KINGSCOTE
Ira Kerns photo courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County
253 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
Phone: 401-847-0366
www.newportmansions.org
Newport enjoys perhaps the most temperate climate in New England. Buffered by the Atlantic Ocean to the south, Narragansett Bay to the west, and the Sakonnet River to the east, the gentle breezes here have attracted summer visitors for generations. Before the arrival of the Europeans, Native peoples from villages inland would come to this island to do their summer plantings and to harvest crustaceans and fish from the surrounding waters. In colonial times Newport became a haven for Southern families who would sail up the Atlantic coast and summer here. The trend continued after the American Revolution, especially among the wealthy from Georgia and the Carolinas. Escaping humidity, heat, and malaria, they dubbed Newport the “Carolina hospital.”
In 1839 a plantation owner from Savannah, George Noble Jones (1811–1876), built the summer home we now know as Kingscote. He chose a site on a hill that was then on the outskirts of town. Bellevue Avenue was a dirt road with another name, and the neighborhood to the south, now populated with grand mansions, was farmland. This property afforded sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Newport Harbor on the other. Jones set a trend. In the early nineteenth century his fellow Southerners would lodge in Newport’s large resort hotels. Seeing his summer cottage, others began to build theirs, too. They were “keeping up with the Joneses.”
The architect for this cottage orne, or decorative cottage, was Richard Upjohn (1802–1878). Born an Englishman, Upjohn came to America. He was a cofounder of the American Institute of Architects in 1857 as well as its first president. He was also a champion of the Gothic Revival style in America. His best known work is Trinity Church, on Wall Street, in New York City (completed in 1846). Gothic Revival buildings drew their inspiration from medieval prototypes. There are many Gothic Revival churches and some “collegiate gothic” school buildings, but relatively few Gothic Revival houses. This is one of them. Some features seen here which are typical of that style are the steeply pitched roofs, windows crowned with pointed tops, gables, dormers, drip moulding over windows and doors, and decorative lattices.
In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, George Noble Jones and his Southern compatriots left Newport and returned home. He left a few of his possessions behind: Gothic Revival chairs and other pieces made by Joseph Meeks of New York, and a pair of fire buckets labeled “N. Jones.” The house was acquired by an old Newport family, the Kings. Dr. David King I came to the city in 1799. His descendants later made a fortune in the Old China Trade. The estate came to be known as Kingscote—an abbreviated form of “Kings’ Cottage.”
In 1881 the Kings hired Stanford White (1853–1906) to add the large dining room and bedrooms above it. White drew from colonial American, British, Oriental, and Italian styles in designing this room, and it is lit by hundreds of glass opalescent bricks created by Louis C. Tiffany & Co.
The last King descendant to live in the house was Mrs. Anthony Barclay (Gwendolen) Rives (1911–1972), who bequeathed the house, its contents, and an endowment to The Preservation Society of Newport County. When the Society acquired the house, it was so overflowing with artwork, family memorabilia, and other treasures that passage through each room was by way of a narrow path. Many of the original objects have been distributed to other Preservation Society houses. What remains here are five thousand objects collected by the King family over five generations. These are from the colonial era, from the Old China Trade, and from travels in Europe.
The property also has a stables and carriage house designed by Newport native Dudley Newton (1845–1907).