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Estherwood (Dobbs Ferry, New York)
Encyclopedia
Estherwood is a late 19th-century mansion located on the campus of The Masters School
in Dobbs Ferry
, New York
, United States
. It was the home of industrial tycoon James Jenning McComb, who supported Masters financially in its early years when his daughters attended. The house's octagonal library
was the first section built. It had been attached to McComb's previous home, but he had felt it deserved a house more in keeping with its style and so had architect Albert Buchman design Estherwood built around it.
The interior features lavish decoration and detail, with generous use of marble
and gold leaf
. As the only significant châteauesque
building in Westchester County
, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
(NRHP) in 1979 as Estherwood and Carriage House.
on each of its sides. It is faced in white pressed brick with granite trim and terra-cotta
detailing. Its roof is black and red ceramic
tile
, with copper
cresting and stone filials, from which four red brick chimney
s rise. A copper-clad cupola
caps the east facade
's tower. The porte-cochère
on the west facade, the house's main entrance, is supported by granite piers and Doric order
columns. It has a Guastavino tile
ceiling to match the one on the veranda that encircles the rest of the house. The irregular fenestration
includes fifteen dormer windows and a second-story oriel window
.
with mosaic
flooring, marble
baseboard
s, classical molding
and bronze
light fixtures. It leads to 65-foot-long (20 m) Great Hall that rises two stories to a coffer
ed ceiling and skylights. A divided staircase of pink marble
rises to a gallery that overlooks the hall. The balcony
is supported by Ionic
columns on high plinth
s. The hall also features a green marble fireplace
with limestone
trim. The oak
parquet floor has a carved Greek key-patterned border repeated on the underside of the gallery.
Six rooms are located off the Great Hall, also with lavish decoration. The dining room
has dark oak walls with carved Northern European motifs such as boars' and rams' heads, broken by copper and bronze
medieval sconce
s. Built-in service units are supported by caryatid
s. The north wall is broken by the fireplace, with a mosaic wall and surround. The adjacent plaster wall is painted Pompeii red. The shallow vaulted ceiling is, like that of the Great Hall, coffered.
The Music Room – known as the "Red Room" – features an alcove
flanked by red marble columns and pilaster
s, both with capitals
highlighted in gold leaf
. Adamesque
swags and garlands, also highlighted in gold, are carved into the wall and ceiling along with musical motifs such as lyre
s, horns and Pan flute
s. These motifs recur in the stained glass
window transoms
. The south wall is of mahogany
with brass trim; it features the Music Room's fireplace, flanked by carved Corinthian
pilasters.
The Reception Room features intricately patterned plaster walls and ceilings. Two of its windows have gold-stained panels, and an original crystal chandelier
still hangs. The drawing room
at the house's northwest corner features scrolled brackets
and marble Composite columns
on high plinths. Its marble fireplace has wood surrounds.
The large octagonal library has a central octagonal stained-glass skylight. Stained glass, with a rich floral motif, is also found in the transoms of the two large windows in the north wall. Other ornament includes the plaster molding with gold leaf. The shelving is made of dark Honduran
mahogany. Of the six major rooms on the main floor, the Billiards Room is the least decorated, with oak wainscoting and eared windows and doors. The plaster ceiling likewise has a simple molding and a central medallion.
Upstairs, the house has been remodeled somewhat by the school, but the bird's-eye maple
and golden oak woodwork have been retained, as well as the frosted glass closet-door panels and sliding door
s off the gallery. The attic
also features its original arched doorways, water tanks, and unusual floor-to-ceiling diagonal braces in the center.
style with Stick-style porte-cochére. Its interior features wrought-iron
columnar supports and sliding doors between every space.
as it emerged from baler
s. In the 1860s he came to Dobbs Ferry, where he sent his three daughters to the Misses' Masters School, named for its founding sisters in 1877. He bought the current property and eventually moved his family to the small Park Cottage (still standing) near the school's Clinton Avenue location to shorten his daughters' walk to school.
The octagonal library was first built as an addition to Park Cottage, to complement an octagonal library desk McComb had bought in Europe. He was soon dissatisfied with how poorly the new room integrated with the rest of the house, and hired the New York firm of Buchman & Deisler to design a new house connected to the library that would better match it.
McComb and his family lived in Estherwood from its completion in 1895 to his death in 1901. He had continued to acquire nearby property and rent it to the school, and in 1910 the school bought it all, including Estherwood and the carriage house, from his heirs. It has made few changes to the building, primarily adding an elevator
in 1949. Estherwood was used as a dormitory
for many years; today its upper floors serve as faculty
apartments and the main floor is used for special events and school functions.
Tower and the Student Building at Barnard College
. He brought to the commission a breadth of architectural knowledge and an awareness of the ostentatious tastes of the new rich of the Gilded Age
. In its lavish use of materials and elements that would be characterized as conspicuous consumption
, Estherwood has been compared to Richard Morris Hunt
's The Breakers
– the Vanderbilt family
summer home in Newport, Rhode Island
– that had been completed only three years before, attracting much notice as the most expensive house ever built at that time.
The Masters School
The Masters School, known as "Masters", is a private, coeducational boarding school and day college preparatory school located in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Its campus is located near Manhattan in the Hudson Valley in Westchester County...
in Dobbs Ferry
Dobbs Ferry, New York
Dobbs Ferry is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 10,875 at the 2010 census.The Village of Dobbs Ferry is located in, and is a part of, the town of Greenburgh...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was the home of industrial tycoon James Jenning McComb, who supported Masters financially in its early years when his daughters attended. The house's octagonal library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
was the first section built. It had been attached to McComb's previous home, but he had felt it deserved a house more in keeping with its style and so had architect Albert Buchman design Estherwood built around it.
The interior features lavish decoration and detail, with generous use of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
and gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
. As the only significant châteauesque
Châteauesque
Châteauesque is one of several terms, including Francis I style, and, in Canada, the Château Style, that refer to a revival architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental French country homes built in the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the...
building in Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
(NRHP) in 1979 as Estherwood and Carriage House.
Buildings
The Estherwood NRHP listing recognizes both the mansion and its carriage house as contributing resources. Both are located on a 10-acre (4 ha) parcel just east of the main Masters buildings.Mansion exterior
The house is three and a half stories high, with a varying number of baysBay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
on each of its sides. It is faced in white pressed brick with granite trim and terra-cotta
Architectural terracotta
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
detailing. Its roof is black and red ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
, with copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
cresting and stone filials, from which four red brick chimney
Chimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
s rise. A copper-clad cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
caps the east facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
's tower. The porte-cochère
Porte-cochere
A porte-cochère is the architectural term for a porch- or portico-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which a horse and carriage can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.The porte-cochère was a feature of many late 18th...
on the west facade, the house's main entrance, is supported by granite piers and Doric order
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
columns. It has a Guastavino tile
Guastavino tile
Guastavino tile is the "Tile Arch System" patented in the US in 1885 by Valencian architect and builder Rafael Guastavino...
ceiling to match the one on the veranda that encircles the rest of the house. The irregular fenestration
Window
A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...
includes fifteen dormer windows and a second-story oriel window
Oriel window
Oriel windows are a form of bay window commonly found in Gothic architecture, which project from the main wall of the building but do not reach to the ground. Corbels or brackets are often used to support this kind of window. They are seen in combination with the Tudor arch. This type of window was...
.
Mansion interior
From the entrance, there is a vestibuleVestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
with mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
flooring, marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
baseboard
Baseboard
In architecture, a baseboard is a board covering the lowest part of an interior wall...
s, classical molding
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...
and bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
light fixtures. It leads to 65-foot-long (20 m) Great Hall that rises two stories to a coffer
Coffer
A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...
ed ceiling and skylights. A divided staircase of pink marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
rises to a gallery that overlooks the hall. The balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
is supported by Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
columns on high plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
s. The hall also features a green marble fireplace
Fireplace
A fireplace is an architectural structure to contain a fire for heating and, especially historically, for cooking. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or other flue allows gas and particulate exhaust to escape...
with limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
trim. The oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
parquet floor has a carved Greek key-patterned border repeated on the underside of the gallery.
Six rooms are located off the Great Hall, also with lavish decoration. The dining room
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...
has dark oak walls with carved Northern European motifs such as boars' and rams' heads, broken by copper and bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
medieval sconce
Sconce
Sconce may refer to any of the following:* Sconce , a military fortification* Sconce * Sconcing, imposing a penalty in the form of drink* SCoNCe, , University of California, Irvine...
s. Built-in service units are supported by caryatid
Caryatid
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese...
s. The north wall is broken by the fireplace, with a mosaic wall and surround. The adjacent plaster wall is painted Pompeii red. The shallow vaulted ceiling is, like that of the Great Hall, coffered.
The Music Room – known as the "Red Room" – features an alcove
Alcove
Alcove , a vault) is an architectural term for a recess in a room, usually screened off by pillars, balustrades or drapery.In geography and geology, the term Alcove is used for a wind-eroded depression in the side of a cliff of a homogenous rock type, famous from sandstones of the Colorado Plateau...
flanked by red marble columns and pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s, both with capitals
Capital (architecture)
In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...
highlighted in gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
. Adamesque
Adam style
The Adam style is an 18th century neoclassical style of interior design and architecture, as practiced by the three Adam brothers from Scotland; of whom Robert Adam and James Adam were the most widely known.The Adam brothers were the first to advocate an integrated style for architecture and...
swags and garlands, also highlighted in gold, are carved into the wall and ceiling along with musical motifs such as lyre
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
s, horns and Pan flute
Pan flute
The pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...
s. These motifs recur in the stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
window transoms
Transom (architectural)
In architecture, a transom is the term given to a transverse beam or bar in a frame, or to the crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it. Transom is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece...
. The south wall is of mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
with brass trim; it features the Music Room's fireplace, flanked by carved Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
pilasters.
The Reception Room features intricately patterned plaster walls and ceilings. Two of its windows have gold-stained panels, and an original crystal chandelier
Chandelier
A chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...
still hangs. The drawing room
Drawing room
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms "withdrawing room" and "withdrawing chamber", which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642...
at the house's northwest corner features scrolled brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
and marble Composite columns
Composite order
The composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order. The composite order volutes are larger, however, and the composite order also has echinus molding with egg-and-dart ornamentation between the volutes...
on high plinths. Its marble fireplace has wood surrounds.
The large octagonal library has a central octagonal stained-glass skylight. Stained glass, with a rich floral motif, is also found in the transoms of the two large windows in the north wall. Other ornament includes the plaster molding with gold leaf. The shelving is made of dark Honduran
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
mahogany. Of the six major rooms on the main floor, the Billiards Room is the least decorated, with oak wainscoting and eared windows and doors. The plaster ceiling likewise has a simple molding and a central medallion.
Upstairs, the house has been remodeled somewhat by the school, but the bird's-eye maple
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
and golden oak woodwork have been retained, as well as the frosted glass closet-door panels and sliding door
Sliding door
A sliding door is a type of door which opens horizontally by sliding, whereby the door is either mounted on or suspended from a track. Types of sliding doors include pocket doors, Arcadia doors, and bypass doors...
s off the gallery. The attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
also features its original arched doorways, water tanks, and unusual floor-to-ceiling diagonal braces in the center.
Carriage house
The carriage house is located to the east of the main house, downhill from it. It was built to take advantage of the slope, in a massed Queen AnneQueen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
style with Stick-style porte-cochére. Its interior features wrought-iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
columnar supports and sliding doors between every space.
History
Ohio native James Jenning McComb's wealth came from his invention of the ties that secured cottonCotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
as it emerged from baler
Baler
A baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport and store...
s. In the 1860s he came to Dobbs Ferry, where he sent his three daughters to the Misses' Masters School, named for its founding sisters in 1877. He bought the current property and eventually moved his family to the small Park Cottage (still standing) near the school's Clinton Avenue location to shorten his daughters' walk to school.
The octagonal library was first built as an addition to Park Cottage, to complement an octagonal library desk McComb had bought in Europe. He was soon dissatisfied with how poorly the new room integrated with the rest of the house, and hired the New York firm of Buchman & Deisler to design a new house connected to the library that would better match it.
McComb and his family lived in Estherwood from its completion in 1895 to his death in 1901. He had continued to acquire nearby property and rent it to the school, and in 1910 the school bought it all, including Estherwood and the carriage house, from his heirs. It has made few changes to the building, primarily adding an elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
in 1949. Estherwood was used as a dormitory
Dormitory
A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
for many years; today its upper floors serve as faculty
Faculty (university)
A faculty is a division within a university comprising one subject area, or a number of related subject areas...
apartments and the main floor is used for special events and school functions.
Aesthetics
Estherwood is a rare residential commission for Albert Buchman, better known for commercial and institutional structures such as the New York WorldNew York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
Tower and the Student Building at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
. He brought to the commission a breadth of architectural knowledge and an awareness of the ostentatious tastes of the new rich of the Gilded Age
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
. In its lavish use of materials and elements that would be characterized as conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
, Estherwood has been compared to Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...
's The Breakers
The Breakers
The Breakers is a Vanderbilt mansion located on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is a National Historic Landmark, a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, and is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport...
– the Vanderbilt family
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
summer home in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
– that had been completed only three years before, attracting much notice as the most expensive house ever built at that time.