Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard

Visit:

Marble House

This is the Marble House, completed in 1892 for William Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  It was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt, who was the first American architect to have studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (from 1846 to 1855).  At that time, It cost $11 million to build, equivalent to nearly $250 million today, and two thirds of the cost was for nearly 500,000 cubic feet of marble.  I have read many times that it was inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles, but I do not see much resemblance between the two.  The columns are reminiscent of those on the White House.  Vanderbilt gave The Marble House to his then wife Alva Erskine Smith for her 39th birthday in January 1892.  She was from a wealthy southern family, and had spent the civil war years living in Paris, as had many wealthy southern families.  She divorced Vanderbilt in 1895, marrying Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, and moved into his house Belcourt.  Belcourt did not have the closet space necessary for her clothes, so The Marble House was used as a repository for her clothes.  Following Belmont's death in 1908, she started to use the house again, and built the Chinese Tea House on the cliffs overlooking the sea.  She became heavily involved in the women's suffrage movement, holding many fund-raisers at the house, and donating large sums of money to the cause both in the US and in the UK where she was inspired by Emmeline Pankhurst.  In 1909, she opened the Marble House to the public to help raise awareness for the women's suffrage movement, charging $1 to visit the grounds and $5 for the house’s interior; so not many of the "general public" could have afforded it.  She moved to France in the early 1920s, and in 1932, she sold the house to the wealthy financier Frederick H. Prince.  She died in Paris in January of 1933.  Parts of both the Great Gatsby and True Lies were filmed in the Marble House, with other parts filmed at Rosecliff. 
The rear facade that faces towards the sea.  Taken in 2010 from the cliff path. 
The Chinese Tea House was designed in 1913 by Joseph & Richard Howland Hunt. They modeled it on twelfth century Sung dynasty temples in southern China. The roof comprises terra cotta tiles, glazed in pale green, and the roof is decorated with Chinese style dragons.
Credit: Ekem
The front facade. 

Vacations -

Rhode Island

- Newport Mansions