May 2009 » book review

A Golden Age Revisited

Newport Villas: The Revival Styles, 1885-1935
by Michael C. Kathrens
W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY; 2009
384 pages; hardcover; 350 b&w photographs and plans, 25 color photographs; $85
ISBN 978-0-393-73270-2

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

The Rhode Island city of Newport was settled in 1639, long before there was a United States of America. Newport soon became one of the continent's greatest commercial ports, but that hegemony was eventually eclipsed due to three years of British occupation during the Revolutionary War. But as early as the 1720s, Newport had already begun to develop as a thriving summer colony, attracting visitors with its spectacular ocean views, beachfronts and nature trails. Those early visitors would invariably rent local rooms or houses. The innovation of steamships in the 1840s brought a greater influx of affluent tourists, and with them Newport began its metamorphosis into the favored summer retreat of America's wealthy and elite. Impressive hotels sprung up, but the rich who were most besotted by Newport's beauty started having residences of their own constructed: cottages purely for summertime use as well as villas for year-round habitation. At first the Stick Style defined most of this architectural growth, but by the late 1870s the Colonial Revival style came to predominate – thanks in part to the consciousness-raising 1876 centennial celebrations.

Eventually, that patriotic outburst was displaced by a range of European Revival styles, evoking the former internationalism of the once-bustling seaport. As author Michael C. Kathrens describes in the introduction to Newport Villas: The Revival Styles, 1885-1935, the city's Golden Age had begun "with the most dramatic architectural changes occurring between 1880 and the early 1930s. [...] It was an era of unparalleled prosperity and growth for the nation, and Newport became a potent manifestation of its newly found financial might." Not even the Great Depression of the 1930s impeded Newport's status as the primary resort for the rich and famous. It took the modernization of wartime life in the '40s to do that, as Kathrens explains: "The quickening pace of life spelled doom for the studied and ritualized pace of old-line Newport. [...] Many of the progeny of prominent colony families moved to other resorts, leaving many cottages deserted. [...] At the end of World War II this trend continued and intensified, with many cottages falling victim to vandals and arsonists. Newport was becoming an anachronism for a way of life that was swiftly disappearing from the American landscape." Fortunately, as the preservationist spirit became more prevalent in late-20th-century America, Newport retained and restored most of its great villas.

Kathrens' book is a tribute to a majestic phase of America's architectural history, not a reliquary of vanished opulence. And what opulence! This handsome tome examines 35 historic Newport villas, inside and out. Lofty mansions and almost-as-impressive cottages are seen in all their splendor, commanding meticulously landscaped grounds. But there are also numerous interior shots – reminders of just how vast the interior-design possibilities are when money truly is no object. Even the floor plans are startling. Architect Charles Adams Platt, designing Bois Doré in the late 1920s, may have combined French and English Revival styles in a blend that is, as Kathrens acknowledges, "difficult to categorize architecturally," but its first- and second-floor plans are impressive, with the upper and lower floors of one whole wing devoted to ballrooms.

In his fascinating descriptions of each villa, Kathrens combines architectural insights with some personal history of the owners. The Breakers, an epic Italian Renaissance-style villa, was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt for no less a personage than Cornelius Vanderbilt II. But he got little time to enjoy it; less than a year after the official housewarming ceremonies in August of 1895, Vanderbilt's mansion became his hospital suite after he was felled by a paralytic stroke. "He made a slow and painful recovery, and by September of 1899 he seemed well enough to return to New York from Newport to attend a board meeting of the New York Central Railroad," writes Kathrens. "He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage the night before the meeting was to take place."

John Russell Pope, whose achievements include such Washington, DC, landmarks as Constitution Hall, the National Archives Building and the Jefferson Memorial, designed a sprawling Tudor-Cotswold house for himself in Newport. The Waves, completed in 1930, is an architect's showcase, thanks to Pope's adapting to the uneven terrain of the site and incorporating the stone foundation walls of a previous structure, The Breakwater (home to Charles Warren Lippit, then the governor of Rhode Island), which had been devastated by a fire in 1925. "It is sparsely furnished," writes Kathrens, "and appears in contemporary photographs to be more a peaceful retreat for the architect than a working studio."

By 1950 The Waves had been converted into an apartment house – "a development that became the salvation of many Newport houses during this period. […] It has since been converted into condominiums." But whether they now represent many homes or only one, the epic villas of Newport continue to astound the eye and excite the imagination. So does by Michael C. Kathrens' authoritative book.  

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