For our Rhode Island sightseeing, we went to Newport. The first day was on Sunday and it was to tour the Gilded Age summer cottage, Rosecliff. And it was still rainy while we were in Newport! I had read a story recently that was about a wedding set at Rosecliff. And in doing research about the gilded mansions, I read that Robert Redford's The Great Gatsby was filmed there. I watched the movie before we went and recognized places in the movie. I was disappointed that in the movie they did not show the heart shaped stairway as it is super cool and I can see why brides would like to walk down these stairs!
These homes were considered summer cottages even though they were hardly a cottage. The owners only lived in them for about 2-3 months during the summer.
We got to walk through the fancy doors
The house itself was built by a silver heiress, Theresa Fair Oelrichs, and her husband. She designed it to throw parties and apparently she had some elaborate ones! This house is set up now with the bottom level looking like it did in when they lived there; but the upstairs contains room for brides and an exhibit hall. Everything about this mansion was elaborate. Nothing was left empty, even the ceilings. The tour was a self guided one, with an audio option; but we also did the scavenger hunt and had fun finding all the items, some harder than others. We listened to the audio part in the car since we didn't bring airpods with us.
The view to the outside where Gatsby had his parties
The library ceiling
We found the elelpant in the room
Jenn did a good impression of the I'm Gatsby meme
The rain stopped by the time we finished the inside part of the tour and we got to see the incredible view from the backyard of Rosecliff.
Rosecliff was named because of the roses they grew. The American Beauty variety came from Rosecliff.
You could see other mansions from the backyard
Below the backyard was part of the cliffwalk. It is a 3ish mile walk along the water, but not within sight of the mansions. They wouldn't want just anyone being able to see their backyard parties!
After our tour was finished we were getting hungry, so we headed back to Misquamicut State Beach. We ended up at the Windjammer where we got to eat lobster rolls and a lobster shipwreck by the beach. The shipwreck had waffle fries, mac and cheese, lobster bisque and lobster meat. The waffle fries were not needed as we had fries with our lobster rolls, but everything else was super delicious. We also got to line dance. We finished the evening with ice cream at Watch Hill after we walked on the beach and caught the sunset at the tip of the island.
This was a day of beauty from manmade beauty to God's creation. Magnificent!
