1900s

William G. Weld House, Newport, Rhode Island

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The William G. Weld House on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, around 1903. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The scene in 2017:

The Weld family has long been a prominent family in Boston, with ancestors dating back to the 17th century in New England. Among the leading members of the family was William Gordon Weld, a prosperous merchant whose son, William Fletcher Weld, followed him into the shipping business. The younger William owned several dozen ships by the middle of the 19th century, and also had sizable investments in railroads and real estate. By the time of his death in 1881, he had an estate of approximately $20 million, or more than half a billion in 2018 dollars, and he left nearly all of it to his family.

William’s son, William Gordon Weld II, received a sizable inheritance, and a year after his father’s death he began construction on this summer residence on Bellevue Avenue here in Newport. The house was designed by local architect Dudley Newton, who designed a number of houses in Newport during the 1870s and 1880s. The exterior is made of locally-quarried granite, but its overall design is somewhat unusual here in Newport, with a Dutch Renaissance style that includes distinctive curved gables. On the interior, the house was finished with white oak paneling, and each room had its own fireplace in addition to steam heating. The house had seven bathrooms, and included other modern conveniences such as both gas and electric lighting, and the Newport Mercury predicted in 1883 that, “When completed, it will be one of the finest residences in Newport.”

The house was completed in 1884, and Weld went on to spend his summers here for more than a decade, until his death in 1896 at the age of 68. He and his wife, Caroline Goddard, had two sons, William and Charles, who were in their 20s when this house was completed. Both sons graduated from Harvard, with Charles eventually becoming a prominent physician as well as a philanthropist who made significant contributions to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. However, Caroline outlived both of her sons, and owned this home in Newport until her death in 1918.

By this point, Newport was beginning to fall out of favor as a wealthy resort community, and the many Gilded Age mansions were increasingly viewed as costly white elephants from a previous era. Many of these massive homes were converted into institutional use, including this house, which was sold by the Weld family in the early 1920s. It became the De La Salle Academy, a Catholic school for boys, and remained in use until it closed in the early 1970s. It was subsequently converted into condominiums, and today it is known as the De La Salle Condominiums. Despite these changes in use, though, this exterior view has changed very little, and the property forms part of the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, which is designated as a National Historic Landmark district.

Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island

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The Newport Casino on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, around 1900-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2018:

 

One of Newport’s many architectural landmarks is the Newport Casino, which is located on Bellevue Avenue, just a little south of the present-day intersection of Memorial Boulevard. Its origins date back to 1879, when New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr., purchased the Stone Villa house on the west side of Bellevue Avenue, plus a vacant lot directly across the street where the Newport Casino would subsequently be built. Bennett had inherited a considerable fortune – including one of the nation’s leading newspapers – after his father’s death in 1872. Just 31 when his father died, the younger Bennett acquired a reputation as a flamboyant and eccentric member of New York society.

Bennett’s famously erratic behavior included an incident in New York in 1877, when he urinated in the fireplace during a party at his fiancée’s house. The resulting outrage ended their engagement and also resulted in a duel between Bennett and his would-be brother-in-law, although neither man was injured. Another oft-repeated – though probably apocryphal – incident happened in Newport in 1879 when, according to the tale, Bennett dared a friend to ride his horse onto the porch of the Newport Reading Room, an exclusive social club for the city’s elite. Supposedly, the friend lost his membership, and Bennett was said to have resigned his membership in protest before establishing the Newport Casino as a social club of his own.

Whether or not the story is entirely true, it speaks to Bennett’s reputation for impulsive behavior, and either way he soon began work on building the Newport Casino on the vacant lot opposite his Bellevue Avenue mansion. For the designs, he hired McKim, Mead & White, a newly-established architectural firm whose subsequent meteoric rise to prominence would be due in no small part to their work here on the Newport Casino. The result was an architectural masterpiece, which was built in 1880 as one of the first significant Shingle-style buildings. McKim, Mead & White helped to pioneer this distinctly American style of architecture, which would go on to become predominant in New England coastal resort communities in the late 19th century.

In 19th century terminology, a casino was not specifically a place for gambling, but instead referred more broadly to a social and recreational facility. At the time of the casino’s opening in the summer of Newport, the city had already been well-established as the premier summer resort for New York millionaires, and the casino quickly became its social center. The building offered a wide variety of amenities, including stores along the Bellevue Avenue facade, plus a restaurant, a ballroom, a theater, and tennis courts. Unlike the elite Reading Room, it was also less exclusive, with both the wealthy members and the general public able to enjoy the facilities.

The casino would go on to play an important role in the early history of tennis. Originally referred to as lawn tennis, so as to distinguish it from the earlier game of court tennis, the sport came to America in the 1870s and was played under a variety of rules until 1881, when the United States National Lawn Tennis Association – today’s United States Tennis Association – was established to standardize the rules of the sport. Given its reputation as an affluent summer resort, Newport was chosen as the site of the association’s first championships in 1881, with the newly-built Newport Casino serving as the site for both the men’s singles and men’s doubles championships.

The men’s doubles championships would be played here at the Newport Casino for the rest of the 1880s, and the men’s singles championships through 1914. During this time, the sport was dominated by Richard Dudley Sears, a Boston native and Harvard student who won the first seven singles championships from 1881 to 1887, plus the doubles championships from 1882 to 1887, before retiring from the sport at the age of 26. In later years, other prominent winners here included Oliver S. Campbell and Malcolm D. Whitman, who each one three singles titles, and William Larned, who won in 1901, 1902, and from 1907-1911.

In 1915, the tennis championships were moved to the West Side Tennis Club in the Forest Hill neighborhood of Queens, which was more conveniently located and could accommodate more spectators. The Newport Casino continued to be used for other tennis events over the years, but both the building and the city entered a decline in the first half of the 20th century, as Newport began to fall out of fashion as a summer resort. Many of the Gilded Age mansions were demolished in the middle of the century, including James Gordon Bennett’s house across the street from here. Demolished in 1957, the site of his Stone Villa is now a shopping plaza, and a similar fate nearly befell the Newport Casino, which had been threatened with demolition a few years earlier.

The Newport Casino was ultimately preserved, though, thanks to the efforts of Jimmy Van Alen, a Newport native and former court tennis champion who established the International Tennis Hall of Fame here in 1954. Since then, the building has remained well-preserved, with hardly any changes in this scene since the first photo was taken. The Hall of Fame is still here, along with indoor and outdoor tennis courts, plus one of the country’s few remaining courts for court tennis. Along Bellevue Avenue, the building’s first floor houses upscale retail shops and a restaurant, and it forms part of a continuous row of historic buildings that extends the entire block from Memorial Boulevard to Casino Terrace. Because of its level of preservation, its architectural significance, and its role in the early history of tennis, the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

140-144 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island

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The commercial block at the corner of Bellevue Avenue and Deblois Street in Newport, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The scene in 2017:

In the late 19th century, Shingle-style architecture became virtually synonymous with New England coastal resort communities, and Newport featured many of the style’s pioneering works. Although this building can hardly compare to the Newport Casino or Isaac Bell House further up Bellevue Avenue, it nonetheless shows the style’s influence on local architecture. This particular building dates back to the 1890s, and was originally the home of the Kazanjian Company, a rug company whose store was located in the ground floor, as seen in the first photo.

The Kazanjian Company was founded in 1882 by Bedros and John Kazanjian, two brothers who immigrated to Newport from Armenia. City directories list their business here at this address throughout the 1880s, although the current building does not appear to have been built until the following decade. Either way, by the time the first photo was taken around 1906 they were selling a wide variety of household goods beyond just rugs. The sign above the first-floor windows advertises “Oriental rugs, portieres, embroideries, draperies,antiques, bric-a-brac, curios,” and some of their rugs are on display outside of the windows.

The Kazanjian family also operated a store nearby at the present-day corner of Bellevue Avenue and Memorial Boulevard, right next to the Newport Casino. Both of these stores would remain in business for many years, appearing in city directories into the 1960s. During this time, the upper floors were rented as apartments. The 1920 census, for example, shows seven different households, primarily single people and married couples with no children. The occupations were highly varied, and included workers at a dress shop, a photographer’s studio, a beauty shop, a grocery store, and the U.S. Navy base in Newport.

More than 110 years after the first photo was taken, Newport remains a popular coastal resort, and Bellevue Avenue is still a premier shopping area. Kazanjian & Company is long gone from here, and the building’s storefronts have seen some minor alterations over the years, but overall the building remains well-preserved. It is a mixed-use property still, with three stores on the first floor and apartments on the upper floors, and it is one of the many historic 19th century buildings that still line Bellevue Avenue.

Buckley Block, Newport, Rhode Island

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The building at the corner of Broadway and Oak Street in Newport, around 1903. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The scene in 2017:

This commercial block was built around the turn of the 20th century, and was originally owned by Patrick Buckley, an Irish-born grocer whose store was located here in the building. The sign is not legible in the first photo, but the corner storefront has meat on display in the windows, along with what appears to be shelves with bottles. The store, which he operated with his sons David and John, was here until around the early 1910s, but by the middle of the decade the ground floor of the building was the home of the I.X.L. Company, a furniture store that, according to its advertisement in the city directory, had “Office and house furnishings of every description.”

The building was owned by the Buckley family until 1928, and the I.X.L. Company was here until at least the early 1930s. However, they appear to have left soon after, because they are not listed in the 1935 city directory. By the early 1950s, there were at least three different stores on the ground floor, with the 1951 city directory listing Minkin Auto & Radio Store on the left side, Valeteria Cleansers in the middle, and Cote Pharmacy on the right side. Along with these commercial tenants, the two upper floors were rented out as apartments.

Around 115 years after the first photo was taken, the building is still standing, although the exterior has had some significant alterations over the years. As originally built, the Buckley Block had a Colonial Revival-style exterior, with decorative elements such as shutters on the windows, a balustrade on the roof, and quoins at the corners of the upper floors. However, at some point – probably in the early 1900s – these were removed and the exterior was covered in wood shingles. The storefronts have also been significantly altered, with only the one on the left bearing much resemblance to the original photo. Overall, though, the building has retained much of its early 20th century appearance, and it is now a contributing property in the Newport Historic District.

Broadway from Spring Street, Newport, Rhode Island

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Looking north on Broadway from near the corner of Spring Street in Newport, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The scene in 2017:

When the first photo was taken, the west side of Broadway was lined with a variety of wood-framed commercial buildings that dated back to the 19th century. The ones in the foreground, at the corner of Marlborough Street, appear to have been the oldest, with the gambrel-roofed building on the far left probably over a century old at this point. The building just to the right of it, with the three dormer windows, may have been almost as old, and was probably built in the early decades of the 19th century. Just beyond it, the gable-roofed building was somewhat newer, dating to around the 1840s, and the larger, more ornate building on the right side was probably built around the 1860s or 1870s.

The first photo shows signs for a number of different businesses in these storefronts. The one on the left was William S. Hazard’s meat market, while G. B. Smith’s furniture repair company was located out of the back of the building. Continuing to the right was Sam Lee Laundry, followed by an ice cream shop with a sign on the sidewalk that reads “Try our ice cream.” A carriage blocks the view of the next storefront, but the gable-roofed building to the right of it has a sign for the Newport Paper Company. A young boy was apparently posing for the camera, and can be seen seated on a hitching post in front of Sam Lee Laundry.

Today, much of downtown Newport has remained remarkably well-preserved, but this particular scene along Broadway has seen more drastic changes over the past 113 years. Only one building, the 1840s gable-roofed one in the center of the scene, is still standing from the first photo. The two buildings on the left are long gone, and the site is now a small plaza at the corner of Broadway and Marlborough Street. Further in the distance, these buildings were demolished by the late 1920s to build the Paramount Theatre, which opened in 1929. This project also included the construction of one-story commercial buildings on either side of the theater, and these are still standing today. The theater building is also still there, partially visible in the distant center, but it was converted into apartments in the 1980s.

Anna Pell House, Newport, Rhode Island

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The house at the corner of Mary and Clarke Streets in Newport, around 1903. Image courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

The house in 2017:

This house was built sometime around the late 1870s or early 1880s, and was originally owned by Anna Pell, although she does not appear to have personally lived here. Born in 1817 in Cooperstown, New York, Anna was the daughter of George Clarke, a prominent landowner who owned Hyde Hall, a mansion on Lake Otsego that was said to have been the largest private home in the country at the time. She and her husband, Duncan C. Pell, subsequently lived here in Newport, in a house on the opposite side of Mary Street from here. Duncan served as lieutenant governor of Rhode Island from 1865 to 1866, and the 1870 census lists him as a retired merchant, with a net worth of nearly $400,000, or nearly $8 million today.

Duncan Pell died in 1874, and within the next decade Anna built this house across the street from their home. She appears to have continued to live in her husband’s house across the street until her death in 1899, but during this time she rented this newer house to Sidney Woollett, who was living here with his wife Julia by around 1885. Woollett was an elocutionist who was notable for his public poetry recitations, specializing in Shakespeare, Longfellow, and Poe, and he appeared to have had some sort of personal connection to Anna Pell, because in 1884 he named his youngest daughter Anna Pell Woollett. Along with Anna, he and Julia had three other children, and the family lived here until the end of the 19th century, around the same time that Anna Pell died.

By the time the first photo was taken a few years later, the house was owned by Patrick J. Boyle, the longtime mayor of Newport. He was the child of Irish immigrants, and was born in Newport in 1860. As a teenager, Boyle had begun working for the Newport Gas Light Company, and served for many years as the company’s bookkeeper. In 1895, he was elected to his first term as mayor, and over the next few decades he was re-elected to sixteen more terms in office, a remarkable record for a Democrat in a largely Republican city. His first wife, Anne, died sometime before he moved into this house, and in the early 1900s he remarried to his second wife, Alice Lee. He had one son, Patrick, from his first marriage, and he and Alice had two daughters: Alice and Barbara.

Patrick Boyle was still serving as mayor, and was still living in this house, when he died in 1923. The rest of his family continued to live here for several more years, but around 1928 Alice moved to New York City. Around 90 years later, the house remains well-preserved, although partially hidden by trees and other vegetation from this angle. Along with the rest of the historic 17th, 18th, and 19th century buildings in the center of Newport, the house is now part of the Newport Historic District, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1968.