Elm Court (Newport, Rhode Island)

Last updated
Elm Court
Elm Court, Newport, Rhode Island.jpg
Elm Court (Newport, Rhode Island)
Former namesThe Cedars, The Elms
General information
TypeResidence
Architectural style Italianate
Location Newport, Rhode Island, US
Address315 Bellevue Avenue
Coordinates 41°28′49″N71°18′33″W / 41.48032°N 71.30911°W / 41.48032; -71.30911
Completed1853
Renovated1882
Client Andrew Robeson Jr.
OwnerGuy Van Pelt
Design and construction
Architect(s) George Champlin Mason Sr.
Renovating team
Architect(s) McKim, Mead & White
Other designers Ogden Codman Jr.

Elm Court is an Italianate style mansion located at 315 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Part of the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, it was built in 1853 and designed in the Italianate style by George Champlin Mason Sr. In 1882, McKim, Mead & White renovated the remodeled and enlarged the house after it was bought in c.1875 by Adele L. S. Stevens, who also had the interiors redone by Ogden Codman Jr. Since 1896, Elm Court has been owned by the same family and remains a private residence.

Contents

History

Undated photo Elm Court (Newport).png
Undated photo

The Cedars, as it was originally known, was built in 1853 for Boston merchant Andrew Robeson Jr., and his wife, Mary Arnold ( née Allen) Robeson. [lower-alpha 1] The Italianate house is on Bellevue Avenue across from Bowery Street was designed by George Champlin Mason Sr. Across Bowery, also on Bellevue, was Kingscote, one of the first summer "cottages" constructed in Newport for George Noble Jones by Richard Upjohn and built in 1839.

Stevens / Talleyrand-Périgord years

Following Robeson's death in 1874, the house was sold to Adele Livingston Stevens ( née Sampson) and her then husband, Frederic W. Stevens. In 1882, Adele hired Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White to remodel and enlarge the residence at a cost of $16,591 and had the interiors redone by Ogden Codman Jr. Between 1881 and 1883, Isaac Bell Jr. had McKim, Mead and White build a Shingle style home next door at 70 Perry Street, today known as the Isaac Bell House.

Shortly after the renovations were completed, Adele began a relationship with the Marquis de Talleyrand, who was himself married to another American heiress, Elizabeth Beers-Curtis, then left her husband and moved to Paris. After each obtaining a divorce from their spouses, they wed in 1887, after which, she rented out her Newport house. In 1893, [1] Adele sold the house for $87,500 to Christopher R. Robert and his wife, Julia, of New York. [2] [3]

Work / Roche / Cary / Van Pelt years

In 1896, Julia Robert sold the house, then called "The Elms", and its contents to Frank Work for $115,000. [4] [3] Work passed the estate to his daughter, Frances Ellen Work, who'd recently divorced her first husband (James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy), [5] and moved back to America with her daughter, Cynthia Roche, who had her debut in 1902 at a ball at Elm Court. [6] [lower-alpha 2] The house passed to Cynthia, [8] who married her second husband, Guy Fairfax Cary, in the house in 1922. [9] Following Cary's death in 1950, it became Cynthia's year-round home instead of a summer home. [10] Since 2008, it has been the home of Mary ( née Adickes) and Guy Van Pelt (a son of Cynthia Cary Van Pelt Russell), [11] following the death of Guy's uncle, Guy Fairfax Cary Jr. [12]

Notes

  1. The Robeson's granddaughter (through their daughter, Mary Allen Robeson, the wife of botanist Charles Sprague Sargent), Henrietta Sargent, married the architect Guy Lowell.
  2. In 1910, Berkeley Villa (today known as Bellevue House) was built across the street on the other side of Bellevue. It was built for Martha Codman and designed by her cousin, Ogden Codman Jr., as his last project in Newport. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanderbilt houses</span> Houses built by the Vanderbilt family

From the late 1870s to the 1920s, the Vanderbilt family employed some of the best Beaux-Arts architects and decorators in the United States to build an unequaled string of townhouses in New York City and palaces on the East Coast of the United States. Many of the Vanderbilt houses are now National Historic Landmarks. Some photographs of Vanderbilt residences in New York are included in the Photographic series of American Architecture by Albert Levy (1870s).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Breakers</span> Vanderbilt mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, US

The Breakers is a Gilded Age mansion located at 44 Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, US. It was built between 1893 and 1895 as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newport Casino</span> United States historic place

The Newport Casino is an athletic complex and recreation center located at 180–200 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island in the Bellevue Avenue/Casino Historic District. Built in 1879–1881 by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr., it was designed in the Shingle style by the newly formed firm of McKim, Mead & White. The Newport Casino was the firm's first major commission and helped to establish the firm's national reputation. Built as a social club, it included courts for both lawn tennis and court tennis, facilities for other games, such as squash and lawn bowling, club rooms for reading, socializing, card-playing, and billiards, shops, and a convertible theater and ballroom. It became a center of Newport's social life during the Gilded Age through the 1920s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ogden Codman Jr.</span> American architect (1863–1951)

Ogden Codman Jr. was an American architect and interior decorator in the Beaux-Arts styles, and co-author with Edith Wharton of The Decoration of Houses (1897), which became a standard in American interior design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chateau-sur-Mer</span> Historic house in Rhode Island, United States

Chateau-sur-Mer is one of the first grand Bellevue Avenue mansions of the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island. Located at 474 Bellevue Avenue, it is now owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County and is open to the public as a museum. Chateau-sur-Mer's grand scale and lavish parties ushered in the Gilded Age of Newport, as it was the most palatial residence in Newport until the Vanderbilt houses in the 1890s. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy</span> British politician (1885–1955)

Edmund Maurice Burke Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy was a British Conservative Party politician who held a title in the Peerage of Ireland. He was the maternal grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Bell House</span> Historic house in Rhode Island, United States

The Isaac Bell House is a historic house and National Historic Landmark at 70 Perry Street in Newport, Rhode Island. Also known as Edna Villa, it is one of the outstanding examples of Shingle Style architecture in the United States. It was designed by McKim, Mead, and White, and built during the Gilded Age, when Newport was the summer resort of choice for some of America's wealthiest families.

James Boothby Burke Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, was a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons, and he held a title in the Peerage of Ireland during the final two months of his life. He was a great-grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beechwood (Astor mansion)</span> Building in Rhode Island, United States

Beechwood is a Gilded Age mansion and estate located at 580 Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island best known for having been owned by the Astor family. Part of the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, the first version of the residence was built between 1852 and 1853 and designed in the Italianate style by Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux. Following a fire in 1855, Vaux rebuilt the house with modified plans. Richard Morris Hunt renovated the estate in 1881 after it was bought the year before by William Backhouse Astor, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bellevue Avenue Historic District</span> United States historic place in Newport, Rhode Island

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Club</span> Social club in New York City

The Metropolitan Club of New York is a private social club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was originally founded as a gentlemen's club in 1891 for men only.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codman–Davis House</span> Historic house in Washington, D.C., United States

The Codman–Davis House is a four-story, red brick, 1906, classical revival house in Washington, D.C. at 2145 Decatur Place NW. It was designed by Ogden Codman Jr. for his cousin, Martha Codman of Washington, DC and Newport, Rhode Island. She also commissioned his design of the Codman Carriage House and Stable, built nearby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cynthia Roche</span> British-American socialite and art collector

The Hon. Cynthia Burke Roche was a British-American socialite and art collector from Newport, Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Scott Burden</span> American banker and equestrian

Arthur Scott Burden was an American banker, equestrian, and member of the young set of New York society during the Gilded Age.

Cynthia Cary Van Pelt Russell was an American socialite, who was part of American 'High Society' in New York and Newport, Rhode Island, and is a first cousin once removed of Diana, Princess of Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Champlin Mason Sr.</span> American architect

George Champlin Mason Sr. (1820-1894) was an American architect who built a number of mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, during the Gilded Age. He helped to found the Newport Historical Society as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Codman Karolik</span> American art collector

Martha Catherine Codman Karolik was a philanthropist and American art collector based in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1939 and 1947 she and her husband Maxim Karolik donated two major collections of early American furniture, paintings, and prints and drawings to the Boston Fine Arts Museum, which built a new wing to house it. While the couple had purchased many of the nineteenth-century paintings and other works of their 1947 donation, much of the first collection donated in 1939 consisted of works she had inherited, which were collected by family and colonial ancestors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarence Cary</span> American lawyer

Clarence Cary was an American lawyer who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codman Carriage House and Stable</span> Historic building in Washington, D.C.

The Codman Carriage House and Stable is a historic building located at 1415 22nd Street NW in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The industrial building was constructed in 1907 as a carriage house and stable for socialite and art collector Martha Catherine Codman, who lived a few blocks north in her home, later known as the Codman–Davis House. She commissioned her cousin, Ogden Codman Jr., an architect and prominent interior decorator who also designed her home. He designed it in a Second Empire style.

Walter Effingham Maynard was an American banker and real estate investor.

References

  1. "NEWPORT COTTAGE RENTS; THEY INDICATE A PROSPEROUS SEASON THIS YEAR. FEWER PERSONS OF MODERATE MEANS AMONG PROSPECTIVE SUMMER RESIDENTS -- A TENDENCY TO HOME LIFE -- THE CASINO STILL THE SOCIAL CENTRE". The New York Times . 12 February 1893. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  2. "NEWPORT COTTAGES OPEN FOR THE SEASON; Servants Arrive to Prepare the Goelet Place for Occupancy". The New York Times . 6 June 1895. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Frank Work Buys a Newport Villa". The New York Times . 8 May 1896. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  4. "FRANK WORK BUYS A COTTAGE.; He Purchases One of the Best Known of the Villas of Newport". The New York Times . 3 May 1896. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  5. Times, Special to The New York (10 June 1916). "NEWPORT COLONISTS ARRIVING; Mrs. Burke Roche and Her Son Are at Elm Court". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  6. Times, Special To The New York (2 September 1902). "BALL AT "ELM COURT."; Miss Cynthia Roche Has a Brilliant Introduction to Newport Society". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  7. "Martha Codman House". Society of Architectural Historians. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  8. Times, Special to The New York (18 March 1911). "FRANK WORK'S BENEFICIARIES; Reported in Newport That His Daughters Are the Principal Ones". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  9. Times, Special to The New York (24 July 1922). "MRS. BURDEN TO WED GUY F. CARY TODAY; Widow of Arthur Scott Burden Will Marry New York Lawyer at Newport.ANNOUNCEMENT A SURPRISEBride Is the Only Daughter of Mrs.Burke-Roche and a Sisterof Baron Fermoy". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  10. Green, Penelope (2 August 2007). "Updating Newport, Ever So Gently". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  11. "WEDDINGS; Mary Adickes, Guy Van Pelt". The New York Times. 26 March 2000. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  12. Pardee, Bettie Bearden (October 18, 2016). "A Newport Story: The Twin Pleasures of Elm Court". Private Newport. Retrieved 20 March 2023.