Rhode Island and The Breakers

08/15/2019 - We drove to Middletown, Rhode Island at the Meadowlark RV Park.  Not a very nice campground - no water, and the spots were not level.  The Office was up a long flight of stairs.  Trish almost got stuck between trees and other cars parked everywhere.  I was probably at fault as I was directing her, but we finally got her parked on a downhill spot on the grass.  Still not level, but too tired and hot to try for another spot.  The weather here on the East Coast is sticky, about 87 to 93 degrees, and lots of humidity.  You only need to be out in the sun for a short bit, and you are soaked with sweat.  The heat/humidity got to me more than once.  So, I am being more careful now.

We rested, had dinner, and went to  bed.  tomorrow is a big touring day.


08/16/2019 - Today, Trish, Susan, Tom, and I took off in the Jeep for the Newport Mansions, specifically we are going to tour The Breakers, the summer cottage of Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt.  It was built from 1893 to 1895 (amazing that it was completed in only 2 years).   It has 70 rooms and over 125,000 square feet in the house.  The grounds cover 14 acres, including the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

The Breakers - Vanderbilt's summer cottage!!

The Vanderbilts spent lavishly.  The original cost was about $11 million, which was like $2 billion in today's standards.  The house was only their summer home - for the summer 'season' (about 8 weeks).  In that short time, they entertained and played.  The women spent about $100,000 each for summer dresses (and that is in 1895 dollars!).  I took a lot of pictures, and am putting several of them in this blog.  Hope you don't mind.

Here is (in my opinion) the most opulent room in the house, the dining room.  It is hard to grasp the size, from the gold in the woodwork to the marble in the fireplace.  But the most impressive part of the room for me were the 12 columns of solid alabaster.  They were so big that I could not put my arms around them.

Dining Room 

The ceiling of the Dining Room

12 Solid Alabaster Columns Floor to Ceiling

Here is the back of the Grand Staircase.  It has a sea motif and a running fountain.  Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt liked to sit in the chairs opposite the fountain.  The staircase went up to the second floor and split at the back to two staircases on either side of the great room.

Fountain at the back of the Grand Staircase

the back of the Grand Staircase

Here is a picture of the great room, and the ceiling.  There was a fireplace at the end opposite the fountain.  There were the typical cherubs over the doorways into the next rooms, but these cherubs are a little different.  Can you see the train in the background?

The Great Room

Th ceiling of the Great Room

Fireplace opposite the fountain in the Great Room

Cherubs over the doorways

This is the music room.

The Music Room

This is the library.  I thought the room was too dark, but the fireplace was shipped in from Europe, and was stunning.

The Library fireplace

That concluded our tour of the main floor of the mansion.  We left and headed out front to the caretakers cottage, where we started a guided tour of the underground of the mansion, called "Under the Breakers".  Our guide took us down to the boiler room first.  There were two huge boilers that ran on coal.  The rooms behind them were filled with coal delivered  and dumped down chutes to the underground.  The boilers heated water pipes that created hot air that flowed up though chambers to the house.  They really didn't need air conditioning as they were on the coast and had a nice ocean breeze most of the time.  The heating system was used mostly in the colder months.

The water systems were elaborate also.  They pumped  in sea water for bathing; fresh water from cisterns located under the east terrace which collected rain water, for sinks, drinking,  and cooking; and city water for toilets and laundry.  Here is a diagram of the water systems.

Plumbing in The Breakers

The electrical systems were state of the art for their time.  Many different circuits to control all the rooms were on several marble boards.

Electrical circuits on a marble board

The Vanderbilts hired a full-time engineer that ran all of the house systems, even though they were only there in the summer.    He had an office in the underground. The house also had a state-of-the art elevator, built by Otis.  Here is a picture of the mechanics, and Mr. Otis on the wall.

Otis Elevator

Here is a picture of an original Frigidaire bought for the house, and stored in the basement now.  It served the family for 41 years.

This Frigidaire lasted 41 years with heavy use

And here is a picture of the wine cellar (recently uncovered and discovered unopened champagne bottles).

Champagne cellar

The guide also showed us progressive pictures of the construction of the mansion.  Clearly, it was a monumental task and was completed in 2 years - record time.

After the underground tour we went back to the mansion where we continued with a self-guided tour of the 2nd floor.  The first room we saw was Mr. Vanderbilt's bedroom and bathroom.  His bedroom was very large, but the bathroom was stunning.  The bathtub was carved from one large piece of marble (as were all the bathtubs in the house).   The servants had to draw salt water through the pumps to the boiler room. and then pump it to the house upstairs.  By the time it got here, it wasn't hot enough, so the servants had to drain the tub and order hotter water.  Since the family often took 1 or 2 baths per day (on average there were 7 changes of clothes per day), there was plenty of work for them.  There are 27 bathrooms in this house.  Also, the bed linens were often changed twice a day.

Mr. Vanderbilt's bathroom - with solid marble tub

All of the bedrooms were much of the same, so no more pictures.  Next, we were taken to the kitchen and butler's pantry.  Wow!  The kitchen stove was 21 feet long.  I wish I could go back in time and see the hub bub going on in this kitchen.

Kitchen

Here is the Butler's pantry, where all the dishes and supplies were stored.  It was two stories high.

Butler's Pantry

That ends our tour of The Breakers.  Tom and I had toured The Breakers many years before,  while in Boston on business, but did not get to see the underground.   Then we came back to Newport Rhode Island in 2015 to see 6 other mansions. This mansion still impresses me big time.  Later on in this tour, we will be seeing The Biltmore, built by William Vanderbilt (brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt) in Asheville, N.C.  It is the largest residence in the U.S.  Can't wait!



08/17/2019 - We left the campground around 8:30 a.m., stopped for fuel, and drove through 5 states -Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.  We were 7 hours on the road and no air conditioning as the dash air is not working.  Also, the GPS sent us to a food packing plant, rather than the campground.  It turns out, the campground was 6 miles away (I had to call them).  We finally arrived, tired and over heated.  The traffic through some of the big cities was terrible.  We had covered about 300 miles - our average speed was 48 mph with all the traffic.  At one point, we had to go over a narrowed bridge.  We had only 10 feet of width on the bridge with a 8.5 foot width on the RV.  We made it, but Trish caught a little of the cement barriers.

Talk about narrow!

We arrived at Pocono Vacation Park in PA,  the proprietors reminded us of Ma and Pa Kettle - really simple country folk.   When we finally set up camp I had 2 beers and got sick.  Went to bed without dinner and slept through the night.  No more 7 hour drive days please!