ENTRANCE TO BLITHEWOLD MANSION
Courtesy of Blithewold Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum
101 Ferry Road
Bristol, RI 02809
Phone: 401-253-2707
www.blithewold.org
The estate known as Blithewold enjoys an idyllic setting along the shore of Narragansett Bay. The house we see today is the second on this site. Augustus Van Wickle (1856–1898), a Pennsylvania coal magnate, and his wife Bessie (1860–1936) had a Queen Anne–style house built here in 1896. Augustus only enjoyed two summers here, as he died in a hunting accident in 1898. Three years later, his widow married William McKee.
The summer home was destroyed by fire in 1906. Fortunately, its contents were saved. The stucco and stone English Country Manor house we see today was designed by Walter Kilham and built in 1907.
Augustus and Bessie had two daughters: Marjorie and Augustine. Marjorie died at Blithewold in 1976 at the age of ninety-three. She left the estate and an endowment to the Heritage Trust of Rhode Island, and Blithewold was opened to the public in 1978.
Visitors approach the house by way of a Chinese moon gate. Blithewold Mansion has forty-five rooms. These cover a wide spectrum of revival styles, which run the gamut from Tudor to American colonial. Nearly all of them have views of the bay. Personal favorites are the paneled dining room and billiards room and the light and airy breakfast porch. The self-guided tour includes the first and second floors.
This is a thirty-three-acre property. The gardens include a greenhouse, an arboretum, more than five hundred species of woody plants, a bamboo grove, rose garden, rock garden, and water garden. Of special note is the largest giant sequoia on the East Coast. In April the Blithewold estate is abloom with thousands of daffodils.