Belcourt Castle

Belcourt Castle is the former summer cottage of Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, located in Newport, Rhode Island.

Construction and the Belmont years

Located on Bellevue Avenue, Belcourt was designed by Richard Morris Hunt for the heir of August Belmont, allegedly a Prussian Jew who came to the United States in 1837 as an agent for the Rothschilds and accumulated enormous personal wealth as a banker. Oliver Belmont, at 33, was still a bachelor during the construction of his 60 000 square foot (5 600 m²), 60 room summer villa. Based on a Louis XIII hunting lodge at Versailles, Belcourt incorporated Oliver's love of pageantry, history and horses in its magnificent interior halls, salons and ballrooms. Belmont wanted Belcourt designed precisely to his specifications. Hunt was hesitant, but he concentrated on his guiding principle that it was his client's money he was spending. Construction cost $3.2 million US in 1894, a figure of approximately $65 million US in 2005.

When construction finished in 1894, the entire first floor was composed of carriage space and a multitude of stables for Belmont's prized horses . Scheduled to open for July 4th of that year, Belcourt would remain closed for the summer season. Belmont was hospitalized in New York City, the victim of a mugging. It would be a full year until Belmont saw his completed mansion.

The summer of 1895 witnessed the thirty servants of Belcourt preparing the vast estate for the arrival of its owner. Immediately, Belmont set out to inspect his extensive stables, which constitute the entire southern façade. The building was formed of a large quadrangle, with two story wings connecting to a three-story main block (the north wing). The result can be viewed today in the form of a large, 80 by 40 foot (24 by 12 m) central courtyard with half timbers. The immense mansard roof is pierced by oval copper dormers and chimneys finished in the same manner as the walls. The symmetrical north façade is where the carriage entrances were located. A narrow wrought iron balcony stretches 70 feet (20 m) on the second floor.

Belmont had disdain for the nouveau riche who, in splashy displays of wealth, built ostentatious mansions between Bellevue Avenue and the Atlantic coast. As a result, guests entered Belcourt through an entrance on Ledge Road, a short road which runs parallel to Bellevue Avenue. This entrance is a few feet from the curb and the effect was that the back of Belcourt was turned to the nouveau riche on Bellevue Avenue.

Inside the castle was just as magnificent and somewhat eccentric. Belmont housed his vast collection of horses and carriages on the first floor, accessed by two huge carriage entrances on either side of the north façade. To the west of this vast area was Belmont's Francis I Renaissance-style Grand Hall and foyer which exited onto Ledge Road. The monumental Gothic rooms with their huge stained-glass windows were emblazoned with the Belmont coat of arms. The room's original damask, blood red in colour, has long since been replaced with the same fabric in gold.

Ascending the Grand Staircase, now a replica of the stairs in the Cluny Museum in France, guests reached Belmont's second floor Grand Hall. The details are exactly the same as those of its partner room below. A myriad of formal rooms now open onto one another in varying periods of French style and decoration.

Belmont married Alva Vanderbilt, the former wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt, on January 11, 1896. Eager to reshape and redesign Belcourt, Alva made changes that morphed the already eccentric character of Belcourt into a yet more eccentric hybrid mixture of styles.

Changes in ownership

Mrs. Belmont died in France on January 26, 1933. Belcourt passed to ninety-year-old Perry Belmont, the eldest Belmont child and Alva's brother-in-law. At the onset of World War II, Perry Belmont had most of the contents of Belcourt moved to his other estates as Newport was a naval base and potentially at risk of attack. Select pieces of Alva's were auctioned off, as Perry allegedly had no great love for her.

In 1940, Belmont decided to rid himself of Belcourt. Negotiations commenced with George Waterman, an entrepreneur. Waterman envisioned Belcourt as an antique auto museum. The only conditions of the sale were that Waterman had to restore the castle as close as possibly to Hunt's original plans. Waterman was responsible for the restoration of the third floor roof and removal of an addition overlooking the courtyard. After paying one penny on every dollar that it took to build Belcourt, a price of $32 000, Waterman was informed that zoning wouldn't allow his antique auto museum.

In 1943, Waterman sold Belcourt to Edward Dunn. Dunn never lived in Belcourt for the eleven years that he owned it (up until 1954). During the war years when many of the grand mansions were being razed or converted into various institutions, Dunn rented the stables of the rundown castle to the military to use for repairing equipment.

Dunn sold Belcourt to Elaine and Louis Lorillard in 1954. The Lorillards, of tobacco fame, envisioned Belcourt as a seat for the Newport Jazz Festival. The lawns on Bellevue Avenue could accommodate over 10 000 and the masonry and stucco façade provided an acoustic background. The large central courtyard was the scene for concerts with the open loggia providing further room for spectators. Inside, the massive rooms were perfect for workshops and lodging. However, the future for Belcourt as a permanent venue for the festival was dim.

Belcourt had deteriorated, largely uninhabited for over two decades. In November 1956, the Lorillards sold the rundown, mostly abandoned castle to the Tinney Family.

The Tinney family

The Tinney Family, of Cumberland, Rhode Island, bought Belcourt in 1956 for $25 000. In addition to changing the name from Belcourt to Belcourt Castle, the Tinneys filled the house with their own collection of antiques and reproductions. Included are a coronation coach, which the Tinneys made, and a 1701 copy of a Hyacinthe Rigaud portrait of Louis XIV, which hung in the Green Room in the Palace of the Tuileries. The centerpiece of the Tinney additions is an enormous Imperial Russian-style chandelier, which holds 13 000 rock crystal prisms and 105 lights, with 125 reflecting mirrors on the interior. The luminous treasure hangs a few feet above the floor of the banquet hall.

Other artifacts within Belcourt include an immense collection of Persian rugs, French royal art and furnishings, Oriental art and furnishings and numerous religious objets d'art.

Changes to Belcourt have been numerous in the years following 1956 when the Tinney Family moved in. They raised the ceiling of the Organ Loft 11 feet (3.4 m) to accommodate a 26-rank tracker organ. Between 1966 and 1970, when the coronation coach was being built, an old kitchen area became a coach hall. In 1969, the open loggia became a French salon. In 1975, they transformed the north-west reception room into a chapel with the addition of German renaissance stained glass. In the early 1980s, the Tinneys built gate piers on Bellevue Avenue and installed gates from they had acquired from the Taylor estate in Portsmouth, with alterations to the gates to make them the tallest in Newport.

The lawns contain many sculptural pieces in bronze, terra cotta, marble and stone. Depicting scenes from mythology, nymphs and cherubs, the collection is an informal contrast to the strong and robust lines of the French-style château. The driveways and pathways are lined with lush arborvitae, planted by the Tinneys a few years after they moved into Belcourt.

Belcourt Castle is the third largest mansion in Newport, after The Breakers and Ochre Court. It is the only privately owned mansion in Newport that is open to the public with owners in residence.

Touring Belcourt

Of the 60 rooms at Belcourt, over a dozen may be viewed on tour. Tours at Belcourt include an English library (added in 1908 by John Russell Pope), the banquet hall, the chapel, two grand halls, a music room, an Empire-style dining room, the ballroom, the bedrooms, a loggia and the gallery. All of the rooms are furnished with pieces from the Tinney Family collections. The first tours of Belcourt were given in 1957 and ever since then the castle has been a fixture on Bellevue Avenue.

Materials

Foundation: concrete and cut stone
Walls: brick, rough cast, Westerly granite, stucco and half timbers
Roof: slate and copper (oval dormers, flashing and flat areas)
Interior: oak, mahogany, marble, plaster, brick, stained glass, gilding and silk damask
Other: wrought iron (gates and railings), stone (pilasters, pathways and estate walls)