Gilded Age Redux
The Providence Sunday Journal, January 18, 2009
by Bill Van Siclen, Journal Arts Writer
Growing up in landlocked Missouri, Michael Kathrens often dreamed of a magical city perched on the edge of the sea and filled with magnificent houses designed by some of the world's greatest architects. Now, he's written a book about that magical place: Newport, R.I.
"It really has been a dream of mine," says Kathrens, a freelance writer and architectural historian now based in New York City, "Long before I ever actually visited the city, I fell in love with Newport and especially the great Gilded Age mansions-places like The Breakers, The Elms, Marble House. To my childhood eyes, they were as beautiful and distant fairy-tale castles."
Though still fascinated by the summer "cottages" built by the Dukes, Astors, Vanderbilt and other 19th-century "robber barons," the now 54-year-old Kathrens is anything but star struck. In fact, his book, Newport Villas: The Revival Styles, 1885-1935 (W.W. Norton), may be the most thorough and accessible guide to Newport's Gilded Age mansions yet published.
At the same time, Newport Villas, due in bookstores next week, may not be for everyone. Weighing in at nearly 400 pages and featuring detailed histories and descriptions of more than 30 Newport mansions, it's not exactly light reading. The book's suggested retail price - $85 in hardcover-may also deter some buyers,especially in today's sputtering economy.
Readers who purchase the book expecting lavish color spreads on The Breakers and other Bellevue Avenue mansions may also be disappointed. In fact, apart from a few color photographs, Newport Villas is illustrated almost entirely with archival black-and-white photos. The result is something of a hybrid--a plush coffee table book that's also a work of serious scholarship.
Still, for anyone who's been dazzled by the sheer opulence of the great Newport mansions-and I'm guessing that includes most Rhode Islanders-Newport Villas is a must-have.
Not only does Kathrens offer detailed information on all of the famous Bellevue Avenue "cottages," including The Breakers, Rosecliff, The Elms and Chateau-sur-Mer, but his discussions of lesser known properties such as Hopedene, Miramar and Shamrock Cliff are equally thorough.
During a phone interview last week, Kathrens explained that one of his motivations was a desire to call attention to some of Newport's: "hidden gems."
"As a tourist in Newport, you're practically required to visit the same few properties," he said. "You start with The Breakers, move on to The Elms and finish up at Marble House or Chateau-sur-Mer. If you still have time., maybe you stop by Rosecliff or Belcourt Castle. And, of course, they're all beautiful houses-and more importantly they're accessible to the public. But the number of architecturally significant mansions, or what I'm calling villas, is actually much larger."
As an example, Kathrens points to Hopedene, a handsome Georgian-style villa overlooking Easton's Beach,d designed but the Boston firm of Peabody & Stearns. Completed in 1902, Hopedene was one of the few Newport "cottages" built for native Rhode Islanders: Its original owners were John Whipple Slater, a descendant of mill owner and industrial pioneer Samuel Slater, and Elizabeth Hope Gammell Slater, part of the wealthy Ives clan of Providence.
Sadly, the Slaters' relationship did not fare well. (The philandering John Slater was banished from the couple's houses in Newport and Providence within a year of their marriage; John, in turn, accused his wife of being "frigid" and failing to perform her wifely duties.) Fortunately, the scandal had little effect on Hopedene, which, in Katherns' opinion, turned out rather well.
"It's just a great house, though relatively underappreciated," he said. "The proportions, the attention to detail, the combination of red brick and the white marble details--it's all really well done. The Slaters may not have had a happy life, but their house is wonderful."
Another favorite is Whiteholme, a Palladian-style villa designed John Russell Pope. Though the estate no longer exists--it was torn down in 1963 to make way for the newly formed Salve Regina College--Kathrens considers it an important early work by Pope, who went on to design the Jefferson Memorial and the National Gallery of Art, among other notable structures.
"It's definitely the work of a young architect, " Kathrens said. "The massing isn't as harmonious as it might be, and the combination of French and Italian influences is not full resolved. But it's still a great house--and a house that definitely should have been saved."
Asked about the book's lack of color photographs, Kathrens said he wanted readers to see the houses as they were originally built and decorated. That, in turn, meant using only archival photographs from the Redwood Library, the Preservation Society of Newport County and other sources. "From the beginning, the goal was to show the estates in their original context," he said. "Will the fact that we don't have a lot of color shots of The Breakers and The Elms disappoint some people? Probably. But for anyone who wants to know how these houses looked when they were new--and how people actually lived in them--the older photographs are a lot more evocative."
At the same time, Kathrens said he consciously avoided trying to write an academic tome. Instead, he aimed at a middle ground, one that combined research and readability.
"Basically, it's written for people like me," he said. "We're the sort of readers who don't mind a little scholarship as long as it's not too technical or too full of itself.
In fact, Newport Villas is chock full of fascinating (and at times titillating) information, about both the great Newport mansions and the people who built them. In his entry on Rosecliff, for example, Kathrens notes that its $300,000 construction cost was less than one-tenth that of nearby mansions such as The Breakers and The Elms. (The reason: Its designer, Stanford White, used plaster and stucco in place of more expensive materials such as limestone or marble.)
Ochre Point, meanwhile, was the first house in Newport to be wired for electricity--in 1895. Fifty years later, the same estate was offered as headquarters for a fledging diplomatic organization known as the United Nations. When the U.N. declined, the property went to the Dioceses of Providence and, later, to Salve Regina College (now Salve Regina University.)
Born and raised in Kansas City, Kathrens first became interested in Newport through books and travel magazines. Later, he said, he began collecting information about the city and its Gilded Age mansions with the idea of writing a book about them. That research resulted in two earlier books--American Splendor: the Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer, (2002) and The Great Houses of New York, 1880-1930 (2005) -- both of which dealt with Gilded Age architecture. Still, Kathrens' ultimate goal remained the same: to write a book that would celebrate the great villas and mansions of Newport. And now, with Newport Villas, he's done just that.
"In a sense, this is the book I've been working toward all my life," he said.
The Providence Sunday Journal, January 18, 2009
by Bill Van Siclen, Journal Arts Writer
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