In between nuptial-related festivities and visits to Gilded Age mansions, we also explored the historic center of Newport a bit. The mansions along Bellevue Avenue may be the top attraction in town, but the precincts between the northern stretch of the same avenue and the wharves to the west are full of colorful pockets and impressive edifices.
One such point of interest is the Newport Art Museum, an architectural landmark in its own right.
Built in the early stages of Newport’s property boom for an Old China Trade merchant by the name of Griswold, the building is a quintessential specimen of the American Stick architecture style. While visually recalling the European Fachwerk construction, the style is decidedly not the same, since exposed beams here are purely cosmetic and carry no structural load.
In a bid to boost my architecture-lover bona fides, I will mention that the Griswold House was a defined target for me on this trip. The various balconies and extensions sheltered by deep eaves are standout examples of enlarging the interior floor plan towards the outside in architectural innovations of the time, as mentioned in an architecture book that I had read years ago. Whenever I come across a mention of remarkable architecture, I add the building in question to my travel-prep maps, and the Griswold House was pinned on my map of Newport. Perusing the art collection on display could not fit into our itinerary, but stopping by to admire the exterior was definitely an item on the agenda.
You can hardly miss this building if you are driving around Newport – or riding on public transport – for a non-trivial amount of time. It sits at the nexus of several major routes through town.
In the park across the street from the museum stands the structure known alternatively as Newport Windmill Tower or Old Stone Mill.
Although it is definitively dated to the mid-17th century, its origins and purpose are shrouded in uncertainty. The “windmill” in its name comes from the papers of a colonial governor who owned the land at the time the tower was constructed. There is no direct evidence that it ever operated as a windmill, and the historians converge on the likelihood that it was built as one purely because there are examples in England of stone tower windmills that are similar to this structure. Or, maybe, because all other theories – focused on unsubstantiated notions of pre-Columbian settlers – are decidedly less plausible.
As the open gate in the above picture suggests, you can step inside the enclosure.
One other point of interest on our itinerary was Touro Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue building in the United States, at 263 years old.
The interior is rather subdued and simple.
The Torah scrolls are said to be nearly 500 years old (a gift to the Newport community from the Jewish community in Amsterdam), and yet are kept in an Ark that is neither hermetically sealed nor climate-controlled. The internet tells me that the status of the building as a National Historic Site prevents any alterations towards modernity, even for the purposes of preserving something as irreplaceable as an ancient scroll, so caretakers monitor the environment and use passive preservation methods inside the Ark to protect the parchment and ink from decay.
On the surface, a few minutes should be more than enough to stop by to see Touro Synagogue. However, unless you come and stay for a service, there are only a couple of visit options at specific times on Sundays and Mondays. The problem with that “guided” tour is that it is essentially a 35-minute lecture, read from a stack of printed sheets by an amiable member of the local Jewish community who is clearly neither a professional nor an expert to any degree. In addition to covering the history of the community and the temple, the script goes into hardly essential biographical details of the prominent families connected with the synagogue, and within five minutes or so the lecture becomes entirely extraneous. Very little time is spent discussing the features of the temple, and a lot of time is spent on recounting which famous people had an occasion to visit the synagogue in the time of its existence.
Forty people or so paid for this tour in advance and joined the group at the time we visited. At least one couple walked out after about 15 minutes. We stayed for the duration, and I suppose it was still a mitzvah on our part, but it was not time well spent.
The view from the steps of the synagogue towards town suggests what the historic center of Newport is like – full of diverse examples of Colonial architecture.
Colorful, variedly impressive, and unerringly eye-catching buildings dating from anywhere between the late 18th century and the early 20th century appear throughout the historic core.
Just as in the previous post, I’ll complete this narrative with a few visuals of the points of interest that we did not revisit on this latest trip.
Ochre Court should have really appeared in the set with other mansions, as it is clearly another Gilded Age grand residence. In fact, it is the second-largest mansion in Newport. The French Gothic-style building is now the administrative center of Salve Regina University. I suspect that some of its interior splendor can still be admired by the visitors to the university’s Office of Admissions.
The Breakers, the Ochre Court, the Rough Point, and quite a few other mansions on the waterfront are well viewed from the Cliff Walk, the 3.5-mile-long coastal path running from Easton Beach to Bailey Beach north-south. We traversed a large portion of it on our first visit.
The last picture is of Bannister’s Wharf. I used it as the prime example of my newfound interest in photographic post-processing some time after returning from that first trip to Newport.
And with that, we’ll look forward to the next trip that is coming up really, really soon.