Bailey's Riviera

Luigi Speranza

Bailey's Beach (officially named and owned by "The Spouting Rock Beach Association") is an elite private beach and club in Newport, Rhode Island.

"Bailey's Beach" was founded on Aug. 12, 1891, the day after new trolley service gave mill workers from Fall River ready access to Easton's Beach, a wide expanse closer to downtown Newport that the well-to-do had claimed, wrongly, as their own.

Not wishing to associate with people who took their lunches in buckets, Newport (i.e. New York) society relocated several miles to

Spouting Rock

-- smaller and often seaweedy but

***** safely beyond the reach of trolleys ******

Today, 400 people belong.

New members logically can only be added only when old ones die (of natural causes).

The Spouting Rock Beach Association is named for a geological formation: the spouting rock, not the beach association.

Membership in it tends to define summer life in Newport in ways that may not be always easy to comprehend. The Missus Astor did.

The organization, The Spouting Rock Beach Association soon attracted notable members of nearby families such as, fist, the Astor family; then the Vanderbilt family.

Unfortunately, the 1938 Hurricane destroyed the original clubhouse -- indeed, it flooed the lower levels of "The Breakers", too --.

The current clubhouse and the 400 cabanas may appear relatively modest to a silly passersby.

The Spouting Rock Beach Association also owns the elite Newport

"Reading Room", where you can read. (It's a room and used to be male-only).

Bailey's Beach was one of the centres of elite Newport social life along with other institutions such as

The Redwood Library,
The Newport Country Club,
The Newport Golf Club
Trinity Episcopal Church (visited by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995).
The Clambake Club
The Newport Reading Room
The New York Yacht Club clubhouse, formerly a private villa.
The Newport Casino, on Bellevue Avenue -- built by Mr. Bennett when expelled from the Reading Room, after his 'horsey' stupidity.

Despite the exclusive status of the beach club and membership, the southeast end of the beach is open to the public and known colloquially as Reject's Beach.

"The Grande Dame," Chapter 1, 7/2/2000, Providence Journal
GUY TREBAY, "SUMMER PLACES; At Bailey's Beach, The Ruling Class Keeps Its Guard Up," Published: Sunday, July 20, 2003[1]
Recreation: Splendors at Home Time, July 2, 1965
[edit] External linksCliff Walk Website
[edit] See alsoNewport Reading Room