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Newport
Newport, Rhode Island, is, as the Newport County Chamber of Commerce
calls it, America’s First Resort-a slogan suggesting a Puritan in a
tricornered hat running around in madras breeches and a pastel polo
shirt with Ye Olde Newport written on it in Old English script. If
only it were as original as that. In fact it means the city has been
the summer place for old money since that money was nouveau.
For the most part, summer in The Yachting Capitol (sic) of the World,
as City Hall calls it, conjures up images of the mansions, all those
places on Bellevue Avenue with names rather than addresses -
Beachwood, the Elms, Kingscote, Rosecliff. These residences were built
for people whose income was derived from their names rather than their
job descriptions - Astors, Vanderbilts, and so on-who were either
robber barons or captains of industry, depending on where you stood
relative to the poverty line.
It should be noted that while Newport has many beautiful buildings,
its most famous mansions aren’t among them. Places like the Breakers
and Marble House, built during the Gilded Age-the 1880s and ’90s-have
much more in common with Graceland than the Preservation Society of
Newport County would care to admit. Who but an arriviste or the King
of Rock ’n’ Roll would have gold bathroom fixtures? The children and
grandchildren of the Gilded Age still summer here, but as money gets
older it also gets more discreet. So while you might have recognized
their forebears or at least their
forebears' names, you could easily pass members of the Summer Colony
without recognizing them, even if they had nametags on.
Occasionally though, secrets of the rich and determinedly unfamous
spill into public view. Take the recent Tinney family feud over
Belcourt Castle. Seems Ruth Tinney legally adopted an electrician-a
grown man who befriended her-before her death. A judge will decide
whether Kevin Tinney should be considered an heir to the 60-room
mansion where he lives (in a separate wing from Ruth Tinney’s birth
son, Donald, and his wife, Harle).
Before the controversy, Ruth Tinney may have been just another grande
dame of Newport. Such women of wealth are still referred to as grandes
dames, or socialites,
or doyennes. Eileen Slocum, for instance, is referred to in the press
as both the
“grande dame of Newport society” and the “doyenne of the state GOP”
(she once
threw a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee at which
Steve Forbes
was the featured speaker).
There’s also Dodo Hamilton of the Campbell’s Soup Dorrances, Evelyn A.
J. Hall
(n e Annenberg), Oatsie (Mrs. Robert H.) Charles, and Topsy Taylor.
These being WASPs, they answer to nicknames that would be demeaning to
anyone who didn’t represent a significant chunk of the U.S. gross
domestic product. They get their pastel clothes at Lilly Pulitzer and
probably regard Ann Taylor the way the rest of us think of Frugal
Fannies.
But don’t get the feeling these ladies do nothing but lunch. Au
contraire, they are well aware of the oblige that goes with their
noblesse, so they perform Good Works-usually with the Preservation
Society or the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
The men for the most part wear Jr. and III and IV like a badge of
honor, no matter how old they are. They have all been in something,
business or law, or on Wall Street or-for the radical ones-that
pauper’s club the U.S. Senate: former banker John G. Winslow, former
senator Claiborne Pell, George H. Warren Jr., Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr.
(best known as the stepbrother of that lovely Jacqueline Bouvier who
married down, first to an Irishman and then to a Greek, before going
into publishing). They view
Brooks Brothers clothes as okay but probably too trendy, and they buy
their slacks and shorts at Michael Hayes on Bellevue Avenue. These
clothes are without fail in reds, yellows, and madras so bright that
if they were signs, they would need a zoning variance.
And where can you rub elbows with these folks? Probably your best bet
is at the Newport Flower Show, Coaching Weekend (horse-drawn, not Rick
Pitino), or the Newport Music Festival, which is definitely not to be
confused with either the JVC Jazz Festival or the Ben & Jerry’s Folk
Festival. These are all fundraisers, and so if you pony up a few
bucks, you can see how the horsy set lives. You'll have better luck
there than at Bailey’s Beach Club, which reportedly has more than 500
members but only 120 much-sought-after cabanas. In the past, it’s
said, this meant the hoi polloi-herein regarded as those
Johnnie-and-Muffy-come-latelies who arrived on the ship just after the
Mayflower-had to fight it out for the 260 bathhouses while waiting for
one of the 120 to kick the gilded bucket. Equally silly fights are
said to take place over who gets the parking spaces closest to the
clubhouse.
Other places where you could run into Newport’s high and WASPy (but if
you’re not already a member, don’t bother to ask) include the New York
Yacht Club - please don't bring up that unpleasantness about losing
the America’s Cup - and the Clambake Club of Newport, which manages to
retain its exclusivity despite being in d class
Middletown. The club was founded more than a century ago by people
with common, ordinary names like Center Hitchcock and Prescott
Lawrence. It’s perhaps best known to the rest of us as the place where
Miss Bouvier’s first husband had his bachelor party.
But Newport is not just an enclave for the preppy set. It is a retreat
for all sorts of sets. In fact it has so many enclaves that it's
practically a Coppertoned Balkans: There are Irish-Americans,
African-Americans, Portuguese-Americans, and Naval-Americans (despite
the absence of a fleet, Newport is still home to the Naval War
College, so the very downscale enlisted types have given way to the
very desirable upper brass).
And, by and large, seldom the twain shall meet. At first this may seem
odd, given that Newport occupies only about eight square miles of land
at the southern end of Aquidneck Island. But it becomes more
understandable when you consider that the city's population nearly
quadruples in the summer from between 25,000 and 30,000 to about
100,000. That many tourists can put a formidable wall between any two
groups, especially if they’re not inclined to mix in the first place.
If stereotypes still count for anything, the group most envious of and
least likely to mix with the Summer Colony is the Irish. The patriarch
of the Hibernian-Americans on the island was the late, great Edward J.
Corcoran, who died two years ago at the age of 103. One thing that
distinguishes the Irish from the Summer Colony types is that the Irish
still work for a living.
Until a month before his death, Edward J. was still actively
practicing law at his Newport firm of Corcoran, Peckham and Hayes. The
difference in nicknames between the two groups is telling as well. The
building that houses the Newport County Convention and Visitors Bureau
is named for the late mayor Humphrey J. “Harp” Donnelly III; why they
didn’t just call him Mick or Paddy we'll never know. Little surprise
as to the clubs the Corcorans, the Dwyers, the Corrigans, and the
Regans gravitate toward-they're the Irish-American and the Hibernian.
The Erin Go Upstarts now even have their own summertime celebration,
the Newport Waterfront Irish Festival.
The Irish-Americans do have some interest in the Preservation Society.
Rosecliff, one of the premier homes on Bellevue Avenue, was actually
built for one Theresa Oelrichs
(n e Fair). Pre Fair was an Irish immigrant and a miner whose social
status rose precipitously when, in 1859, he was among the Irishmen who
unearthed the Comstock Lode-one of the largest deposits of silver ever
found.
The group of people who have been a part of Newport for as long as
there has been a Newport and who get precious little attention for it
are the African-Americans. They continue to thrive to this day in
their enclave in northern Newport. Their association, every bit as
distinguished and discriminating as anyone else’s, is the Pyramid
Club.
The black community arrived here as a byproduct of the infamous
triangle trade of molasses for slaves for rum, upon which so many
Rhode Island shipping fortunes were founded. Because of this, the
African-Americans are the only group that was specifically invited to
summer in the City by the Sea; unfortunately for them, they were not
allowed to RSVP their regrets. |
