Italianate Newport

Luigi Speranza

The Breakers is a Vanderbilt mansion located on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, United States on the Atlantic Ocean.

It is a National Historic Landmark, a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, and is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County.

The Breakers was built as the Newport summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a member of the wealthy United States Vanderbilt family.

Designed by renowned architect

Richard Morris Hunt

and with interior decoration by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman, Jr., the 70-room mansion has approximately 65,000 sq ft (6,000 m2) of living space.

The home was constructed between 1893 and 1895 at a cost of more than $12 million (approximately $310 million in today's dollars adjusted for inflation).

The Ochre Point Avenue entrance is marked by sculpted iron gates and the 30-foot (9.1 m) high walkway gates are part of a 12-foot-high limestone and iron fence that borders the property on all but the ocean side.

The 250 × 120 ft (76 × 37 m) dimensions of the five-story mansion are aligned symmetrically around a central Great Hall.

Part of a 13-acre (53,000 m²) estate on the seagirt cliffs of Newport, it faces east overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

As the previous mansion on the property owned by Pierre Lorillard IV burned during 1892, Cornelius Vanderbilt II insisted that the building be made as fireproof as possible and as such, the structure of the building used steel trusses and no wooden parts.

He even required that the furnace be located away from the house, under Ochre Point Avenue.

In winter there is an area in front of the main gate over the furnace where snow and ice always melt.

The designers created an interior using marble imported from Italy and Africa plus rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world.

It also included architectural elements (such as the library mantel) purchased from chateaux in France.

"The Breakers" is the architectural and social archetype of the "Gilded Age", a period when members of the Vanderbilt family were among the major industrialists of America.

Indeed, "if the Gilded Age were to be summed up by a single house, that house would have to be The Breakers."

During 1895, the year of its completion, The Breakers was the largest, most opulent house in the Newport area.

Vanderbilt died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused from a second stroke during 1899 at the age of 55, leaving the Breakers to his wife, Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt.

She outlived her husband by 35 years and died at the age of 89 during 1934.

In her will, The Breakers was given to her youngest daughter,

Countess Gladys Széchenyi (1886–1965),

essentially because Gladys lacked American property.

Also, none of Alice's other children were interested in the property while Gladys had always loved the estate.

The Breakers survived the great New England Hurricane of 1938 with minimal damage and minor flooding of the grounds.

During

****1948****

Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to the non-profit Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 a year.

The Society bought the Breakers during 1972 for $365,000 from

Countess

Sylvia Szapary,

the daughter of Gladys.

However, the agreement with the Society allows the family to continue to live on the third floor, which is not open to the public.

Countess Sylvia lived there part time until her death on March 1, 1998.

Gladys Szapary

and

Paul Szapary,

Sylvia's children, spend summers there to this day, hidden from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who explore below.

Although the mansion is owned by the Society, the

original furnishings displayed throughout

the house are still owned by the family.

It is now the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island with approximately 300,000 visitors annually and is open year-round for tours.

During April 2009 the museum stopped offering personalized tours by tour guides due to a decision by management. Patrons now receive standard audio headsets.

The pea-gravel driveway is lined with maturing pin oaks and red maples.

The formally landscaped terrace is surrounded by

Japanese yew,
Chinese juniper, and
dwarf hemlock.

The trees of The Breakers' grounds act as screens that increase the sense of distance between The Breakers and its Newport neighbours.

Among the more unusual imported trees are two examples of the Blue Atlas Cedar, a native of North Africa.

Clipped hedges of Japanese yew and Pfitzer juniper line the tree shaded foot paths that meander about the grounds.

Informal plantings of arbor vitae, taxus, Chinese juniper, and dwarf hemlock provide attractive foregrounds for the walls that enclose the formally landscaped terrace.

The grounds also contain several varieties of other rare trees, particularly copper and weeping beeches.

These were hand-selected by James Bowditch, a forester based in the Boston area.

Bowditch’s original pattern for the south parterre garden was determined from old photographs and laid out in pink and white alyssum and blue ageratum.

The wide borders paralleling the wrought iron fence are planted with rhododendron, laurel, dogwoods, and many other flowering shrubs that effectively screen the grounds from street traffic and give visitors a feeling of seclusion.

Over each of the six doors which lead from the Great Hall are limestone figure groups celebrating humanity's progress in art, science, and industry:

Galileo, representing science;

Dante, representing literature;

Apollo, representing the arts;

Mercury, representing speed and commerce;

Richard Morris Hunt, representing architecture; and

Karl Bitter, representing sculpture.

Main Staircase (though visitors may not use it).
Arcade
Library
Music Room
Morning Room
Porch
Lower Loggia
Billiard Room
Dining Room
Marriage Chest
Breakfast Room
Pantry
Kitchen
[edit] Second FloorMr. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
Miss Gertrude Vanderbilt’s Bedroom

Upper Loggia

Guest Bedroom
Countess Szechenyi’s Bedroom
There are also two other small bedrooms located on the second floor.

The third floor contains eight bedrooms and a sitting room decorated in Louis XVI style walnut paneling by Ogden Codman. The North Wing of the third floor quarters were reserved for domestic servants. With ceilings near 18 feet high, Richard Morris Hunt created two separate third floors to allow a mass congregation of servant bed chambers.

This was all in part of the configuration of the house, built in Italian Renaissance style, that included a pitched roof.

Flat roofed French classical houses in the area allowed a concealed wing for staffing at the time. The Breakers does not feature this luxury.

A total of 30 bedrooms are located in the two third floor staff quarters.

Three additional bedrooms for the Butler, Chef, and Visiting Valet are located on the Mezzanine "Entrasol" Floor located between the first and second floor just to the rear of the main kitchen.

The Attic floor contained more staff quarters, general storage areas, and the innovative cisterns. One smaller cistern supplied hydraulic pressure for the 1895 Otis lift, still functioning in the house though wired for electricity in 1933. Two larger cisterns supplied fresh and salt water to the many bathrooms in the house.

Over the Grand Staircase is a stained glass skylight designed by artist John La Farge.

Originally installed in the Vanderbilt's 1 West 57th Street townhouse dining room, the skylight was removed in 1894 during an expansion of the house.

The Breakers is also a definitive expression of Beaux-Arts architecture in American domestic design by one of the country's most influential architects, Richard Morris Hunt.

The Breakers is one of the few surviving works of Hunt that has not been demolished during the last century and is therefore valuable for its rarity as well as its architectural excellence.

The Breakers was Hunt’s final work.

The Breakers made Hunt the "dean of American architecture" as well as helping define the era in American life which Hunt helped to shape.

[edit] Materials

Foundation: Brick, Concrete and Limestone
Trusses: Steel
Walls: Indiana Limestone
Roof: Terra cotta Red Tile
Wall Panels: Platinum leaf (eight reliefs of mythological figures only)[5]
Other: marble (plaques), wrought iron (gates & fences)
[edit] See also Rhode Island portal
Largest Historic Homes in the United States

[edit] References1.^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html.

2.^ "Breakers, The". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1058&ResourceType=Building. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
3.^ Gannon, Thomas. Newport Mansions: the Gilded Age. Fort Church Publishers, Inc., 1982: p. 8.

4.^ Miller, G. Wayne (2000-07-07). "Fortune's Children". A Nearly Perfect Summer (Providence Journal). http://www.projo.com/specials/newportsummer/chapter5.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-10.

"The Breakers left family ownership three decades ago, when the Preservation Society bought it for $365,000, a pittance — but let Paul, Gladys and their mother continue summering on the third floor, formerly servants' quarters."

"Mother died in 1998 but her children summer there still, hidden from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who explore below."

5.^ They used Gold leaf on the design. Mansion wall panels found to be platinum – The Boston Globe
[edit] Further readingWilson, Richard Guy, Diane Pilgrim, and Richard N. Murray. American Renaissance 1876–1917. New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1979.
Baker, Paul R. Richard Morris Hunt. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1980.
Benway, Ann. A Guidebook to Newport Mansions. Preservation Society of Newport County, 1984.
Croffut, William A. The Vanderbilts and the Story of their Fortune. Chicago and New York: Belford, Clarke and Company, 1886.
Downing, Antoinette F. and Vincent J. Scully, Jr. The Architectural Heritage of Newport, Rhode Island. 2nd edition, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1967.
Ferree, Barr. American Estates and Gardens. New York: Munn and Company, 1904.
Gannon, Thomas. Newport Mansions: the Gilded Age. Fort Church Publishers, Inc., 1982.
Jordy, William H., and Christopher P. Monkhouse. Buildings on Paper: Brown University, Rhode Island Historical Society and Rhode Island School of Design, 1982.
Lints, Eric P. "The Breakers: A Construction and Technologies Report" Newport, RI: The Newport Preservation Society of Newport County, 1992.
Metcalf, Pauline C., ed. Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses. Boston: The Boston Athenaeum, 1988.
Patterson, Jerry E. The Vanderbilts. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989.
Perschler, Martin. "Historic Landscapes Project" Newport, RI: The Preservation Society of Newport County, 1993.
Schuyler, Montgomery. "The Works of the Late Richard M. Hunt," The Architectural Record, Vol. V., October–December, 1895: p. 180.
Smales, Holbert T. "The Breakers" Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, RI: Remington Ward, 1951.
Thorndike, Joseph J., ed. Three Centuries of Notable American Architects. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1981.
[edit] External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Breakers

Rhode Island portal
Preservation Society of Newport County - Breakers Page
Complete details of the building, from the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service (Adobe PDF file)
[hide]v · d · eMansions of Newport, Rhode Island

Preservation Society mansions The Breakers · Chateau-sur-Mer · Chepstow · The Elms · Isaac Bell House · Kingscote · Marble House · Rosecliff


Not owned by the Preservation Society Beechwood · Belcourt Castle · The Carey Mansion · Hammersmith Farm · Miramar · Ochre Court · Rough Point · Vernon Court


[show]v · d · eU.S. National Register of Historic Places

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