A small detachment of us headed to Newport RI, to go tour the
Mansions [or what their original
owners referred to as "summer cottages", heh] and see
the area. It was a totally *perfect* day for taking a road-trip and walking
around outside. As a destination we picked the Elms as one of the larger
places and where to park; the lot was nearing full as we arrived but we found
a spot pretty easily. Parking is for the most part free. When the lots on
the mansion properties overflow, people just stack 'em up on the side streets.
[This might take a little while to fully load, as it includes numerous
thumbnails. |
Right when walking up from the car I spotted this on the roof of the Elms,
stark against the stunningly crystalline-blue sky.
It may have inspired creation of the internet's first
lolstatuary.
[WTF is that? Go here to find out.] |
Embellishment over one of the front doors at Elms. |
Back side of Elms, very common canonical shot. |
On the expansive lawn behind Elms, there's a huge stand of weeping beech. It forms a very spacious, shadey "fort" underneath which is great to hang out inside. |
Looking down from the top of the moon-gate, with the iron rods both holding it together and forming rudimentary safety rails as you walk over it. |
Our stroll took us past many interesting sights along the way, including some nice classic buildings which are evidently part of a local college. |
And more odd trees. This one was particularly gnarly along most of its branches -- no idea why, but this one would be really scary at night. |
Next stop, Marble House. This isn't it, this is the pagoda out back where nowadays they have wedding ceremonies and the like. It's at one corner of a large gorgeous lawn overlooking the bay. |
Detail of the pagoda roof. I always wondered what a construction nightmare those curved corners must be. Keeping them rainproof clearly involves a bit of kludgery with flashing. |
Off the end of the lawns along this stretch runs the so-named Cliff Walk, which goes along quite a bit of the shoreline and is fairly heavily fenced off from the properties. |
Here you can see it snaking along behind several more houses ... |
... and that's pretty far away. [Same shot, zoomed out] |
We were out of time to actually *tour* Rosecliff, but we stopped in and took a stroll around the exterior. |
Back lawn of Rosecliff, another elegant spread of green that in this case ends in a wall rather than just dropping off. |
These two [near center in previous picture] were going nuts with the camera; they must have squeezed off over a dozen of each other sitting on the wall in the brief time a couple of us were leaning over it looking at the bay. What ever happens to the terabytes of badly-shot image data that must walk out of this town every day?? Some may show up on Myspace or something, blech. At least I go through my stuff and pick the best ones, and then try to do subtle little enhancements to it when needed. And today I was actually trying to keep the snap-o-mania down to a dull roar. |
A strange shed off the side of Rosecliff, with a bunch of what seemed to be primer-painted furniture and interior construction elements. Maybe this stuff is for events like the big flower shows? |
The fountain is at one end of another serene aisle of the Elms lawn, looking a bit different in the late-day light now. |
The same aisle from the other end, with the other fountain and a different
exuberance of naked cavorting.
[from second trip] |
Bench detail.
[from second trip] |
Ironwork in the wall near Elms carriage-house, from the bordering street.
[from second trip] |
Traffic getting through Newport center and out toward home was a very slow
crawl since everyone else was leaving around the same time too, but fairly
polite with people letting each other in off side streets and again, no hurry
to get anywhere. Our only downside was that we were *really* hungry by now,
and trying to figure out where to get food. We wandered down a couple of
back streets [which are very narrow and cute in that typical New England
coastal-town way], but it was clear that there was little or no parking to be
had. We wound up heading a short way out of Newport proper and found a little
local burger-n-icecream joint on 138 called Newport Creamery.
So, we learned a few things on this trip which can likely help make future visits go more smoothly:
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Trip 2, Sep 2009
On a more off-season run, the highly popular Breakers property was not nearly as overrun with tourists and we finally got to go really see it. Not quite as many exterior pictures this time, but here are a few.
Breakers is "beachfront property"; the back of the house looks out over high cliffs to a wide ocean vista. The Cliff Walk passes below. |
Interestingly bricked ceiling under the outermost arches in the previous picture. |
This shows the wide variety of embellishment styles used just in one section of the rear wall of the house. I'm especially amused by the "limestone Legos". |
Funny little sundial stand in the side garden. No longer a sundial, with the vertical vane missing [not to mention being shaded for much of the day]. |
Kind of an odd place for this, surrounded by pachysandra, but there it is. A circus animal theme? Not sure. |
The massive old trees get so heavy they're possibly more vulnerable to wind damage than younger ones; this has messed up a good chunk of the back lawn. |