The
Newport Casino is located at 186-202
Bellevue AvenueThe Bellevue Avenue Historic District is located along and around that street in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Its property is almost exclusively residential, including many of the mansions built by affluent summer vacationers in the city around the turn of the 20th century...
,
NewportNewport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about 30 miles 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...
,
Rhode IslandRhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
,
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was designated a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
on February 27, 1987.
The complex was commissioned in 1880 by
James Gordon Bennett, Jr.James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr.. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father....
Legend states that Bennett placed a bet with his guest British Cavalry Officer, Captain Henry Augustus "Sugar" Candy that Candy would not ride his horse up onto the front porch of Newport's most exclusive men's club - The Newport Reading Room.
The
Newport Casino is located at 186-202
Bellevue AvenueThe Bellevue Avenue Historic District is located along and around that street in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Its property is almost exclusively residential, including many of the mansions built by affluent summer vacationers in the city around the turn of the 20th century...
,
NewportNewport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about 30 miles 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...
,
Rhode IslandRhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
,
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was designated a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
on February 27, 1987.
History (1879 - 1900)
The complex was commissioned in 1880 by
James Gordon Bennett, Jr.James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr.. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father....
Legend states that Bennett placed a bet with his guest British Cavalry Officer, Captain Henry Augustus "Sugar" Candy that Candy would not ride his horse up onto the front porch of Newport's most exclusive men's club - The Newport Reading Room. Candy won the bet, but the Governors of the Reading Room were not amused. Bennett and his infamous short temper did not take this kindly, and soon set about creating his own retreat, what would eventually become The Newport Casino.
Soon after deciding to create his own social club, Bennett purchased the Sidney Brooks estate,
Villa". Directly across the street was a vacant lot, suitable for construction of the Casino. Bennett hired
Charles McKimCharles Follen McKim FAIA was one of the most prominent American Beaux-Arts architects of the late nineteenth century...
(soon to be of the firm
McKim, Mead, and WhiteMcKim, Mead, and White was a prominent architectural firm in the eastern United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm's partners were Charles Follen McKim , William Rutherford Mead , and Stanford White , along with many other associates and designers.McKim and White had both worked...
) to design the Casino. By January 1880, Nathan Barker of Newport, RI, was contracted to begin construction.
The interior of the Casino, while generally outlined by McKim, was entrusted to
Stanford WhiteStanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be...
. Taking many elements and cues from the Japanese Pavilion at the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, White provided for a plan that was both secluded and open.
The Newport Casino opened to its first patrons in July 1880, and the general public got their first view in August 1880.
History (1900 - 1954)
The first half of the 20th century was unkind to the Newport Casino. The Gilded age drew to a close with the onset of the Depression, and the Newport fell by the wayside as a summer resort for the wealthy and powerful. The Casino struggled financially as a social club right from the start, and by the 1950s the Casino was in sad shape. Like many of the mansions, there was the very real possibility that it would be demolished to make way for more modern retail space.
Tennis, however, would be its saving grace. Having always had a sporting flair, the United States Lawn Tennis Association held their first championships at the Casino in 1881, an event that would continue through 1914. By this time, tennis was firmly entrenched as the key attraction at the Casino.
Fortunately, Jimmy and Candy Van Alen stepped in, and by 1954 had established the Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum in the Newport Casino. The combination of prominent headliners at the tennis matches and the museum allowed the building to be saved.
It stands today as one of the finest examples of Victorian Shingle Style architecture in the world. The buildings are generally well preserved, except for the Casino Theatre which is in poor condition.
Buildings
The complex includes:
- The Casino (shops, a restaurant, offices, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is a non-profit tennis hall of fame and museum at the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island, USA.- History :...
)
- Horseshoe Piazza and Court
- Bill Talbert
William Franklin "Bill" Talbert was an American tennis player and administrator.He was ranked in the U.S. Top 10 13 times between 1941 & 1954. He won nine Grand Slam doubles titles, and also reached the men’s doubles finals of the U.S...
Stadium
- Court Tennis
Real tennis, often called "Royal Tennis" – one of the several sports sometimes called the sport of Kings – is the original indoor racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis, or tennis, is descended...
Building (The National Court Tennis Club)
- Theatre
- Indoor tennis courts (Newport Casino Indoor Racquet Club)
- Various grass tennis court
A tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...
s (Newport Casino Lawn Tennis Club)
Sports
The Newport Casino was never a public gambling establishment. Originally, "
casinoA casino is a facility that houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships and other tourist attractions...
" meant a small villa built for pleasure. During the 19th century, the term casino came to include other buildings where social activities took place.
In its heyday during the
Gilded AgeIn American history, the Gilded Age refers to substantial growth in population in the United States and extravagant displays of wealth and excess of America's upper-class during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, in the late 19th century...
, the Newport Casino offered a wide array of social diversions to the summer colony including archery, billiards, bowling, concerts, dancing, dining, horse shows, lawn bowling, reading, real tennis, tea parties, and theatricals. It was best known as the home of
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lawn tennisTennis is a sport played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a strung racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court....
; the Casino hosted the 1881–1914 National Championships, later called the
U.S. OpenThe US Open, formally the United States Open tennis championships, is a tennis tournament which is the modern incarnation of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, with the U.S. National Championship, which for mens' singles was first contested in 1881...
.
Today, there is still an active grass-court tennis club, as well as an indoor tennis club. The Newport Casino Croquet Club offers championship
croquetCroquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport, which involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...
play on Newport's grass courts.
The
Court TennisReal tennis, often called "Royal Tennis" – one of the several sports sometimes called the sport of Kings – is the original indoor racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis, or tennis, is descended...
Building is part of the original complex, built in 1880. It burned down in 1945, but was rebuilt in 1980. It is home to the
National Tennis ClubThe National Tennis Club is a real tennis club in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. Its home is the reconstructed Court Tennis Building at the Newport Casino . It is perhaps the busiest court in the United States...
.
External links