Newport RI - Day 4

Our 4th day in Newport was rainy. We toured two mansions (Chepstow and Chateau-Sur-Mer) that had docent led tours.

Chepstow

Chepstow was lived in during the summer until the mid-1980s…and it was built in 1860 - earlier than the ‘Golden Age’ mansions. It was crowded with family collections but in a way that they could be enjoyed rather than like a museum. There was a narwhal tusk over the front door! The last owner - Alletta Morris McBean - enjoyed decoupage and there are number of lamp bases she created throughout the house….and lots of needlepoint pillows too.

My favorite place of the house was the side porch. It had roll down awnings and was often used for entertaining. The surprise on the porch was a metal table and two chairs in the same pattern as one handed down from my grandparents to my sister; Chepstow’s is white, theirs was black.

Chateau-sur-Mer

This house was built even earlier than Chepstow - in 1852. It had a major renovation in 1870 by Richard Morris Hunt. My favorite feature of the house dates from that renovation: a stained glass skylight in the bathroom. The house looks somber from the outside (and the gray clouds just fit that image).

I liked the moon gate. The view through it originally would have been of relatively flat fields…all the way to the Atlantic. Today there is the wall of the house across the street.

For some reason it was easier to think of elements of these two houses that could carry into modern houses: roll down awnings on porches, lattice on windows both for privacy and to reduce direct sunlight, stained glass skylights, and designs painted on ceilings.

I also was pleased to see Minton tiles since I had just heard about them in my Symmetry class and looked at several Minton Catalogs on the Internet Archive.

In retrospect - I enjoyed these two houses more than the true ‘Golden Age’ mansions (The Breakers, The Elms, Rosecliff, and Marble House)!