Beechwood was built as a marine villa for New Yorker Daniel Parish, a clothing merchant whose operations extended to Southern cities. Being a nephew of Thomas Powell, a steamboat magnate from Newburgh, New York, Parish commissioned the design from Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux, whose office was based there. Downing's trip to visit the building site with Parish in July 1852 never occurred; he died in a steamboat accident before reaching New York.[1] Vaux completed the house in 1853 with a "Palladian spirit" and published it in his book Villas and Cottages (1857). After a fire in 1855, it was rebuilt in 1856 with alterations to the original plans, Vaux superintending the construction.[2]
In 1880, Beechwood was purchased by William Backhouse Astor Jr. for $190,941.50. He had married Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, who would be known as "theMrs. Astor".[3] Between 1888 and 1890, Mrs. Astor hired architect Richard Morris Hunt to do many renovations, including the addition of a ballroom to fit the famous "Four Hundred". The house also boasts a library, a dining room and a music room with wallpaper imported from Paris. Beechwood became the showplace for many of Mrs. Astor's dinner parties.[4]
When Mrs. Astor died in 1908, Beechwood was left to her son, John Jacob Astor IV, who married his second wife Madeleine in its ballroom in 1911.[5] After Jack's death on the Titanic in 1912, it passed to his son Vincent (by his first wife, Ava). Vincent later rented out the home to Robert R. Young, a New York financier.[6]
In 1940, Allene Tew and her fifth husband, Count Pavel de Kotzebue, purchased Beechwood from Vincent Astor.[7] Over the course of the subsequent four decades, the house was owned in succession by James Cameron Clark, Gurnee Dyer, William W. Carey, John Page-Blair and Richard Merrill.[8]
Together with the University of Rhode Island History and Drama Departments, he started the "Beechwood Theatre Company", which conducted live theatrical tours to over a million mansion visitors.[3] In 1981, Paul Madden re-opened the renovated house with 20 costumed actors who were trained to remain in character as they played all the roles of a Victorian household, including butlers, footmen, maids, and doormen.[9] The tour featured actors portraying the daily lives of those who inhabited, ran, and cared for the estate. During its time as a tourist attraction, the estate was marketed as "Astors' Beechwood Mansion".[10]
During off-season months (February to May), the actors played roles as "servants" of the Astors and provided tours of the estate as if it was 1891. Visitors were treated as though they were "applicants" for summer jobs on Mrs. Astor's staff, and they "applied" for any job they wished. The staff positions included gardener, footman, butler, chef, housemaid and many others. During the summer months, when the pretend "Astor family" was living in the mansion, the actors played roles as Astor family members and gave tours to guests. The people working at the mansion pretended that it was 1891 and acted in-character throughout each tour.[11]
The tour included two sides of the house: first, the family's side where the Astors lived, and second, the servants' side, which included kitchens and servants' quarters, as well as an area for the children to live. The children of the Astor family lived with the servants until the age of 17, when they were considered adults and fully prepared for social functions. Children of the family were quickly wed at the age of 18, or as soon as possible after reaching 18.
The British America's Cup Challenge Ball in 1983 was held in honor of Prince Andrew. It was the most lavish event of the America's Cup that year, with a dinner for one thousand guests and entertainment that included the Regimental Band of Her Majesty's Irish Guards, as well as Peter Duchin's band.[13]
Beechwood in 2021
Larry Ellison ownership (2010–present)
In January 2010, the Beechwood Theatre Company was reorganized under the umbrella of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Beechwood Foundation as the Marley Bridges Theatre Company,[14] and the Beechwood estate was sold for $10.5 million to Oracle Corporation co-founder Larry Ellison.[15] Ellison, who was in Newport during the summer of 2009 for training with his BMW Oracle Racing team, is linked to a deed filed at City Hall that documents the $10.5 million sale of the 39-room mansion.[16] Ellison reportedly spent over $100 million restoring the mansion and the other buildings on the estate to the condition that Richard Morris Hunt brought them in 1881, although as of August 2018 landscaping of the grounds had not begun.[17]
As of 2012, Ellison plans to convert the mansion's first floor into the "Beechwood Art Museum", displaying his collection of 18th- and 19th-century art.[18] In December 2017, Beechwood was issued a permanent certificate of occupancy. In February 2019, it was reported that Ellison purchased the Seacliff home at 562 Bellevue Avenue (for $11 million), "thus giving him ownership of all four properties between Rosecliff and Marble House", which reunited the original 9-acre estate that William B. Astor Jr. had created in 1881.[19][20]
Lawrence Joseph Ellison is an American businessman and entrepreneur who cofounded software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014 and is now its chief technology officer and executive chairman.
John Jacob Astor IV was an American business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, and a prominent member of the Astor family. He was among the most prominent American passengers aboard RMS Titanic and perished along with 1,500 people when the ship sank on her maiden voyage. Astor was the richest passenger aboard the RMS Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of roughly $87 million when he died.
Belcourt is a former summer cottage designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont and located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Construction was begun in 1891 and completed in 1894, and it was intended to be used for only six to eight weeks of the year. Belcourt was designed in a multitude of European styles and periods; it features a heavy emphasis on French Renaissance and Gothic decor, with further borrowings from German, English, and Italian design. In the Gilded Age, the castle was noted for its extensive stables and carriage areas, which were incorporated into the main structure.
John Jacob Astor VI was an American socialite, shipping businessman, and member of the Astor family. He was dubbed the "Titanic Baby" for his affiliation with the RMS Titanic; Astor was born four months after his father, Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, died in the sinking of the Titanic. His pregnant mother Madeleine Astor survived the sinking.
Madeleine Talmage Dick was an American socialite and a survivor of the RMS Titanic. She was the second wife and widow of businessman John Jacob Astor IV.
Rosecliff is a Gilded Age mansion of Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a historic house museum. The house has also been known as the Hermann Oelrichs House or the J. Edgar Monroe House.
The Elms is a large mansion located at 367 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, completed in 1901. The architect Horace Trumbauer (1868–1938) designed it for the coal baron Edward Julius Berwind (1848–1936), taking inspiration from the 18th century Château d'Asnières in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. C. H. Miller and E. W. Bowditch, working closely with Trumbauer, designed the gardens and landscape. The Preservation Society of Newport County purchased The Elms in 1962, and opened the house to the public. The Elms was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
Malbone is one of the oldest mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. The original mid-18th century estate was the country residence of Col. Godfrey Malbone of Virginia and Connecticut. The main house burned down during a dinner party in 1766 and the remaining structure sat dormant for many years until New York lawyer Jonathan Prescott Hall built a new roughly 5,800 sq ft (540 m2) castellated residence directly on top of the old ivy-covered ruins.
Marble House, a Gilded Age mansion located at 596 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, was built from 1888 to 1892 as a summer cottage for Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt and was designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the Beaux Arts style. It was unparalleled in opulence for an American house when it was completed in 1892.
Ava Lowle Lister, Baroness Ribblesdale was an American socialite. She was the first wife of Colonel John Jacob Astor IV and later married Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale.
The Bellevue Avenue Historic District is located along and around Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Its property is almost exclusively residential, including many of the Gilded Age mansions built as summer retreats around the turn of the 20th century by the extremely wealthy, including the Vanderbilt and Astor families. Many of the homes represent pioneering work in the architectural styles of the time by major American architects.
Chepstow is an Italianate house museum located at 120 Narragansett Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, built in 1860. It originally served as a summer "cottage", but the Preservation Society of Newport County now owns the property. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Ochre Point-Cliffs Historic District in 1975 and within the Historic District of the City of Newport.
Miramar is a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) French neoclassical-style mansion on 7.8 acres (32,000 m2) bordering Bellevue Avenue on Aquidneck Island at Newport, Rhode Island. Overlooking Rhode Island Sound, it was intended as a summer home for the George D. Widener family of Philadelphia.
Alva Erskine Belmont, known as Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was an American multi-millionaire socialite and women's suffrage activist. She was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, and willingness to challenge convention.
Beaulieu, or Beaulieu House, is a historic mansion located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, built in 1859 by Federico Barreda. Subsequent owners of Beaulieu have included John Jacob Astor III, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and his wife Grace Vanderbilt, née Grace Graham Wilson.
Allene Tew Hostetter Nichols Burchard Reuß zu Köstritz de Kotzebue was an American socialite during the Gilded Age who became a European aristocrat by marriage.
Margaret "Daisy" Van Alen Bruguière was an American socialite, art collector and the niece of Frederick Vanderbilt. From the 1940s until her death, she was the leader of the social scene in Newport, Rhode Island.
Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman was an American heiress and socialite who was prominent in New York and Newport society during the Gilded Age.
References
↑ Schuyler, David. Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815—1852. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, 213, 220–22.
↑ Kowsky, Francis R. Country, Park, & City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux. New York: Oxford University Press, 39–42.
1 2 Rocheleau, Susan (1982) The Astor's Beechwood: A Millionaire's Summer Cottage Newport Management.
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