Belcourt of Newport

Belcourt is located on Bellevue Avenue at Lakeview Avenue, in Newport. A 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2), 60-room summer villa, it was designed by Richard Morris Hunt for 33-year-old Oliver Belmont, who during the construction was divorced from Sara Swan Whiting and the father of a daughter, Natica, for whom he denied paternity. It was based on the Louis XIII style hunting lodge at Versailles, and incorporated Oliver's love of pageantry, history and horses in its magnificent interior halls, salons and ballrooms. The Belmont Stakes was named for his father, August Belmont Sr., and Oliver was known for his skill as a four-in-hand carriage driver. Belmont wanted Belcourt designed precisely to his specifications. Hunt was hesitant, but concentrated on his guiding principle that it was his client's money he was spending. Construction cost $3.2 million in 1894, a figure of approximately $80 million in 2011 dollars. Belmont employed some thirty servants at Belcourt, with aggregate wages of approximately $100 per week, or approximately 40% of the national average wage at the time. ==Belmont years==

When construction finished in 1894, the entire first floor was composed of carriage space and a multitude of stables for Belmont's prized horses. Upstairs was a master bedroom with wall scenes depicting the life of a nobleman and a bathroom with Newport's first standing shower. The monumental Gothic rooms with their huge stained-glass windows were emblazoned with the Belmont coat of arms. The room's original damask, blood red in color, has long since been replaced with the same fabric in gold. The Grand Staircase, now a replica of the stairs in the Cluny Museum in France, connects the Lower Grand Hall to Belmont's Upper Grand Hall on the second floor. The details are mostly the same as those of its partner room below. Myriad formal rooms open onto one another in varying periods of French style and decoration. The galleries and halls of the second floor employ the architect's trademark of vistas framing the views into various rooms. initiated renovations that would radically reconfigure the courtyard and the interior of the home Belmont married his neighbor Alva Vanderbilt, the former wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt, on January 11, 1896. Eager to reshape and redesign Belcourt, Alva made changes that morphed the already eccentric character of Belcourt into a yet more eccentric hybrid mixture of styles. Alva Belmont converted the carriage room into a banquet hall and transformed a study into a boudoir, importing 18th-century French paneling. In 1899, Belcourt was the host of the nation's first automobile parade. ==Changes in ownership==

Oliver Belmont died in 1908 and Mrs. Belmont died in France on January 26, 1933. Belcourt passed to 80-year-old Perry Belmont, the eldest Belmont child and Alva's brother-in-law. At the onset of World War II, Perry Belmont had most of the contents of Belcourt moved to his other estates as Newport was a naval base and potentially at risk of attack. Select pieces of Alva's were auctioned off, as Perry allegedly had no great love for her. In 1940, Belmont decided to rid himself of Belcourt. Negotiations commenced with George Waterman, an entrepreneur. Waterman envisioned Belcourt as an antique auto museum. The only conditions of the sale were that Waterman had to restore the castle as close as possible to Hunt's original plans. Waterman was responsible for the restoration of the third-floor roof and removal of an addition overlooking the courtyard. After paying $1,000 for the castle, Waterman was informed that zoning wouldn't allow his antique auto museum. Subsequently, it was taken off of the market and re-listed for sale in two parcels totaling $4.625 million. Tinney said she was ready to part with the home after her husband's death in 2006. Rafaelian is currently restoring and renovating the mansion, which she reopened in summer 2014 as a tour house, art gallery, and event space under the business name Belcourt of Newport. Rafaelian reports she has already spent $5 million on renovations, including $3 million for a new roof. ==Materials==

Belcourt's distinctive exterior appearance was achieved through the use of brick and Westerly granite to frame the windows, doors and fields of stucco. The roof is sheathed in Pennsylvania slate and is pierced by numerous ox-eye (elliptical) dormer windows. The interior, completed by 300 imported artisans, was created of carved oak with oak and mosaic marble floors. The numerous decorative ceilings were finished with sculpted and molded plaster and carved woods such as chestnut. The walls are finished with canvas paintings, carved oak, imported paneling and pure silk damasks. The numerous exterior railings and gates are composed of wrought iron and bronze, featuring a shell motif and the monogram "OB." The foundations are stone, brick and poured concrete with thick brick walls supporting enormous roof timbers and steel I-beams. ==See also==