Belcourt Castle - Construction and The Belmont Years

Construction and The Belmont Years

Located on Bellevue Avenue at Lakeview Avenue, Belcourt was designed by Richard Morris Hunt for thirty-three-year-old Oliver Belmont who was still a bachelor during the construction of his 50,000 square foot (4,600 m²), 60 room summer villa. Based on the Louis XIII hunting lodge at Versailles, Belcourt incorporated Oliver's love of pageantry, history and horses in its magnificent interior halls, salons and ballrooms. The Belmont Stakes was named for his father and he was known for his skill as a four-in-hand carriage driver.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 in 1894, a figure of approximately $80 million in 2011 dollars. Belmont employed some thirty servants at Belcourt, with aggregate wages of approximately $100 per week.

When construction finished in 1894, the entire first floor was composed of carriage space and a multitude of stables for Belmont's prized horses. Upstairs, was a master bedroom with wall scenes depicting the life of a nobleman and a bathroom with Newport's first standing shower. Scheduled to open for July 4 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 effect can be viewed today in the form of a large, 80 by 40 foot (24 by 12 m) central courtyard with half timbers in the Norman style. 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 ground 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.

The Grand Staircase, now a replica of the stairs in the Cluny Museum in France, connects the Lower Grand Hall to Belmont's Upper Grand Hall on the second floor. The details are mostly the same as those of its partner room below. A myriad of formal rooms open onto one another in varying periods of French style and decoration. The galleries and halls of the second floor employ the architect's trademark of vistas framing the views into various rooms.

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. Alva Belmont converted the carriage room into a banquet hall and transformed a study into a boudoir, importing 18th-century French paneling. In 1899, Belcourt was the host of the nation's first automobile parade.