Renoir, Dog-Pee Stains, and Sultry Children’s Portraits—Newport’s Mansions Are a Treasure Hunt for the Nosy
The path from gaudy room to gaudy room in Newport’s mansions is often lined with rubber-bottom mats, but they might as well be conveyor belts. Millions of tourists pass through the fabled halls of the Breakers, Rough Point, Rosecliff, Marble House, and the rest, but passing through is often all they do. Necks craned, phone snapping, tongues wagging, they might stop… to wait for somebody to get out of their shot.
Frankly, though, who can blame them? These places were built to wow, to fill visitors to the brim with awe sufficient to almost convince a visitor that the owners of these Rhode Island mansions truly were aristocrats. So you have salons that look like Midas had an orgy, dining rooms that must have left marble quarries barren, festooned ballrooms, and all at knee-buckling scale. It’s simply a lot to take in.
But in an era where there was so much money you really could buy anything except happiness (many owners were deeply unhappy people), I’ve always wandered in and wondered at what these people bought. What trinkets did they surround themselves with? So this summer I flitted from house to house with one goal in mind. To see what many of us might overlook going through these houses on cruise control.