A LOT OF AMERICA IN A SMALL SPACE: NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND
Story and photography
by Eric Anderson & Nancy Allen

But you need to drive along Bellevue Avenue too and gape at the "summer cottages" the robber barons of America erected for the comfort of their 8-week season away from humid Manhattan. The Newport Mansions are, of course, one of the most publicized of all the city's attractions newportmansions.org. Tel 401-847-1000. Most are open to the pubic and admission fees are reasonable. The mansions, "America's First Castles," were built from 1748 to 1902 in the great days before income tax. The best known are Rosecliff designed by Stanford White and featured in the movie "The Great Gatsby" and Marble House, built by William K. Vanderbilt with half a million cubic feet of marble and much ostentatious gold leaf. The Breakers, arguably the grandest, is the former home of Cornelius Vanderbilt who had some of the rooms constructed entirely in Europe then shipped to Newport. There are 70 rooms and 23 bathrooms. A guide with a surprising sense of humor in so solemn a dwelling tells her visitors the bathrooms had sitz baths because Vanderbilt guests "did a lot of horseback riding!"

By far the best Mansion experience is that at the Astors' Beechwood where young professional actors, in costume portraying servants and family show guests around the summer home of Caroline Astor who, with her diamond collection, the largest in the United States, set herself up as the Queen of American Society. Amongst her so-called accomplishments was creating America's first social register, "The 400." Entry required members to have third generation wealth, with at least $1 million in ready cash and never to have worked a day in their lives! One wonders why communism didn't make an appearance in Newport before it ever came to Russia. astorsbeechwood.com

Other attractions in town include the Naval War College Museum whose 1820 building spotlights the 100 year-old history of the nation's training ground in the science of naval warfare; and the Museum of Newport History which goes even further back. The Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, built in 1675, is Newport's oldest restored residence and the Touro Synagogue dedicated in 1763 is America's oldest synagogue.