New England – Fall 2010 – Day 14: Newport

We had taken advice from the reception staff about Newport and had planned, using the map they had provided, driving into Newport to buy breakfast then driving the route round the coast, known unsurprisingly as Ocean Drive, this would take us into the mansion area of the town where we would find the Tennis Hall of Fame and other houses to visit before we finished with the Cliff Walk.
It was Sunday so we were not hugely shocked to find few eating establishments open. We chose the Ocean Breeze Café, there was free of charge unlimited people watching but strangely we seemed to watch other people getting served while we waited and waited, some of the people served before us had arrived after us but as we are English we are pre-programmed not to complain. Perhaps that was the premise of an experiment we were unwittingly the subject of because when the order finally arrived it was wrong! The genius behind the experiment would now have claimed victory when we refused to object but in fact we were being pragmatic, we could not waste the rest of the day waiting for a re-cooked order.
After this annoying start we moved to phase two of the master plan. The Ocean Drive was stunning; every corner took us to another small bay. They were mainly rocky with moored motor boats and small dwellings which in fairness probably cost small fortunes.
We decided to take our photos on our return journey so we pressed on to the mansions situated on Bellevue Avenue; they are placed on the coast to provide an ocean view behind and a civilized location at their front. On Bellevue Avenue is the Tennis hall of Fame situated in the Newport Casino, which still operates as a members’ tennis club and the only grass courts available for public hire in the USA. Casino is a misleading name so I include the following to clarify, before reading it please bear in mind the adage that the “rich are different to us”.
The Newport Casino, home of the International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum, was first opened on July 26, 1880. The origins of the Newport Casino unfold as follows. The setting was Newport, Rhode Island, August 1879. James Gordon Bennett, the influential publisher of America’s leading newspaper the New York Herald, and Captain Henry Augustus Candy, retired officer of the Queen’s 9th Royal Lancers and skillful British Polo player, were the two key figures in the origins of the Newport Casino. Bennett, as a summer resident, was a member of the Newport Reading Room, a gentlemen-only club, which was a gathering place for prominent Newporters. As Bennett’s guest, Captain Candy also enjoyed the benefits of Reading Room membership. The story goes that one late summer day, the two men were up for some amusing entertainment and Bennett presumably bet or dared Captain Candy to ride his polo horse up onto the front porch of the Reading Room. Candy, without hesitation, mounted his horse and rode onto the porch…and then proceeded into the club! Although Candy won the afternoon wager, club members expressed their displeasure at the insulting disruption. The Governors of the Reading Room were also not amused and revoked the guest privileges of Captain Candy. Bennett was not one to be chastised and tempers flared, all resulting in the end of Bennett’s Reading Room membership.
Bennett’s loss was our gain, as Bennett turned his attention to building an establishment; a “new club house” to serve summer visitors that would be both public and private. In the late fall of 1879, Bennett commissioned the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White to design and build the facility. McKim, Mead and White was the premier architectural firm of the late 19th and early 20th Century, and the Newport Casino was one of the firm’s earliest projects. Stanford White has often been credited with the Victorian shingle-style design of the Casino, although it was Charles McKim who was responsible for capturing the symmetry and balance of the Bellevue Avenue façade, inclusive of its revenue producing storefronts. The name, Newport Casino, was never meant to refer to gaming and gambling, as the word casino stems from the Italian word cascina, meaning “little summer house.”
Construction underway, the Newport Casino complex was built in only six months. On July 26th, a soft opening was held with guest admittance by invitation only. One week later, on August 2nd, the public was invited to inspect the premises and more than 3,000 attended. The Newport Casino offered a block of shops on Bellevue Avenue, a restaurant and gentlemen’s lodging. Archery, billiards, concerts, dancing, dining, horse shows, lawn bowling, reading, tea parties and theatricals, along with the staples of its present day offerings of lawn tennis, croquet, and court tennis, were all part of the social scene. Writing three days after the opening, the Newport News boasted, “It is doubtful if a more lively place can be found.”
With its centralized three-story clock tower, the main building consisted of ground floor shops and second story clubrooms (clubrooms solely for the private members). The Billiards Room was the most popular of the club rooms, lofty and spacious with full-size windows overlooking the courtyard. Towards the east of the property bordering Freebody Street was the Casino Theatre and Court Tennis building. A full-length piazza porch with upper and lower levels connected these two impressive structures.We parked in the lot of a mall opposite the THoF and went in. The initial area before entering the museum is hugely impressive the buildings of the club/museum wrap round a well tended grass court. Having been brought up playing on grass I would suggest that the grass itself was a little longer than perfect but I think that it was that length as play for the season had finished a week or two before and the courts were being allowed to recover. Since tennis is an upper class sport it will not come as a shock that this club, deep in the oldest wealthy area of the country, hosted the first national championships which grew, in turn, into the US Open.
Having paid admission we could wander the exhibits inside the museum and also the gardens and courts not open to the non-paying public.
In the museum we saw many tennis collectables and I now make my claim to fame. I would wager that of their many guests I would be the one who has hit with the oldest racket, on the wall amongst many others was a three stemmed wooden tennis racket, the Hazel Streamline, my uncle John had one when I had just taken up tennis and I got to use it. Strangely it disappeared somewhere between then and now and my cousins cannot recall its existence. I now see these rackets on sale for hundreds of pounds.
The hall of fame part of the museum left me a bit cold as I knew pretty much all of the inductees and their bios told me very little I didn’t know already. The museum part was pretty varied, there were old drawing rooms of vintage furniture and then there are modern glass cases with players’ kit and equipment. It was an impressive experience overall and it got better when we left the building and walked the grounds. There are multiple grass tennis courts, a clay court and a block of indoor courts. We then came upon a Real Tennis court, the oldest form of tennis played originally by such as King Henry VIII, the most famous example of a court being the one at Hampton Court, a royal residence. We wandered onto the viewing gallery and met up with a member of the club who was running a National Real Tennis championship which unfortunately was taking a break while we were there. While we in England call this brand of tennis “Real” the Americans imported it as “Court” tennis, both names seem to imply superiority to simple outdoor tennis.
After the THoF we drove back along Bellevue Avenue and parked in the car park for the Rosecliff Mansion, however we decided against buying the house with our entrance fee so we set off to find the Cliff Walk. We took a considerable time to find our way through to the walk, once on the walk we found it a little disappointing. The walk was billed as being flanked by the ocean on one side and massive houses on the other, which was true enough in its way but the ocean along there is bland compared to many other stretches in New England and the houses have protected their privacy with walls and fences. The owners of the mansions both famous and lesser have tried to avoid being overlooked from the walk even to the point of digging tunnels under their land to allow them and their guests to see, and get to, the shoreline without being bothered by poor people.
It was enjoyable and quite strenuous walking often over scattered boulders and we found our way back to the car after about two hours.
Now we retraced our path along the ocean drive and stopped twice for photos. We then stopped off in a larger bay where there was a pair of cruise liners anchored here we got into a discussion with an American couple of veteran cruisers whereas we were representing the cruisers of more limited experience.
We returned to the hotel and later went to the local estate where we ate at the 99 Restaurant which we found very economic and welcoming. We located at the same time a Dunkin Donuts which was penciled in as our breakfast venue the following day.