




Newport Cottages 1835–1890: The Summer Villas Before the Vanderbilt Era
Michael C. Kathrens
New Photography by Aaron Usher III
Foreword by Trudy Coxe, Executive Director, PSNC
Published in association with The Preservation Society of Newport County
In his latest contribution to America’s architectural record, Michael C. Kathrens gives house enthusiasts a superb and visually compelling account of the incredibly rich period of Newport’s luxurious nineteenth-century summer “cottages,” presented comprehensively for the first time. Stunning archival and newly commissioned photography, architectural renderings, and floor plans aid in fully conveying the remarkable legacy of these majestic residences built in Newport before 1890.
May 2023
Hardcover with dust jacket
400 pages
512 illustrations (60 floor plans)
9.25 x 12.25 inches
ISBN: 978-1735600130
$75.00
Description
The first dedicated look at these exceptional Newport summer “cottages” that populated the seaside resort half a century before the rise of the European Revival behemoths of the late 1880s and 1890s.
The luxury and splendor of these opulent private houses—or summer “cottages” as they were known—often rivaled the sumptuousness of the later Gilded Age mansions. In the decades since 1835, when the first private house was built exclusively for seasonal use, scores of magnificent homes were commissioned by a burgeoning summer colony whose members were among America’s wealthiest and most prominent families, including the Schermerhorns, Lorillards, Goelets, and Joneses. They commissioned local talents such as George Champlin Mason Sr., Seth C. Bradford, and Dudley Newton as well as nationally renowned architects such as Richard Morris Hunt, McKim, Mead & White, and Peabody & Stearns to design their summer residences.
The scope of this volume—the prequel to Newport Villas: The Revival Styles, 1885–1935, Kathrens’s first book on Newport residential architecture—extends beyond 1890, providing ownership histories of each of the thirty-six houses profiled, including Cannon Hill, Chateau-sur-Mer, Elm Court, Beaulieu, Land’s End, the original Breakers, Ochre Point, and Chastellux as well as visual documentation of later renovations. Rare late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century interior images reflect a shift in fashion from the exuberant Victorian to a cleaner, more classical style that led to the Edwardian elegance of many of the later renovations by architects such as Horace Trumbauer, Ogden Codman Jr., and Francis L. V. Hoppin.
About the Author
Michael C. Kathrens is an independent scholar specializing in American residential architecture and interior decoration of the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth. His previous books include the bestselling monograph American Splendor: The Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer, two volumes on the splendid private residences in New York City, Great Houses of New York 1880–1930 and Great Houses of New York, 1880–1940, as well as Kansas City Houses 1885–1938.