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travel2000
travel2000
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4 out of 5
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Editor Pick

The Elms

  • November 11, 2006
  • Rated 4 of 5 by zabelle from Portland, Connecticut
The Elms

The Elms was the most modern of the Newport Mansion, it was one of the first all electric houses in Newport. It was designed by Horace Trumbauer for coal baron Edward Berwind. It is a copy of the chateau d’Asnieres in France. It cost 1.2 million to build. It was the Brewind coal that fueled the Vanderbilt trains and ships.

Inside the mansion you see the work of the designer Jules Allard. The house is visited on a headphone tour. There is a basic tour and then if you want more details they are also available. One of the first extra tours has to deal with some Sevres china in an orange Turkish pattern.

The conservatory is beautiful, with a white marble floor and is the most casual of the first floor rooms. It was here that Miss Julia Berwind would serve her "White Ladies" a drink made from lemon juice, orange liquor, lots of gin and egg whites.

The gardens at the Elms took a staff of ten men to maintain. There were red carpets that were fitted into the garden paths so that the ladies wouldn’t ruin their dresses. The ballroom is the center of the house. The House was warmed with a grand party on September 7, 1901. Four hundred people filled the house including Ethel Barrymore and Alice Roosevelt.

The dining room is amazing. The meals would have been a combination of local and french cuisine. Dining was a very formal affair. Everything was regulated. How long you should talk to each of your dining partners, never put our knife in your mouth, never seat your guests next to each other too often during the season. Be sure to check out the chandelier in this room it has beautiful flower shades on the lights.

We walked up the gorgeous stairs to the second floor, if you are not able to do stairs there is an elevator. There are seven bedrooms on the second floor. In the hallway there are cases filled with embroidered satin pillows that were made for the pavilion that was set up along the Rhine to honor the arrival of Marie Antoinette in April 1770.

Miss Julia Berwind used the Van Allen room as her private bedroom. During the season a women needed to have morning dresses, luncheon dresses, tea dresses, outing dresses and evening dresses. One afternoon a week they had to be at home to visitors. If someone left their card then you were required to return the visit. It was all very formal. One season of entertainment required up to forty servants and cost as much as $300,000 for six to eight weeks. Of course this was in the days before there was an income tax and you got to keep all the money you earned.

All at least an hour for your visit and plan to take the rooftop and behind the scenes tour as well.

From journal Newport - Gilt, Gold, and Greed

Editor Pick

The Elms Behind the Scenes Tour

  • November 11, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by zabelle from Portland, Connecticut
The Elms Behind the Scenes Tour

If you can only take one tour while you are in Newport, make it this one. This is the only one that will take you where the family would never have gone, through the world of the servants. This is a very popular tour and you will need a reservation to take it. Even in April we had to wait so I suggest that you come here first and sign up for one of the tours. You can then either take the self guides tour of the house or go to one of the other houses.

The tour begins outside in front of the house. We then walk around to the side and enter the house as the servants would have. We learn that the house was named for the elm trees that used to fill the yard. Dutch Elm diseases took care of that so today there are no Elms.

What we are going to see on this tour is how the hostesses of the Gilded Age made entertainment look effortless. The work took place out of the sight of the guests. With the help of call boxes, laundry rooms, large state of the art kitchens, butlers pantries to die for and even a coal tunnel with it’s own coal car the servants were able to keep everything running smoothly.

We begin by going down into the bowels of the house to see where the furnaces and the coal bin. The laundry and the drying room was next, I had to smile because I guess the Berwind’s couldn’t have their laundry drying out in the backyard for their neighbors to see. Three people worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep up with all the laundry. In Newport, 2500 residents worked as servants, 43 of them worked here at the Elms. 27 of them were outside servants, Mr Berwind found any footprints in his white stone walkways to be unacceptable. The servants had to follow behind any quests who took a walk and get rid of any trace of their walk.

There is an ice box room with a big oak ice box. This was the pastry chefs domain. The chefs that the Berwind’s hired were trained by Escoffier and earn salaries that were astronomical even in 1900.

We climbed up three flights of stairs to the servants bedrooms. Some of them are set up as they would have looked. Most of them are shared rooms. There is of course a call box on this floor. Twenty two people shared the 14 rooms and three bathrooms.

Now for the best part, we get to walk out onto the roof. We get a beautiful view of the grounds and some of the surrounding homes. This is a one of a kind opportunity.

We end down in the kitchen and then off to the gift shop.

From journal Newport - Gilt, Gold, and Greed

Editor Pick

The Elms

  • November 21, 2000
  • Rated 4 of 5 by travel2000 from New York, New York
This graceful mansion is actually my favorite. The style is classical and not over-the-top in gold. Though the gardens were under work when I visited, I still got a chance to enjoy the interior. This was the summer home of Edward Berwind, who made his fortune in the coal industry. Apparently, this was one of the first houses in the country to have central heat and hot water. Makes sense for an energy millionaire. When the mansion was at its peak, there were lots of artwork and sculptures in residence, but unfortunately for us, they have since been auctioned off.

From journal Newport Mansions

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