island Rose Society Rose Show. Mike says I worry about this every year and he’s right. Somehow our roses always bloom in time for the Show. But this year we noticed that some of our roses bloomed earlier than usual. For instance, Yellow Brick Road was all bloomed out before the Rose Show. Other roses we normally exhibit at the show, like Playboy and Hot Cocoa, didn’t bloom until after the Show.
The absolute best way to experience Holland’s premiere flower species is a visit to Keukenhof, “kitchen garden” in Dutch, well known for its annual public tulip extravaganza. While we are not crazy about bus rides, we booked a half-day bus tour from Amsterdam that included skip-the-line admission and let someone else drive. The weather was sunny and the hour’s drive through the Dutch countryside past tulip fields in bloom was the perfect start to the visit. At 32 hectares (79 acres), Keukenhof is a huge garden featuring over 7 million early, regular and late blooming flowering bulbs — 800 varieties of tulips plus crocus and daffodils. In addition to this flower power, Keukenhof has 6 pavilions featuring elegant arrangements, changing displays of cut flowers as well as events, lectures and other activities.
One exhibitor took an old pick-up truck — a real beater, all rusty and dusty — and packed the bed with annuals that spilled out into the rest of the garden display. A wild explosion of color.
Another was a realistic water feature — a pond surrounded by native Maine plants and trees.
My favorite was an impressive fieldstone courtyard complete with niches, stone shelves and raised stone beds of flowers, herbs and lettuce plants. A dramatic display of Maine masonry.
