The Newport Mansions

On the last stage of the U.S. part of my summer, I'm staying with my family at a friend's condo in Newport, Rhode Island.  The remnant of Gilded Age America, it's the site of the "summer cottages" owned by such families as the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and their millionaire friends.

They're the closest thing America has to palaces.  

When we lived here five years ago (during my senior year of high school), we had a family membership to the Preservation Society of Newport County, which allowed us unlimited entrance to those of the mansions open to the public.  This time I was limited by a ticket to five.

I don't know what it is that draws me back to them so strongly.  Maybe it's the way they seem woven into the fabric (albeit at the fringes) of my family's life, their presence looming over Rhode Island holidays for as long as I can remember.

Or maybe it's the unquenchable longing for a doorway into other worlds -- the desire to experience other times and lives, unbounded by the limits of my single soul.  The desire to understand how other boys and girls, as intrinsically human as myself, lived in ages and styles so foreign to my own.  So beyond the borders of my ability to imagine or comprehend.

Whatever the reason, these marble palaces and dark stone castles, with their ancient trees and lovely walkways, beckon me like friends, mysterious, unknown, yet somehow familiar.

There is the Breakers, the military general of Newport houses, a towering city of unyielding stone.  With lawns reaching to the edge of the cliffs and the wave tossed Atlantic, the Vanderbilt stronghold is gilt, gaudy, and unforgiving.  Filled with Neoclassical art, gold-plated ceilings, and wide open spaces, there is no coziness within the luxury.  But there is beauty in the palatial expanse of the entrance, the light filled corridors, and the outdoor sitting rooms overlooking the sea.  It is a house built for drama and intrigue and grandeur.

Marble House, built by the Vanderbilt younger brother, is as mysterious as its passionate, complex, and iron-willed mistress.  A museum of medieval artifacts, it is exquisite with a beauty that is austere and untouchable.  The most expensive home in America, it was given to Alva Vanderbilt for her 39th birthday.  She responded by divorcing her husband, forcing her daughter into an unwanted marriage, and leading suffragist rallies -- all while shrouding herself in dense, inhuman glamour.

No matter how many times I hear the names of Rosecliff's true owners, it's impossible for me to experience it as anything but the Gatsby mansion, where Jay danced with Daisy to the light of a single candle.  A house of romance and tragedy.  The scene of many films, from The Amistad to True Lies, it's The Great Gatsby that, for me, has made an impression.

Despite it's mottled marble interior, the Elms remains one of my favorite of the mansions.  Perhaps it's the location, across the street from our Newport home, or perhaps it's the 'behind-the-scenes' tour we once took, up into the servants' quarters and kitchens, or, most likely, it's the grounds, sprawling with stone lions, garden rooms, and reading trees.  But whatever the reason, I feel I could happily live there.  =)

And today I saw Chateau-sur-Mer for the first time.  A Victorian castle with rich interiors of polished wood and painted walls, it was delightfully warm and cluttered, but so dimly lit as to make me feel almost blind.  Once the tour was over, I sat and read in a tree for almost an hour.