Marble House at Bellevue
Avenue
Newport, Rhode Island is famous for its
luxury mansions. Despite their imposing size
and obvious opulence, they are also known as
summer “cottages”. Once, the private
residences of Newport’s finest, the
extravagant homes now function as museums
for interested tourists.
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These museums
reveal how the past residents of Newport
lived, and, judging by
the looks of their
“cottages”, they lived extremely well.
These mansions are now operated and managed
by the Preservation Society of Newport
County.
One such mansion is the Marble House. It is
located at 596 Bellevue Avenue. The Marble
House’s four-year long construction started
in 1888 and ended it 1892. |
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| t was owned by the grandson of
renowned Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt who struck gold when
he went into the business of steamships and when he got
involved in the New York Central Railroad. Commodore
Cornelius Vanderbilt’s grandson William was married to a
woman named Alva who turned out to be one of the leading
hostesses in Newport’s elite society.
William commissioned an
architect who was very well-established and well-connected
with Newport’s wealthy families. Architect Richard Morris
Hunt designed the Marble House after the Petit Trianon,
which is a chateau in the Palace of Versailles in
Versailles, France. The chateau is a product of the
Rococo-Neoclassical architectural transition. It is
basically a simple but elegant cube and the vertical
surfaces of which are designed differently depending on the
direction that they face. The columns of the chateau are
mostly of the Corinthian order. The Petit Trianon was built
during the 1760s by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for his mistress,
Madame de Pompadour.
The cost of the Marble House amounts to eleven million
dollars, and a very large part of that was spent on five
hundred thousand cubic feet of solid marble. Marble was the
main building material, and was heavily used throughout the
residence. When the project was completed, William gave the
Marble House to his wife Alva for her 39th birthday.
The Vanderbilt couple had three children. They were
Consuelo, William,Jr. and Harold. All of whom grew up in the
Marble House. Consuelo grew up to be the 9th Duchess of
Marlborough. William, Jr. became an icon in the world of
American auto-racing. Harold became and award-winning
yachtsman. Unfortunately, in 1895 William and Alva’s
marriage ended in divorce. Alva married her second husband,
Oliver H.P. Belmont, and moved out of the Marble House. When
Belmont passed away, Alva reopened the Marble House, where
she began hosting social events.
Thereafter, Alva put the Marble House up for sale and it was
bought by Frederick H. Prince in 1932. Prince was a
stockbroker, investment banker and financier born in
Winchester, Massachusetts. It was from his estate that the
Preservation Society of Newport County was able to acquire
the Marble House. In 2006, the mansion became a National
Historic Landmark.
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