I have one from there too.
Ha! I used to work at Belcourt as a tour guide. Alva was an interesting character, for sure.
“This is Nayn-cy Gray-ce, and we’re takin’ calls on Chop Tot . . . caller?”
If you hit up Broadway, the Corner Cafe has a good breakfast, but can be very crowded on weekends.
Also, the Salvation Cafe is a favorite for dinner among my artsy friends, very eclectic.
Wow! How long ago. I used to cater functions in almost all those mansions on
Bellvue. The Elms and Marble House mostly. This was from 85 until the early 90s.
Used to live in Newport, years ago. A relatively cheap place to eat good food for dinner is Sala’s. It’s on Thames Street just as you come off America’s Cup Ave., so it’s right in the heart of the shopping. The upstairs has a more full menu, but it doesn’t open until 5 (and steep stairs!).
Good seafood. Try the oriental spaghetti if you don’t want seafood.
If you have the time, go around Ocean Drive and stop at Breton Reef State Park (especially if there is a breeze - you’ll see every kind of kite).
Marble House is far more beautiful than The Breakers. I’ve been to the Breakers at least 4 times - why, I can’t really say for sure - but Marble House just once. They used to have some real characters as tour guides, but it is audio now and it’s fine. You’ll also want to drive down Bellevue and then along Ocean Drive. Taking a walk on the Cliff Walk is also very nice. Oh, there’s the Tennis Hall of Fame at the beginning of Bellevue. In nearby Middletown you can visit the Green Animals, which is an old house and its amazing gardens.
Fall River, IMO, has very little to offer other than the battleship and Lizzie Borden. It’s really a depressed town, but there is good seafood and Portuguese food.
If you’re willing to drive 5-10 minutes into Newport, you can stay in perfectly respectable motel sort of places for cheap, especially midweek. I think we paid $60/night a few years ago (via Priceline) for a Howard Johnson’s in Middletown, one town over from Newport, on two weeknights in the summer. It was clean and reasonably comfortable.
Of the mansions I’ve visited (all the Newport Historical society ones - it was cheaper for us to buy a membership (tax deductible!) than to buy admissions a la carte), I think I liked The Elms the best. The Cliff Walk is lovely if the weather is nice, and it’s not at all difficult if you’re reasonably mobile.
Anderson Cooper was interviewed once about going to the Breakers as a child. He was a tourist- he and his mother had to pay admission- but his mother spent part of her childhood there (the house was built by her grandparents Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice G. Vanderbilt) and one of her elderly aunts, Gladys Vanderbilt Szechenyi, the widow of a Polish prince married during the “Who Wants to Buy Their Daughter a European Nobleman?” games era, lived in what had once been servant’s quarters (and was still very nice apartments) there per the agreement when the house was donated.
These places are undeniably gorgeous, and both the Breakers and Marble House could fit with ease into the main house at Biltmore which was built by the “poorest” member of the immediate family (Cornelius II and William K.'s kid brother George). When you think of how many millions were paid just for summer homes- the equivalent of well over a hundred million dollars each in today’s money- during a time when skilled workers rarely made $100 per month it’s surprising there wasn’t more armed conflict between classes.
We visited there a month or two ago, and found an el-cheapo hotel about 15 minutes north of Newport that was pretty decent. It was like $70 or $80 a night, and was clean and functional. It had the least comfortable beds I’ve ever experienced, and we did find a black lacy thong under one bed while looking for one of the baby’s toys, but other than that, it was great. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, I’ll see if I can dig up the details.
Belcourt is my favorite mansion, though the Tinneys have about as much taste as Lady GaGa. The dining room on the ground floor is a prime example, those chandeliers are so out of proportion and style for the room … they have skimped on maintenance, so I fear for the suspended ceiling in the oval dining room on the second floor, and they have multiple broken window panes allowing birds to fly around in the place. And the ‘chair collection’ that is just stacked in rooms and hallways willy nilly :rolleyes:
No offense to Fall River, but it’s hard to imagine anyone going there on purpose. And just to note, most of the Portuguese there are from The Azores, not mainland Portugal. The food is a bit different from “regular” Portuguese food.
Newport is great, though. I always enjoyed going there when I lived in NE. Of course, now I get to spend time in Carmel in CA. In fact, I think a little trip there this weekend is in order!
I’ve never been to Newport, but have visited Fall River many times. Its an old industrial town with not much going for it these days. As others have said the main attractions are Battleship Cove and the Lizzie Borden House. Battleship Cove is totally awesome if you are into WWII or naval stuff. There is also a general maritime museum there. If you have no interest in nautical things you should probably skip it. The Borden house was fun to visit. My GF and I went on a windy, cold, overcast day in November about ten years ago. It was closed, but one of the cleaning staff gave us a quick tour. The bleak weather and empty building lent a very spooky atmosphere to the visit. The best part was seeing the crime scene photos from the murder. They were framed and hanging on the walls of the murder rooms (which I believe you can stay in).
If you want better Portagee food than Fall Riv, drive another ten minutes up I-195 to New Bedford/Fairhaven. Its the home of Gaspar’s, Amaral’s and several other Portuguese food companies. It’s pretty much the Mecca of Portuguese food in New England.
Have fun on your trip!
Yeah, it is just a big 'ole jumble of furniture. Different styles, ages, etc all jumbled together. I think their attutide was “Is it old? I’ll take it!” I have heard, (haven’t been there in a while. I worked there from '95-97) that it is much less crowded now, as they have sold off a bunch of stuff.
Considering that the dining room used to be the carriage house, I think any chandelier would look out of place 
Honestly, it could be so fantastic if fully restored and furnished with more apprpriate period furniture [and that horrid horrid fresco painted over :eek:] I have dreams of winning a sweet jebus sized lottery and buying it just so I could properly restore it.
Of course I would horrify the historical society by removing the french paneling from the library and restoring it to being a library, and removing the shot silk wall coverings and replacing with new wall treatments [probably paint, I hate wallpapers and wall fabric coverings] and I would carefully remove the king arthur and his knights wallpaper from the master bedroom and donate it to several historical and art societies. I would also not keep it open all the time, just around the holidays for special holiday tours [we did christmas dinner there once, and a halloween tour once]
A home needs to be lived in, not museumized. The original owner would probaly be baffled at it becoming a museum.
[How many actual bedrooms does it have, not counting the attic apartments? They never show the entire place, or open it and just let you wander around:(]
The servants quarters were remodeled into the Tinney’s living quarters, and I have never been in them, so I have no idea about the bedrooms. The original house only had 1 master bedroom for Belmont (it was supposed to be a bachelor pad), but one was added when Alva moved it.
It is a cool house. And it has tunnels! (Because your servants couldn’t be seen walking across the lawn!) It would be very interesting to see it modernized…
Fall River, isn’t that were Mr Borden and his wife got into all that trouble?
Hell, spring for the extra fifty bucks and sleep in Abby’s own bedroom or murder room. Always kinda liked John Morse as a suspect.
When Lizzie inherited her father’s estate she designed and built a new house called Maplecroft- not a mansion (as most would define it but it is called so in some bios) but very much a step up from her father’s house. It’s a private house now but it does still stand. YouTube of inside. This is the house that Emma stormed out of never to return after her argument with Lizzie and where Lizzie “entertained” an actress that drew some eyebrows in society, and also where she lived until she died (coincidentally the same month Emma died, though they hadn’t spoken in over a decade).
A lot of people, me included, have a fairly negative reaction to the visit, though, right when the tour guide points out that the house was built during the Great Depression.
John Mace, I was thinking the same thing. My dad’s from Fall River and he hadn’t found a reason to go back for at least two decades. You could get a strained chowmein sandwich there, though, which is a point in its favor. God, some days I’d contemplate murder to get ahold of one…