The Good Life, Our day among the rich and famous in Newport Rhode Island, 17 June, 2008

Pictures: Marble House, The Elms, The Breakers, Rosecliff and a  pretty walkway at Rosecliff.  

Tuesday turned out to be a bright day in the mid ’70’s and a perfect day for a drive to Newport to tour some mansions. Vanessa got to experience Boston traffic at its best. We were on 93 south and at a dead stop due to a tractor trailer flipping over on its side. We got off when we could and navigated our way with a fairly un-detailed map through side streets until we found an alternate way.

The mansions were all built around the turn of the 20th century and represented the best of the guilded age. High society indeed. The owners of these mansions represented the captains of industry and financiers of the time. The Vanderbilts, the Ascots and many other names that I didn’t recognise, although I certainly recognized their companies including Dominoes Sugar.

Opulence and fine living at it’s best where women were regularly expected to change into 4 - 7 outfits during the day for various activities (how they had time to actually do anything with all of that changing of clothes is beyond me!)

We got to see 4 mansions during the afternoon. The two Vanderbilt mansions: The Breakers with its outdoor loggia and incredible sea vier, wonderful fireplaces, incredible bathrooms with tubs carved out of 1 solid piece of marble and hot and cold running SALT water and Marble House with more marble than I’ve ever seen in my life! The woman who built Marble House was quite a strong personality and was one of the early suffragette movement leaders. She had china made with “Votes for Women” imprinted on them. Didn’t stop her from working her scullery maids to death or from torturing her daughter by making her wear a metal device designed to give her the “neck of a swan” in preparation for marrying her off to a British nobleman. We also saw The Elms and Rosecliff, setting to many famous movies (“The Great Gatsby” and “The Betsy”) and more famous scenes (the tango scene from “True Lies” and one of the weddings from the more recent “27 Dresses”).

After our mansion excursion we walked around the harbour where I was pleased to see a yacht flying a flag depicting red socks at half mast. My Kiwi friends and any die hard sailors will know exactly what that signifies. For the others please google Peter Blake and read all about New Zealand’s arguable most famous sailor who took the Kiwi’s to victory and one successful defense of the America’s Cup (we won’t talk about the last 2 defenses).

We felt weighted down by all of the money we were carrying around so were obligated to leave some of it in a few of the shops around the waterfront. Dinner was a fun, seaside restaurant where we both had baked, stuffed lobsters (for those of you keeping count, yes...I had 3 lobster dinners in a row). Nothing like New England lobster! After a quick trip to Ben and Jerry’s (conveniently located by our car) we drove back to Boston and narrowly escaped the gridlock that ensued after the Celtics whooped the Laker’s butts in an NBA playoff game at the Garden.