On New Year’s Eve I went down to my little cottage by the sea…
You like it? It is just my little get-away cottage down by the ocean in Newport RI.
Actually it is “The Elms” the summer place for the Berwind's and is one of the Newport Mansions.
I went with two friends on New Year’s Eve to Newport Rhode Island to see the mansions Christmas decorations and tour the mansions. I been to some of the mansions before but this was different in twos ways, the first was the Christmas decorations and the second we listened to an audio guided tour as we walked around the mansions.
Our first stop was The Elms and these are the Christmas trees in the mansion (due to their strict rules, only photos of the trees are allowed inside.)
After we left The Elms we drove over to visit the Vanderbilt’s at their little summer cottage, “The Breakers”…
And we can’t have the riff-raff knocking at our door, now can we…
]
Here is their tree (kind of anemic looking for such a big house) ,
The Vanderbilt’s made their fortune in steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad and the Berwind’s made their fortune in the Pennsylvania coal industry. They along with all the others who had their summer cottages in Newport are what we would today call the “1 percenters” the audio tour made a point of the fact that there was no income tax back then so everything you made you kept.
We then made our way to the “Marble House,” three guesses why it is called the “Marble” house… you’re right on the first guess! It is all made of marble and it was owned by William K. Vanderbilt the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (The Breakers). Alva Vanderbilt divorced her husband William in 1895 and kept Marble House, Mrs. Vanderbilt was a Suffragette and many of her plates at the mansion were embossed with suffrage slogans. She was also active in the settlement house movement, which caught my attention because that is where modern social work started.
They had two trees; the first Christmas Tree was in the Gothic Room and the other one was in the Stair Hall.
Even though they only allowed photos of the trees you can get an idea of the opulence of the rooms with their inlaid wood paneling and the hand craved wood cornices. Nothing in any of the houses was simple marble or wood, it was always imported marble or some exotic wood. The National Park Service describes the fireplace in the Gothic Room…
But I chuckled at the audio tour. I don’t know if you ever played an early computer game like Adventure’s Colossal Cave*, the audio tour reminded me of that type of game. The game has you type in commands and then it replies, “You enter a large room and looking to the left you see a large painting on the wall.” Well that was how the audio tour was narrated, it said, “You exit the grand ballroom and turn left into the main dining room and you will see a painting of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt by the famous artist…” and I had to keep from giggling as I listened to the tapes.
Afterward we went over to the house of one of my friends where we meet up with her husband and we had New Year’s Eve dinner of Alaska King Crab legs, talk about being decadent.
My Story is a weekly series of blog posts about my transition and observation of life as a trans-person.
*If you want to play Adventure online, click here.
You like it? It is just my little get-away cottage down by the ocean in Newport RI.
Actually it is “The Elms” the summer place for the Berwind's and is one of the Newport Mansions.
I went with two friends on New Year’s Eve to Newport Rhode Island to see the mansions Christmas decorations and tour the mansions. I been to some of the mansions before but this was different in twos ways, the first was the Christmas decorations and the second we listened to an audio guided tour as we walked around the mansions.
Our first stop was The Elms and these are the Christmas trees in the mansion (due to their strict rules, only photos of the trees are allowed inside.)
After we left The Elms we drove over to visit the Vanderbilt’s at their little summer cottage, “The Breakers”…
And we can’t have the riff-raff knocking at our door, now can we…
Here is their tree (kind of anemic looking for such a big house) ,
The Vanderbilt’s made their fortune in steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad and the Berwind’s made their fortune in the Pennsylvania coal industry. They along with all the others who had their summer cottages in Newport are what we would today call the “1 percenters” the audio tour made a point of the fact that there was no income tax back then so everything you made you kept.
We then made our way to the “Marble House,” three guesses why it is called the “Marble” house… you’re right on the first guess! It is all made of marble and it was owned by William K. Vanderbilt the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (The Breakers). Alva Vanderbilt divorced her husband William in 1895 and kept Marble House, Mrs. Vanderbilt was a Suffragette and many of her plates at the mansion were embossed with suffrage slogans. She was also active in the settlement house movement, which caught my attention because that is where modern social work started.
They had two trees; the first Christmas Tree was in the Gothic Room and the other one was in the Stair Hall.
Even though they only allowed photos of the trees you can get an idea of the opulence of the rooms with their inlaid wood paneling and the hand craved wood cornices. Nothing in any of the houses was simple marble or wood, it was always imported marble or some exotic wood. The National Park Service describes the fireplace in the Gothic Room…
The stone fireplace was copied by Allard and Sons from a chimney breast in the house of the merchant Jacques Coeur (1445) in Bourges, France. Coeur’s house is one of the most significant extant examples of Gothic domestic architecture.Or the description of the Stair Hall,
The floor and the walls of the Stair Hall are covered with yellow marble from Siena, Italy.I found the mansions to be big, ostentatious and grandiose; with a lot of big, big rooms with gaudy furnishings.
The grand staircase railing is wrought iron and bronze with a gunmetal finish, decorated with gilt bronze trophies based on models formerly adorning a fountain at Versailles.
The hall rises to an eighteenth century Venetian ceiling painting which is surrounded by larger-than-life size mythological figures, two in each corner. They represent Apollo and Athena, Mars and Venus, Ceres (Earth Goddess) and Cronus (Father Time), and Poseidon and Thetis.
Opposite the foot of the staircase a bronze basin is flanked by two cherubs in front of a large mirror. Flowing water is represented using glass backed with silver-colored metallic leaf.
On either side of the basin there are two sets of double doors with French beveled glass. Both sets of doors open to the Grand Salon.
But I chuckled at the audio tour. I don’t know if you ever played an early computer game like Adventure’s Colossal Cave*, the audio tour reminded me of that type of game. The game has you type in commands and then it replies, “You enter a large room and looking to the left you see a large painting on the wall.” Well that was how the audio tour was narrated, it said, “You exit the grand ballroom and turn left into the main dining room and you will see a painting of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt by the famous artist…” and I had to keep from giggling as I listened to the tapes.
Afterward we went over to the house of one of my friends where we meet up with her husband and we had New Year’s Eve dinner of Alaska King Crab legs, talk about being decadent.
My Story is a weekly series of blog posts about my transition and observation of life as a trans-person.
*If you want to play Adventure online, click here.
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