September 26, 2011: The Rhode Island and Connecticut State Capitols
	September 24, 2011: Getting to Providence, RI
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Last night and this morning, Steve and Fred did some investigation on the Internet as to some of the things we might want to do today. Mario had wanted to see some of the old mansions in Newport, RI, so Steve and Fred picked a couple of them and worked out the route to get there. I added Cape Cod to the list, if there was time at the end of our stay in Newport. I had never been out to the end of the Cape where Provincetown is located, and thought it would be interesting for everyone.

Getting to Newport, Rhode Island

We left the Best Western about nine, and headed up the Airport Connector to I-95 south. This took us south to the exit for RI Highway 4 south. This crossed US 1 and then became RI Highway 1A, which we too across Long Island Sound to Jamestown. Jamestown is on an island in one of the bays of the Sound. As we came south along the eastern side of the island, we could see the Newport Bridge leading east from our island to the town of Newport.

We came off the island to the east by crossing the Newport Bridge, and this brought us to Newport, Rhode Island.

When we came off the bridge, we were in Newport, and following our GPS we headed south on RI Highway 238. This turned into a street called Americas Cup Avenue (an homage to the fact that it is the Newport Yacht Club that stages, or participates in, the America's Cup sailboat race each year. While Fort Lauderdale is the Boat Capital of the United States, Newport can arguably be called its Yachting Capital.

The avenue wound through town, and we saw lots of tour busses filled with people out to see the sights in Newport itself, but we continued south and then east on RI Highway 138A to Bellevue Avenue. This took us south, through an area of shops and restaurants (where we will have lunch later) and then past a number of historic mansions (one of which, The Elms, we will visit later today as well).

We went east on Webster and then south through Salve Regina University to the parking area for The Breakers, the first of two mansions that we'll visit today here in Newport.

A Tour Through "The Breakers"

Our first stop here in Newport will be the Vanderbilt mansion known as The Breakers. We'll enter the property along the main drive from Ochre Point Avenue, get our tickets and then spend a bit of time at the front of the mansion. Then, we'll go in the main entry, get an audio headset and then follow its directions on a tour of the house. We'll eventually exit through the kitchen wing at the northeast end of the house. Following that, we'll walk through the gardens to the main lawn where we will take a good many pictures of the imposing structure.

On the actual tour of the interior of the house, photography was not actually allowed. Perhaps it is because when people stop to take flash pictures it can really slow everything down, or perhaps it is because fragile items can be damaged over time by continual flash photography, or perhaps it is because the Preservation Society simply wants to control the images of what it owns. Regardless, I thought on this tour, as I have thought on others, that I paid enough for my ticket to come away with some images of the interior. Obviously, I couldn't just flaunt the rules and stop wherever I wanted to take a flash picture, nor could I be real obvious even without using a flash. So I took as many pictures as I could, without flash and without taking care to compose the pictures well. I was the only one of the three of us taking pictures inside, and not but about half of my pictures turned out well enough to include here.

So blame me if you wish for flaunting the rules, but flaunt them I did. I am also going to include a few pictures taken from the Internet of some of the primary rooms, as mine were not nearly so good as those taken by professional photographers under optimal conditions.

I began a movie outside the main gate on Ochre Point Avenue, and continued it as we walked in through the gate entrance onto the grounds of The Breakers.

       Background

The Breakers is the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial preeminence in turn of the century America. Located on Ochre Point Avenue in Newport, it a National Historic Landmark owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County, and a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District.

The Breakers was built as the Newport summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. It is built in a style often described as "Goût Rothschild." Designed by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt and with interior decoration by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman, Jr., the 70-room mansion has approximately 65,000 sq. ft. of living space. The home was constructed between 1893 and 1895 at a cost of more than $12 million (approximately $310 million in today's dollars adjusted for inflation).

The Ochre Point Avenue entrance is marked by sculpted iron gates; these 30-foot-high walkway gates are part of a 12-foot-high limestone and iron fence that borders the property on all but the ocean side. Particularly striking are the huge main gate posts with their wrought iron lanterns.

The main house (a five-story, 250 x 120 ft. mansion aligned symmetrically around a central Great Hall) is part of a 13-acre estate on the seagirt cliffs, and it faces east- overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It is now the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island with approximately 300,000 visitors annually and is open year-round for tours. In April 2009 the museum stopped offering personalized tours by tour guides patrons now receive standard audio headsets.

       History

The previous mansion on the property had been owned by Pierre Lorillard IV, and burned in 1892. When Cornelius Vanderbilt II bought the land and began construction, he insisted that the building be made as fireproof as possible and as such, the structure of the building used steel trusses and no wooden parts. He even required that the furnace be located away from the house, under Ochre Point Avenue; in winter there is an area in front of the main gate over the furnace where snow and ice always melted.

The designers created an interior using marble imported from Italy and Africa plus rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world. It also included architectural elements (such as the library mantel seen in the picture at right) purchased from chateaux in France.

The Breakers is the architectural and social archetype of the "Gilded Age", a period when members of the Vanderbilt family were among the major industrialists of America. Indeed, if the Gilded Age were to be summed up by a single house, that house would have to be The Breakers. During 1895, the year of its completion, The Breakers was the largest, most opulent house in the Newport area.

Vanderbilt died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused from a second stroke in 1899 at the age of 55, leaving the Breakers to his wife, Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt. She outlived her husband by 35 years and died at the age of 89 in 1934. In her will, The Breakers was given to her youngest daughter, Countess Gladys Széchenyi (1886–1965), essentially because Gladys lacked American property. Also, none of Alice's other children were interested in the property while Gladys had always loved the estate. Four years later, The Breakers survived the great New England Hurricane of 1938 with minimal damage and minor flooding of the grounds.

In 1948, Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to the non-profit Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 a year. The Society bought the Breakers in 1972 for $365,000 from Countess Sylvia Szapary, Gladys' daughter of Gladys. (Given inflation, this was something of a discount; it would be as if the $12 million house had been sold later the same year it was built for a little less than $8,000.) However, the agreement with the Society allows the family to continue to live on the third floor, which is not open to the public. Countess Sylvia lived there part time until her death on March 1, 1998. Gladys and Paul Szapary, Sylvia's children, spend summers there to this day, hidden from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who explore below.P Although the mansion is owned by the Society, the original furnishings displayed throughout the house are still owned by the family.

       The Architect

The Breakers is a definitive expression of Beaux-Arts architecture in American domestic design; it was designed by one of the country's most influential architects, Richard Morris Hunt. The Breakers is one of the few surviving Hunt-designed buildings, and is therefore valuable for its rarity as well as its architectural excellence. The Breakers was Hunt’s final work. The Breakers made Hunt the "dean of American architecture," and helped define the era in American life that Hunt helped to shape.

Hunt directed an international team of craftsmen and artisans to create a 70 room Italian Renaissance- style palazzo inspired by the 16th century palaces of Genoa and Turin. Allard and Sons of Paris assisted Hunt with furnishings and fixtures, Austro-American sculptor Karl Bitter designed relief sculpture, and Boston architect Ogden Codman decorated the family quarters.

       Before the Tour / Main Entry

At first, we thought that there were group tours; it wasn't clear immediately (at least to me) that we didn't need to wait for one of the groups I thought were gathering. It turned out that these were outside tour groups; we could actually go in any time we wished, collect our headsets and tour at our own pace. So, even though we didn't have to, we spent some time out in front of the mansion taking pictures. Between the three of us, some of these were repetitive so (as I will do throughout the trip this week), I've selected the best of the pictures to include here. Just click on the thumbnails below to see the pictures we took out in front of The Breakers:

The Front of The Breakers

While we were wandering around the front of The Breakers, I made a movie panning around the area.

       Our Tour: The Main House

Our tour of the main house encompassed just the first and second floors. There wasn't much we could see in the basement, as it contains only the laundry and staff quarters. We begin on the first floor.

Our tour began just inside the entry when we found ourselves in the Great Hall. Since my own pictures are not as good as I might like, I have included an official picture of the Great Hall at left. This was the central focus of the house, and obviously the room that would have been used for large gatherings.

The room was two storeys high and, like other homes I've toured (such as Vizcaya in Miami), it had a balcony all the way around on the second level, so that all the rooms on that floor could open out onto that balcony and have unobstructed views down to the main floor. You can see that balcony very clearly here. The room was a beautiful, impressive one- as you would expect in a house that cost the current equivalent of $300 million. The coffered ceiling and chandeliers were particularly striking.

At the northeast side of the room you can see the main staircase; the staircase itself is not accessible on the tour, but later on we will be crossing back across the top of it on the balcony you can see above it, coming from the left in the picture. Then, I'll be showing you a picture taken at the top of that stairway. At the opposite end of the Great Hall is one of the huge fireplaces that are found throughout the house.

The Great Hall is fifty feet square, and over each of the six doors which lead from it are limestone figure groups celebrating humanity's progress in art, science, and industry. Galileo represented science, Dante represented literature, Apollo represented the arts, Mercury represented speed and commerce, Richard Morris Hunt represented architecture and Karl Bitter represented sculpture.

Other rooms on the first floor included the Gentlemen’s Reception Room, the Ladies’ Reception Room (see my two pictures taken in this room here and here), the Library (shown above), the Music Room, the Billiard Room and the Dining Room. I have a picture of the Dining Room ceiling here.

On the second floor, we found most of the bedrooms and baths, as well as the upper loggia (open, covered porch). The bedrooms included Mr. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom, Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom, Miss Gertrude Vanderbilt’s Bedroom, Countess Szechenyi’s Bedroom and some guest bedrooms. These rooms, particularly the first four, were very ornate, and still furnished with the actual furniture used by the Vanderbilts (and which is still owned by their family). I took some pictures in these various bedrooms and baths, but unfortunately had no way to record which was which. Take a look at them anyway by clicking on the thumbnails below:

From the loggia on the second floor, we were able to get a nice view out across the lawn to the Atlantic Ocean; this is the kind of view that great wealth brings you. We continued through the bedrooms and finally came out at the second floor landing over the Grand Staircase. Over the Grand Staircase is a stained glass skylight designed by artist John La Farge. Originally installed in the Vanderbilt's 1 West 57th Street townhouse dining room, the skylight was brought here in 1894 during an expansion of the townhouse.

The tour did not include either the third floor or the attic floor. The third floor contains eight bedrooms and a sitting room decorated in Louis XVI style walnut paneling by Ogden Codman. The North Wing of the third floor quarters were reserved for domestic servants. With ceilings near 18 feet high, Richard Morris Hunt created two separate third floors to allow a mass congregation of servant bed chambers. This was all in part of the configuration of the house, built in Italian Renaissance style, that included a pitched roof. Flat roofed French classical houses in the area allowed a concealed wing for staffing at the time. The Breakers does not feature this luxury.

A total of 30 bedrooms are located in the two third floor staff quarters. Three additional bedrooms for the Butler, Chef, and Visiting Valet are located on the Mezzanine "Entrasol" Floor located between the first and second floor just to the rear of the main kitchen.

The Attic floor contained more staff quarters, general storage areas, and the innovative cisterns. One smaller cistern supplied hydraulic pressure for the 1895 Otis lift, still functioning in the house (though it was wired for electricity in 1933). Two larger cisterns supplied fresh and salt water to the many bathrooms in the house. Our tour continued down a secondary stairway to the kitchen, which was the last stop on the official tour.

The exit from the kitchen brought us out to an area just to the left of the main entry, and you can have a look at that area here. Fred took some other pictures from this area at the northeast corner of the house, some showing the intricate carvings that adorn much of the outside of the mansion. You can have a look at them if you click on the thumbnails at left.

       The Gardens and Lawn

Next, we worked our way around the front of the house to the gardens on the southwest side. This formally-landscaped terrace area is surrounded by Japanese yew, Chinese juniper, and dwarf hemlock.

The formal garden is located on the southwest side of the house. A view of the house from the garden area can be seen at right. Informal plantings of arbor vitae, taxus, Chinese juniper, and dwarf hemlock provide attractive foregrounds for the walls that enclose the formally landscaped terrace. Trees have been skillfully used at The Breakers to act as screens that increase the sense of distance between it and its neighboring mansions. Among the more unusual imported trees are two examples of the Blue Atlas Cedar, a native of North Africa, as well as copper and weeping beeches. These were hand-selected by James Bowditch, a forester based in the Boston area.

Clipped hedges of Japanese yew and Pfitzer juniper line the tree shaded foot paths that meander about the grounds. Bowditch’s original pattern for the south parterre garden was determined from old photographs and laid out in pink and white alyssum and blue ageratum. The wide borders paralleling the wrought iron fence are planted with rhododendron, laurel, dogwoods, and many other flowering shrubs.

As I said, the gardens and most of the unusual trees were on the southwest side of the house, and we spent some time there taking pictures of that end of the mansion. You can have a look at some of these by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

From the gardens, we walked around the southwest corner of the house to come to the ocean‑side patio, which is just below the second-floor loggia that we saw on our tour. From here, the views look east to the Atlantic Ocean.

From the main lawn, there were incredible views looking back towards the mansion.

I went down to the end of the lawn thinking that I could get right to the shore, but the wrought iron fence that surrounds the estate did not have a gate of any kind to let you through (undoubtedly these days to keep people from wandering all over the property at odd hours of the day or night). I could, however, get close enough to look over the fence and get a picture looking west along the shore.

There was a walkway that was coming from the east along the top of the cliff, and it continued west along the shore, through that gate that you can see in the previous picture. There were people strolling along this walkway, so I thought that when we were done at The Breakers we might see how to get to that path and walk along the shore for a while.

From my position down at the end of the lawn by the shore, I made a movie that pans all around the area, showing the mansion and everything around it.

When we were done on the lawn, we walked along a pathway inside the estate that led back around towards the entrance. Along the way, I got another nice view of The Breakers, framed by some overhanging trees, and as we came around the southwest corner of the mansion again, a picture of Fred at The Breakers.

Our tour of The Breakers was completed, so we walked back out the main gate to see if we could find our way down to the shore.

A Walk Along Sheep Point Cove

When we were done at The Breakers, we stopped back by the car and then walked down Ochre Point Avenue to Ruggles Avenue where we turned left to go down to the shore. We were outside the gates of The Breakers now. You can see the route of our walk that I have marked on the aerial view at right.

When we got down to the water, which is actually Sheep Point Cove at this point, we were treated to expansive views across Sheep Point Cove to more houses over in East Newport. We descended a ramp that carried the walkway down closer to the shore, and then came back along the seawall to sit down and admire the view. Steve took a picture of Fred and I on the seawall, and Fred took his own picture of me at Sheep Point Cove.

The View from Sheep Point

From our vantage point down here by the water, I made a movie looking all around along the water, beginning with a view to the east and ending with the view ahead of us to the west.

We were going to walk along the path from this point to the west. Ahead of us, you could look along the rocky oceanfront. Ahead of us, not far along the walkway, there was a small, round gazebo that was apparently part of the property just north of us at this point- another large estate. You can see it on the aerial view above, and in this picture I took of Fred on the walkway. As we walked along the shore, Fred took some interesting photos, and you can have a look at them if you click on the thumbnail images below. (The last picture was taken just before we left the shore and started through the neighborhood streets to get back to the car.)

As we left the shore and headed up north along Marine Avenue to get back to Ruggles Avenue, Steve took a picture looking back to the ocean.

When we all got back to the car, it was time for some lunch, so we headed back towards downtown Newport. After circling around a bit, we came to an area that had a bunch of shopping and some restaurants. There was a shopping center called Bellevue Garden (since it was on Bellevue Avenue), and there was parking there. Across the street, there was a row of older buildings done in an English Tudor style, and there were a number of restaurants there. We picked one and a good, if somewhat upscale, lunch. Afterwards, we headed over to the second house that we were going to tour. It was located a few blocks south on Bellevue Avenue, so we just left the car where it was and walked down the street, occasionally looking back at downtown Newport.

At the end of the row of buildings along Bellevue Avenue was a 1903 building called the Audrain Building. One of the striking aspects of the building was its facade. The facade is glazed terra cotta in the style of the Italian Renaissance artist Luca della Robbia decorates the facade. Copies of his swaddling infants from the Foundling Hospital in Florence, Italy, appear on the building, which served as medical offices. You can see all of this in Fred's photo.

There were other interesting houses on both sides of Bellevue Avenue, this being one of the very fashionable streets in town. At the Isaac Bell House, Fred stopped to take a picture of an explanatory marker that talked about some of the ornate houses along the avenue. You can read over his shoulder here.

As we walked along Bellevue, we saw some of these houses, and you can see them too if you click here and here.

After we'd walked four blocks, we found The Elms.

A Tour of "The Elms"

The second of the two Newport mansions that we were going to tour on our combination ticket was The Elms.

The Elms is one of the many large mansions, or "summer cottages", that were built by the very wealthy around the turn of the century in Newport. The Elms was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for the coal baron Edward Julius Berwind, and was completed in 1901. Its design was copied from the Château d'Asnières in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. The gardens and landscaping were created by C. H. Miller and E. W. Bowditch, working closely with Trumbauer. The Elms has been designated a National Historic Landmark and today is open to the public. That's us, and we are going to have a look around inside the house and then stroll through the landscaped gardens.

I've pulled in an aerial view of The Elms and marked our tour route on it. We came down Bellevue and turned into the grounds, entering the house from the Bellevue entrance. Before we went in the house, we got some good pictures of the front of it, showing the architecural style. As I said earlier when talking about The Breakers, photos inside the house were not officially allowed, but again I felt that, unless there were some copyrighted work inside that someone tried to take a professional picture of, or unless there were some artifact that might be harmed by continual flash photography, that taking pictures ought to be allowed- provided that by doing so patrons weren't holding up other visitors or causing some sort of commotion. So I did take snapshots- without flash, of course. Many of these did not turn out, the lighting inside being relatively low, but some did, and I'll include them here. Of course, picture-taking outside on the grounds was quite allowable, and we did a lot of that.

I'll begin with some of the best photos that we took from outside the front of the house. You can have a look at these by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

History

The Berwind family had been spending summers in Newport since the early 1890s. Like many of the grandest summer residents of Newport, Edward Berwind was "new money" (his parents were middle-class German immigrants, he made a fortune in coal and was hailed as "one of the 59 men who rule America"); by 1900 his friends included Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhem II of Germany as well as many high-ranking government leaders from Europe and America. By 1898, it was clear that their original property (a small traditional beach cottage) was too small for the grand parties the Berwinds were having, and so they had the place torn down.

The Electrical Panel

Berwind hired Horace Trumbauer to build a much larger house, better fitting his status. Berwind was interested in technology, and The Elms was one of the most sophisticated houses of the time. It was one of the first homes in America to be wired for electricity with no form of backup system, and it also included one of the first electrical icemakers. Electrical equipment was much larger then than it is today, and the electrical equipment in the basement was huge. Take a look at left at what today would be a large fuse box.

A huge party was held with the house opened in 1901, and for the next 20 years, Berwind's wife, Sarah, would spend the summers there, the season being from the 4th of July to the end of August; Berwind would come out only on weekends, for his coal-mining interests kept him in New York during the week. Though the Berwinds had no children, their nephews and nieces would come out to visit on a regular basis. In 1922 Mrs. Berwind died, and Edward asked his youngest sister Julia A. Berwind to move in and become the hostess of The Elms.

When Berwind died in 1936, he willed the house to Julia, who, not being interested in technology, continued to run the house in the same way for the next twenty five years: washers and dryers were never installed at the Elms. Julia was well-known in Newport, and she would invite children from a nearby working-class immigrant neighborhood to the estate for milk and cookies. She did have a love for cars and would drive around Newport every day in one of her luxury cars. This was somewhat shocking to the rest of Newport society where it was considered "unladylike" for women to drive themselves. It was rumored that her social secretary would perform the "white glove test" to make sure there was no dust on the steering wheel before Julia got into the driver's seat.

The Mansion

The estate was constructed from 1899 to 1901 and cost approximately 1.5 million dollars to build. Like most Newport estates of the Gilded Age, The Elms is constructed with a steel frame with brick partitions and a limestone facade. On the first floor the estate has a grand ballroom, a salon, a dining room, a breakfast room, a library, a conservatory, and a grand hallway with a marble floor. The second floor contains bedrooms for the family and guests as well as a private sitting room. The third floor contains bedrooms for the indoor servants.

I know that my pictures of the interior aren't that great, but you can have a look at them nevertheless by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

Mr. Berwind's Bathroom

One of the two movies I took inside the house was this short look at Mr. Berwind's bathroom. The others that we saw were similar.

As with all of the large mansions built in this era that Fred and I have toured, care was taken to provide working areas and quarters for the many servants that such huge houses required. In the Berwind home, there was a special service stairway that led from the basement (actually the ground floor, as the north end of the basement opened out to the service drive at the north side of the house) to every floor, enabling servants to do their work without often being seen.

As I was coming down this stairway, following the audio guide instructions, I took a detour into the china pantry and silver storage room that was one floor above the kitchen. There was a dumbwaiter to take clean china down to the preparation area and dirty dishes down to be washed. Then they were brought back up and stored in their appropriate cabinets. In the middle of this room, there was a large oval opening that looked down into the preparation area. This room also contained the huge steel safe in which the silver and other valuables were kept.

The other movie I made during the house tour was made here, in the china pantry. It was off the beaten path of the tour, and there were no docents anywhere around.

I continued down to the basement/ground floor to the area where the the electrical equipment was. This was also where laundry was done and dishes were washed, and the floor contained servants' quarters as well. But the main focus of this area was, of course, the kitchen. From the kitchen a door led out of the house to the circular service drive, and from there we could continue our walk around the estate by visiting the gardens.

The Grounds

We spent a lot of time wandering around the grounds here at The Elms, so perhaps I ought to break up the pictures into sections.

At left is another aerial view of The Elms, this time concentrating on the grounds. I have marked the areas around which I'll organize the pictures. These areas will be (1) the French terraces at the immediate back of the mansion, (2) the lawn and Weeping Beech tree, (3) the Sunken Garden and (4) the Carriage House area.

The French Terraces

In keeping with the French architecture of the house, the grounds of The Elms (among the best in Newport) were designed in French eighteenth-century taste. Just at the back of the mansion, a series of terraces reminiscent of those one finds at French Chateaux (including Versailles) were constructed, and they were used extensively for parties at the mansion. The Conservatory and all the rooms at the back of the house open onto them or look out over them.

Wandering around on the terraces, Fred and Steve got a number of good pictures of the sculpture and statuary on the terraces. Have a look at some of their pictures by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

Berwind intended that The Elms be a showplace; he was anxious to make sure that people knew of his arrival in the American aristocracy, and so little expense was spared to adorn the outside of the building.

On the roof, at all four corners, there were full-size sculptures that went way beyond the typical gargoyles that you often see. Fred took pictures of a couple of these, and you can see them here and here. On the lintel over each of the many arched windows all around the main floor of the mansion were beautiful carvings of faces- all of them different, so far as I could tell. And between the windows there were vertical carvings of all different subjects. You can look at some of these by clicking on the thumbnails at right.

From my position at the back of The Elms on the French terraces, I made a movie looking around the area and back over the rest of the expansive property.

Walking around on the terraces and looking at the amazing house, it was hard not to snap away, taking picture after picture, and all three of us came away with six or eight different views of The Elms as seen from the terraces.

I've selected six of the best pictures to include here, even though they are somewhat repetitive. Have a look at as many of these as you wish by clicking on the thumbnail images at left. Leaving the terraces, we headed down the broad lawn towards the sunken garden. On the way, we passed an extremely large specimen of the rare Weeping Beech tree.

The Sunken Garden

After we walked past the Weeping Beech tree, we came to the Sunken Garden. Actually, we came to a short wall that had two sets of steps going up about two feet to a raised strip of land. From here, we could get a good view back towards the mansion.

I'll try to key some of these pictures to the aerial view of the sunken garden at left. When we reached point #1, we were right in front of one set of steps leading up to one of the two gazebos that overlooked the sunken garden. You can see Steve, Fred and Mario at that point here. When we went up the steps towards the gazebo, we were about two feet higher than the lawn, and on this level there were two rows of matched junipers that stretched away in both directions towards fountains at either end.

I walked across the strip while Steve took some pictures and came around to the side of the nearest gazebo so that I could look out over the sunken garden; at this point I am standing at #2 on the aerial view. Fred had already gone down into the sunken garden, and while I was still near the gazebo, he snapped a picture of be beside the limestone gazebo. (Of course, you can see that it was more of a little glassed-in room rather than an open-air gazebo.) There was a second, matching gazebo at the other end of the retaining wall above the sunken garden. You can see both of them in the aerial view.

Before I walked down into the garden itself, I made a movie from the middle of the juniper rows, looking both ways down the aisle and back at the main house. You can watch this movie with the player at right.

Then I descended the stairs from the gazebo to join the others down in the garden. The first thing I noticed was that built into the six-foot retaining wall was a set of three fountains (#3 on the aerial view above), one of which you can see here. These were very pretty, and a bit of a surprise. Behind me, in the center of the sunken garden there was another fountain, although this one was not on. Beyond that, up another set of steps to a walkway outside the sunken garden there was a beautiful trellis niche and statue.

Fred took some other nice pictures here in the sunken garden; click on the thumbnails below to have a look at them:

While I was standing by the three fountains, I made a movie of them and of the Sunken Garden, and you can watch it with the player at left.

We all met up again over at the steps up on the other side of the garden (#4), and we sat down to rest for a bit and just admire the beauty of the garden. Fred snapped a good picture of the rest of us sitting on one side of the stairs, and you can have a look at that picture here.

I got one of my best pictures of Fred on the entire trip, and you can have a look at it here.

The Carriage House

Leaving the Sunken Garden, we ambled up the walkway that you can see at the left side in the aerial view below, heading up to the buildings that have been, successively, the carriage house and gardeners' quarters, the garage and now a cafe.

On the edge of The Elms estate, a large carriage house and stables were built, over which lived the stable keepers and gardeners. When the Berwind family began using automobiles, the carriage house and stables were converted into a large garage. The head coachman, in order to keep his job, became the family driver, but he could never learn to back up, so a large turntable had to be installed in the garage. That structure was later replaced by the largest private garage in America, and included two gasoline tanks.

When the house was sold to the Preservation Society, the original purposes were no longer necessary, so now the building houses a cafe, offices and storage.

The Elms Carriage House and Stables

When we arrived at the carriage house, we found a building much larger than I'd thought, and a small garden and a very pretty fountain right in front. There were stairs going up to the carriage house, but before I climbed them, I made a movie of the fountain and the carriage house and stable building. You can watch that movie with the player at right. Then I climbed the stairs to appear in the picture Fred took.

Fred was intrigued by the fountain, and he took a number of pictures of some of the individual figures that surrounded it. You can have a look at these figures by clicking on the thumbnails at left.

 
Meanwhile, I had climbed the stairs to the carriage house, and found the cafe and offices. From the balcony overlooking the little garden and the fountain, I called to the other three guys to gather so I could take their picture, and you can see the result here. When I came down from the cafe patio, I found an interesting statue off to my left. I wasn't sure if it was just me, but there seemed to be something missing. While I was engrossed with the statue, Fred had turned to take a picture with his zoom lens, looking back towards the sunken garden and the gazebos. I thought it was a pretty picture, so I have included it here.

Finished at the carriage house, we continued to follow the walkway that led back around to the north end of The Elms and the exit from the property. Along the way, we passed a huge, particularly interesting tree, and Fred wanted me to snap a picture of him standing at its base. You can see the result here.

Preserving The Elms

When Julia Berwind died in 1961, The Elms was one of the very last Newport cottages to be run in the fashion of the Gilded Age: forty servants were on staff, and Miss Berwind's social season remained at six weeks. Childless, Julia Berwind willed the estate to a nephew, who did not want it and fruitlessly tried to pass The Elms to someone else in the family. Finally the family auctioned off the contents of the estate and sold the property to a developer who wanted to tear it down. In 1962, just weeks before its date with the wrecking ball, The Elms was purchased by the Preservation Society of Newport County for $116,000. Since then, the house has been open to the public for tours. On June 19, 1996, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

We certainly enjoyed touring The Elms, both the house and grounds. The Preservation Society has done an excellent job.

Driving to Provincetown, MA

There was still some time this afternoon, even after a leisurely tour of two mansions and lunch, so I thought it would be interesting to drive out to the end of Cape Cod- to Provincetown, MA. In all my trips to Massachusetts and the surrounding area, this was something I had never done. No one else had anything particular they wanted to do, so it was up to me to fill the rest of the day.

We left Newport and continued east on the highway we'd taken coming in. It was good that we had a GPS, because there were lots of turns and shifting onto one different road after another until we got to the expressway at Fall River. We took that east, picked up US Highway 6 and then just followed that all the way out to the Cape.

I had hoped that even though it was later in the day, that the skies would be clear and we could get some good views, but by the time we got to Wellfleet, MA, just twenty miles from Provincetown, a fairly thick fog had gathered and we couldn't see more than a mile in any direction. One of these days I may want to return here when the weather is nice.

Driving Near Provincetown

There was not much we could see on either side of the road as we came north around Provincetown, following the "hook" of Cape Cod. It would have been beautiful, I am sure, to see water on both sides. The pictures that Steve and Fred were taking as we drove along didn't turn out- we were going too fast for the low light. So I got out my camera and, as I have done numerous times before, just held it up in front of me as I drove for a bit so you could see what the weather and the scenery was actually like. You can watch that movie with the player at right.

As we turned west again on the highway, we were actually passing north of Provincetown, and eventually we reached water again. Then the road curved around south, and it would eventually keep curving around back to the east to go right through Provincetown, but we stopped at an overlook by the water to see what we could see. You can see these features on the aerial view below.

Touring Provincetown

We did a number of different things here in Provincetown, and I am going to divide this section into sections for each of them.

The Jetty

By the time we got out of the car at what appeared to be the extreme west end of Provincetown, it was very foggy and just a bit chilly.

This section may be overkill with all the aerial views, but I found it immensely interesting. I had not taken the time to look at these aerial views before our trip, and I must say that my perception of where I was when I was walking on the jetty turned out to be quite incorrect.

I have zoomed in a bit so you can see more of the detail of this area. You can see the road coming around from the north and beginning to head back to the east, and I've pointed out where we parked.

You can just see the rock jetty (or breakwater) that we eventually walked out on, and you can see that on one side we have a marsh (the water rises and falls with the tide, but because of the jetty it doesn't really flow. On the ocean/bay side of the jetty, the tide goes in and out more forcefully, and we have tidal flats. The type of lifeforms in the two areas are quite different, as it turns out.

You can see in this view that we were not actually at the very tip of Cape Cod; I actually thought that we were. The only way to get to the very tip is to go all the way out the jetty to the sandy hook of land at the end, and then walk east along the beach until you, well, run out of beach. Had I known about the terrain, I might have done some investigation as to just how long the rock jetty was (just about a mile, as it turns out) and then how far it would be to land's end (another mile or so), and known that there wouldn't be time to do the walk and get back before it got dark.

I have zoomed in again (actually as much as Google Earth will allow) to show you an amazing view of the beginning of the jetty. One of the first things we noticed when we got out of the car was that there was a monument of some kind right near where we parked. When we walked over to take a look at it, I was a little surprised by what it said. You can read the inscription here. Since we have returned, I have done some investigation, and it turns out that while school kids learn by rote that the Pilgrims first landed in America by stepping onto Plymouth Rock, this is one of those many, many apocryphal stories that turn out to be a lot less true than one might think. First of all, while there is indeed a rock at Plymouth Harbor due west of here on the Massachusetts shore south of Boston, and while that rock does indeed have the date "1620" carved into it, scholars can find no reference to the rock until approximately 1750, over a century later. It is now thought that the original story was just that- a story, but that someone thought it a good enough story to memorialize it by actually finding a suitable rock at Plymouth (which by then was a bustling little town) and carving the date into it.

But in truth, the Pilgrims did not land first at Plymouth, they actually stepped off the Mayflower here, just west of Provincetown. How long they stayed is still an open question, but it was not long, for they realized that sand dunes and tidal marshes wouldn't make an hospitable place to settle down. Vacation, yes, but settle? No. So they continued on across the open water between Provincetown and the coast south of Boston, and that's where they put down roots. (I guess that many, many years later, when Plymouth- and Boston- were getting crowded, that someone remembered that isolated place they'd first landed, and thought it might be a good place to use to get away from it all.) Interesting.

But now it was time to explore the jetty, stretching out so invitingly from where we'd parked. Over at the shore, we all stopped for a bit to look around, and Steve got a good picture of one of the local denizens taking advantage of the tidal outflow to see what might have been uncovered. Mario didn't particularly want to go out on the rocks, and Steve just went a short way before he bid Fred and I adieu and took our picture as we headed out for a walk on the jetty that stretched away into the fog.

Starting Out on Our Jetty Walk

The jetty reminded me very much of the one my sister and I used to go out on at Muskegon, Michigan, when we were growing up. There, the jetty was a bigger deal, as the water got very deep very quickly. But then it didn't go so far, and you could get to the end pretty quickly. Here, we could see marshland or the shallow bottom of the tidal flat on either side- so no chance of falling in and drowning. There was plenty of local wildlife, some in the water and some not, but all probably looking for their next meal.

A short ways out the jetty, I stopped to make my first movie of Fred walking along past me, and you can have a look at that movie with the player at left. Fred took a couple of good pictures at this point, and you can click on the thumbnails below to have a look at them:

All By Myself

At first we occasionally passed other folks coming back, and for a good while we could see the shoreline behind us. But about the time that the shoreline disappeared, Fred thought that he'd gone far enough, and turned to head back. I wanted to go on a bit further, so I asked Fred to tell the guys that I would be back in 30 minutes or less. I walked on (actually, I enjoyed running from rock to rock), and presently I was all by myself.

When I realized that the only thing I could hear were sea birds and my own breathing, I stopped to enjoy the relative silence. It was a little eerie, and so I made a movie of what it looked like all around me, and you can watch that movie with the player at right.

I hadn't seen anyone since leaving Fred; all I could see was the shallow water on both sides and the jetty extending ahead and behind- and all I could hear were the sea birds. Click on the thumbnails below to see what it looked like ahead of me and behind me:

I was watching my watch, and I still had some time, so I ran off and on for another ten minutes before stopping again.

All By Myself

There seemed to be no end to the rocky path. At the time I had no idea how far it might be to the end (assuming that their was one). So, discretion being the better part of valor, and not wanting to hold the guys up from getting into Provincetown, I reluctantly turned to head back. Before I started back though, I made one final movie, and you can watch it with the player at left. (In the movie, you may think that the darkish area to the right of the jetty is the shore, but it isn't. It is an area of the tidal flats that I passed some time ago.)

Keeping track of the time, I headed back, sometimes walking rapidly, sometimes breaking into a jog and jumping from rock to rock. The rocks were mostly flat and fairly level, so there wasn't any problem at all going quickly. After another fifteen minutes or so, I came within sight of the shore again, and, with a couple of minutes to spare from my 30 minutes, reached the other three guys waiting by the car. It was a really neat walk, but I would like to return sometime, now that I know the lay of the land, and go all the way out to the end of the cape. But I'll wait for a sunny, clear day to do it.

Walking Through Provincetown

Leaving the jetty, we found our way along one of the streets leading into Provincetown. We wanted to just park the car and get out and walk, so we circled around until we found a convenient place on the street to leave the car for a while. As it turned out, the street we parked on was a nice one for walking, and gave us a flavor of what living in Provincetown, or being a tourist here, must be like.

So that you can follow us along on our stroll through town, to the Pilgrim Memorial, to dinner and back to the car, I have constructed a large aerial view of the area of Provincetown that we covered. You won't see exactly where we parked, but that's not really important.

The window at left contains the aerial view. The view was way too large to simply place on the page, so the window is scrollable- you can follow us around town by using the horizontal and vertical scroll bars. You should begin by scrolling all the way to the bottom and all the way to the left (until you see the yellow route line and the legend "Walking Along Bradford Street").

To begin with, we actually parked on Bradford Street a few blocks southwest of where the aerial view begins, but you can see us coming into the view along the route marked "Walking Along Bradford Street." When we got out of the car, Fred went across the street to take our picture.

Then, we followed the marked yellow route northeast along Bradford Street, heading towards the Pilgrim Monument, the tall tower that we could see in the distance. Bradford Street was lined with guest houses- much like bed and breakfasts. Although the afternoon was overcast and a bit grim, the bright colors and many whimsical decorations made it seem nicer. Romeo's Guest House had an extremely kitschy display out front, and one house had what seemed to be some sort of Hindu shrine out back. If you would like to see some of the buildings and displays, just click on the thumbnail images below:

The middle picture, above, of the display at Romeo's deserves a closer look, and you can see Fred's closeup here. We continued walking along Bradford Street until we were quite close to the tower of the Pilgrim Monument. On Bradford Street, there is a part of the Memorial- and we walked over to take a look at it. From down below, we could look up at the tower, but we wanted to get closer. It seemed as if there had to be a road up to the tower, and a little bit further along Bradford Street we found it and walked up. (As it turned out, the actual entrance road is back along Bradford; we actually walked up the exit road.) The Memorial had already closed for the day, but there was an explanatory sign telling about the Memorial and the tower; you can read that sign here.

Between us, we took a number of pictures of the tower in the fading evening light and fog. A few of them turned out decently, and although they are all somewhat repetitive, I've included four of the best ones here. Just click on the thumbnails below to view:

From the Memorial, we walked back down the exit road and then up Bradford for a short ways. We crossed the street to investigate a restaurant called Napi's, but it looked to be a bit too expensive. So we continued east to Commerce Street, and then walked north and back south looking at all the restaurants. We stopped a few locals to ask for a recommendation, but no one was really enthusiastic about anything. Coming back south, we settled on a restaurant right near the main intersection called The Lobster Pot. It turned out to have a fairly extensive menu, with salads for Steve and Mario, fish for Fred and a burger for me.

When we were done, we continued southwest along Commerce Street, eventually finding a side street that took us back to Bradford and the car.

Provincetown seems to be an interesting place, and I can only imagine how busy it must be in the summer or when the weather is nicer than it was this evening.

Returning to Providence

I'd been driving for most of the day, so Steve took over for the trip back to the Best Western in Providence. On the way, we took a slight detour to drop in on my friend Tony Hirsch. He lives in Rochester, MA, and Fred and I had stopped to see him on our way up to Acadia in 2008, so I knew the way to his house. Steve and Mario, of course, had never met him. He'd been gone on Saturday when we arrived, and was away most of today, but asked us to stop by this evening, even if it was late.

So we just basically retraced the route we'd taken to get out here (not making the wrong turn that we'd made before), and then eventually exited off I-195 towards Wareham, MA. To get to Rochester and Tony's house requires going about three miles off the freeway along some country roads. It is a bit dark, but I knew the way and we had the GPS as well. We found Tony's house with not much problem.

Tony was glad to see Fred and I again, and he was happy to meet Mario and Steve. I was conscious of the fact that Mario and Steve didn't know Tony from Adam, so we kept the visit short, and tried not to delve too much into stories that only Tony and I would get anything out of. But I think that Mario and Steve (and Fred, too) got to know something of the history that Tony and I shared- having spent a good deal of time working together at the beginning of the software revolution.

We left about eleven, and Steve followed the GPS directions and got us back to the Best Western.

Tomorrow begins our first of five days of state capitols, so Steve will be in his element.

You can use the links below to go to another day of our New England trip or return to the Index page.

	September 26, 2011: The Rhode Island and Connecticut State Capitols
	September 24, 2011: Getting to Providence, RI
	Return to the Index for our New England Trip