Newport, Rhode Island Summer Cottages

Jim says:

On Thursday, Mary and I were in Newport, Rhode Island. About 9 AM, we headed out for an 8 mile ride along Ocean Drive, the location on many beautiful waterfront homes. Because of a rather thick fog, we didn’t see very much. The we came to Bellevue Avenue where the very wealthy of the late 1800’s built their “summer cottages”.

We took a two-hour audio tour of The Breakers, the summer cottage of Cornelius Vanderbuilt. It has 70 rooms, 20 bathrooms and according to the audio tour device has 138,300 square feet. The cottage was constructed between 1893 and 1895 at a cost of more than $7 million (approximately $150 million in today’s dollars adjusted for inflation). He named it The Breakers because of the breaking waves upon his shoreline.

Here’s two teaser photos…

On the outside, looking in at the Vanderbilt Cottage.

No interior photograhy was allowed. I snuck this one just to give you a tiny idea of the wealth expended here.

To see the other 20 photos I took, click this link…
http://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver/NewportRI2010#

Here’s a Wikipedia informational link about The Breakers…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Breakers

Here’s a link about some of the other summer cottages in Newport…
http://www.newportmansions.org/

These folks had some really huge egos! Like…if you’ve got it, flaunt it!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2010
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.panamaorbust.com