Newport

Sept 23, 2019 – Newport

After making a run to UPS, we went to downtown Newport and found a parking spot. These 300+ year old small waterfront towns with narrow streets are difficult to navigate and park when you’re driving a RAM 3500, or similarly large truck. We decided to do the Cliff Walk, which is a mostly paved oceanfront trail that also features some of the grand old mansions on the Newport oceanfront. This is OLD money and the mansions were incredibly large. These remind me of the Vanderbilt’s Biltmore mansion and grounds in Asheville, NC. They are incredible displays of wealth. Some of the largest and most spectacular mansions were those owned by the Vanderbilts.

In the late 1800’s, the Vanderbilt family members built several of the mega mansions in Newport. The Vanderbilt’s level of wealth, and of the others that built these mega mansions in Newport in the early 1900’s, is hard to even imagine. The Breakers (built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II) is the “biggest, baddest” mansion on the block. It cost $7M and took took 2 years to build in 1895. It has a 43,000 sq. ft. footprint and was the summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The house is open to tour for $26 per person. But not the third floor….some of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s great grand children still use that floor in the summer!

The Breakers

The seaside Chinese Tea House is part of The Marble House, another one of the huge Vanderbilt mansions…..this one was for William Vanderbilt.

We walked for 3 miles on the Cliff Walk tour. It’s hard to see the fronts of some off the mansions along the seaside walkway due to the elaborate hedges that have been grown for many years to protect the views from the mansion properties. But we managed to get a few pics.

Salve Regina University is right on the coast in Newport. Per the school’s website, the “Our 80-acre campus is one of the most unique in the country, offering what the National Trust for Historic Preservation has described as a “tour of the great architectural works of the Gilded Age.” Set on seven contiguous estates, it features more than 20 historic structures that have been sensitively adapted to meet University needs while also preserving their status as treasures of the 19th and early 20th centuries”.

After our walk, we headed to town to look for a cold beer and a sandwich spot on the waterfront. We ended up at Harry’s Hamburger Bar, where we indulged in a seasonal pumpkin beer and two slider cheeseburgers w/ fries. We walked around the waterfront for a while and headed home. It was a nice afternoon.

Mega-yacht!