MARBLE HOUSE

Marble House was the summer home of William and Alva Vanderbilt. It was built between 1888 and 1892. Alva was quite the lover of mythology and the Greek and Roman styles of architecture.

The house was a birthday present from William to Alva but if she was thrilled, it wore off quickly. She divorced him in 1895, remarried and moved down the street to Belcourt Castle. But she moved back into Marble House after her second husband died.

The bronze front doors. Each door weighs 1 1/2 tons. At the time considered the most important metalwork manufactured in this country.

The entry hall.

This has been called, "the fanciest dining room in America". Mrs. Vanderbilt greatly admired King Louis XIV and there are two portraits of him in this room. The walls are pink Numidian marble from Africa, which had not been used since ancient times. The Vanderbilts has the quarry reopened.

As I wrote in the last post, the gold in here and the other rooms is not paint. It is all gold leaf.

The library.

The Gothic Room.

I've discussed decorating with gold leaf. But if you're a Vanderbilt, why just decorate ? Why not make an entire room of gold ? Like this -

The Gold Room.

After she moved back into the house, the owner decided she wanted, ".... a summer house on this point, but not the usual thing...".  So she designed and had built a Chinese Tea House.

In the next post we'll visit the Chateau-su-mer.

NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

To be more accurate, The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Smallest state, longest name. And considering that it is only 37 miles wide, its 400 miles of shoreline is pretty impressive too.

Newport, the Gilded Age Mansions, oh excuse me - "Summer Cottages". "If you've got it, flaunt it" was obviously the motto.  Before we'd even gotten inside a mansion we had bought an annual membership because it was only $10.00 more than the 5 house package. And there were nine properties on the tour. Our plan of one day in Newport looked shaky at best.

The first and most impressive cottage was "The Breakers", a Vanderbilt Mansion. 70 rooms, 62,482 sq ft on five floors.

 From the street.

 The ocean side.

 The Great Hall

The Great Hall from the second floor. This room is over 50 ft high.

And now I admit, I don't know what to do. Our division of labor has been that Carol takes the pictures and I write the Blog and pick the pictures for it.

She took 110 pictures.

Of this one house.

Actually, I'm pretty sure she took more than that but deleted many of them.

After these four, I just don't know what to do. EVERY room is more ridiculously extravagant than the one before.  When you can afford to spend over $7,000,000. in 1895 - that's equivalent to over $150,000,000. today - you can make a pretty outrageous statement. Like 33 rooms JUST FOR THE SERVANTS.

The self-guided audio tour is 45 minutes. But, to quote a docent, "If you have extra time, there is more information on most of the rooms." We were there about 3 hours.

The music room. A fine example of "gilding". There is no gold paint in this room. Everything that looks like gold is - gold leaf. Applied inch by inch to cover the surfaces. Its thickness can vary from as thick as 1/250,000th of an inch to as thin as 4 and 5 millionths of an inch. So incredibly fragile that it most likely cost as much for the labor to install it as the actual cost of the gold.

If you're going to put a door on a cabinet, might as well decorate it with a little bit of carving.

The dining room - seating for 36. The children were not allowed. The rule was broken for a birthday party but the youngest child was still not allowed. She locked everybody in and - HORROR - they had to exit through the servants' entrance.

The library. With lots more gold leaf.

The kitchen. Carol loved this room. I think because no women were ever allowed in here. She says that she also liked the copper pots. The coal fired cast iron stove is over 21 ft long. No "burners", the entire surface was used.

 Many of the facts apply to all of the "cottages", such as - there were custom made covers for every piece of furniture, chandelier, wall sconce, art and decorative piece to protect them for the 42 weeks the house was unused. A small staff would live in the house year round but the house servants would travel with the family back to NYC or FL or wherever they went. All their silver went with them too, in custom made trunks.

We started our tour with the largest, but the neighbors did a pretty good job at their attempt of "keeping up with the Vanderbilts."

To be continued........

NEW ENGLAND IN THE SPRING ? ? ?

It is Tuesday, June 6 and we are at Mt. Desert Narrows RV Resort  near Bar Harbor, ME. ONE WEEK in New England and WOOHOO, this is the first time we've had Wifi.

Just a couple of reminders - "click" on any blue link for more information. "Click" on any picture to see a full size picture in a new window.

On May 30th we left Salem with the Airstream to spend a couple of weeks in New England. We had planned a 3 week plus trip to New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada but had to cut it short because of a KAIROS event in June. Many of you know that KAIROS is a prison ministry that I have been active with for several years. As a minion - show up, do what I'm told, go home. I enjoyed it. But I missed a Council meeting last fall so I will be leading the weekend in October. AND, that includes leading an event in June.
 
Anyway, our first plan for June was New Orleans and Mississippi to visit Airstream friends and friends I had made during the summer I worked a Katrina camp. But we went to Orlando for two weeks in May and decided it was already way too hot for New Orleans. Maybe next March or April. We are certainly avoiding the heat by going to New England. We left Salem in bright sunshine and 80 degrees. The first night we stopped in a Sam's parking lot in Middletown, NY in 45 degrees and rain.

The next day we toured Mystic Seaport on our way to a campground in Massachusetts. 55 degrees and rain. But the rain was intermittent and we had a great time.


A replica of the lighthouse on Brant Point Light on Nantucket Island.

The Joseph Conrad, originally a Danish training ship. Built in Copenhagen in 1882, she is a steel hulled tall ship.

The Charles W. Morgan, a whaling bark built in 1841. This is the only wooden whaling ship still in existence and she was actively whaling until 1921.

The Draken Harald Hårfagre, the world's largest Viking Ship. Click on the link to learn about its voyage from Norway to the US.

After a full day at Mystic Seaport we headed to our campground in Rochester, MA. We picked this because it was centrally located between our next three places to visit, Newport, Plymouth and Cape Cod. We planned one day exploring each. That did not work. Our first day in Newport we realized we would spend at least two and maybe all three days there. You'll see why in my next post. So here we go again.

 Nothing goes as planned - something better always happens.

God is good. Every day.