Bellevue Avenue Historic District - History

History

During the colonial era and the decades after independence, most of Newport's development remained around its downtown area, where port facilities, the mainstay of the city's economy, were. Early in the 19th century, visitors to the city in the summer months came to appreciate the moderating effects of the sea breezes and the panoramic ocean views. They began building cottages along the higher ground where Bellevue Avenue, then a lightly traveled farm path, now runs.

In 1839, George Noble Jones, a Southern plantation owner, built Kingscote, a Carpenter Gothic building considered the first of the city's mansions. The Civil War and the years leading up to it slowed further development in the area, but then it picked up again during the economic prosperity of the Gilded Age in the later decades of the 19th century. Houses became slightly larger than the original cottages, and experimented with new architectural styles. The Casino and the Isaac Bell House inaugurated the Shingle style, where that material was used as siding instead of clapboard.

More and more wealthy families were drawn to Newport in the summers, transforming the architecture again. William Kissam Vanderbilt's Marble House in 1888 introduced stone as a building material, Beaux Arts as a style, and set a new standard for size. A few years later, his brother Cornelius spent a record $7 million ($150 million in 2008 dollars) on The Breakers, sitting above the cliffs at Ochre Point on the eastern shore. The Astors expanded the 1851 Beechwood to suit their needs.

These houses and their occupants made Newport synonymous with wealth and leisure in the early 20th century. Tennis and sailing would become associated with the city and the district through the tennis courts in the Casino, which hosted the early tournaments that became the US Open, and the America's Cup races which began being held in the nearby waters every three years. The onset of the Depression began to change this, as some families, faced with dwindling fortunes, turned their houses over to the public or private nonprofits such as the Preservation Society of Newport County.

This trend toward tourism continued in the years after World War II. The mansions began being converted into museums and opened for tours; the International Tennis Hall of Fame opened in the Casino in 1955. The 1962 sale of The Elms, the last of the mansions to be owned and operated by the original family, marked the end of the resort era.

Preservation efforts had been going on in the downtown historic district for years, and the city had begun to appreciate their value as tourist attractions. In 1965, it recognized as part of its original local historic district three smaller areas in the Bellevue area, later added to the National Register of Historic Places: the original Bellevue Avenue district along the residential portions of the street itself, the Ochre Point/Cliffs district around The Breakers and the Bellevue Avenue/Casino District in that area.

In 1972 it applied to the National Park Service to combine all three and expand them into the current Bellevue Avenue district. Four years later the new district was recognized as a National Historic Landmark District, the second of three in the city. The mansions and museums continue to be a draw for visitors to the city today.