Living Our Dream

Point Judith

Narragansett, RI - Events of Saturday, September 7 to Monday, September 9, 2013

The tip of the peninsula where Narragansett is located is known as Point Judith. There is a lighthouse there we wanted to see, especially since it is less than two miles from where we were staying at Fishermen's Memorial State Park. There is also a small harbor a little to the west of Point Judith called Galilee. We saw signs for a fishing contest in Galilee on Saturday that included craft and food booths, so we decided drive down to Galilee on Saturday so we could check out the harbor, the crafts and the lighthouse all at the same time.

There were two rows of booths with several artists who painted seaside scenes and a couple of crafts, but most of the booths were either food or new merchandise.

Booths at Galilee show

One of the few craft booths had fish and nautical-themed items made from small bits of driftwood and shells...

Nautical items and fish made from small bits of driftwood and shells

...and another that had fish made from recycled copper sheet.

Fish made from recycled copper sheet

There were also a couple of car dealers there with a few cars on display, a Verizon booth and a several other businesses offering promotions of various sorts.

The waterfront turned out to be a lot more interesting than the craft show. Across the bay we could see Snug Harbor Lighthouse, which is not the one we went to see at Point Judith so it was a bonus.

Snug Harbor Light

We also walked around the marina. There were a few pleasure boats, but most were lobster and commercial fishing boats.

Row of lobster and fishing boats in the marina

Lobster boat

Some of the crews sell lobsters right off the boat. The fishermen were very friendly and seemed happy to answer questions. We came on the two fishermen in the photo below stringing up fish they were taking out of the plastic barrels. We found out the fish are skates. Skates are diamond-shaped fish that belong to the same family as sting rays, although skates do not have stingers. Parts of the skates are edible (the "wings"), but these fish were going to be used as bait for lobster traps.

Lobster fishermen stringing up fish called skates for use as bait

A little farther along, another fisherman had a wooden box filled with ice and several different types of fish, and he was explaining what each fish was. The four fish on the on the left are four different types of flounder. The two longer fish in the center are dogfish, which are related to sharks. The three, round, orange shells to the right are scallops.

Different types of fish from local waters

After we left the marina, we headed over to the eastern side of the peninsula to Point Judith Light. It is an operating lighthouse, and is fenced off with US Coast Guard signs that said "Authorized personnel only." However, the gate was open, and there were other civilians inside walking around, so we went in.

This is the third lighthouse built at Point Judith. The first was a 35-foot tower that was built in 1810 and was destroyed by a hurricane in 1815. It was replaced the following year by a 35-foot stone tower. The current lighthouse is a 51-foot, octagonal, granite tower that was built in 1856. The upper half is painted brown and the lower half is painted white to help make it more distinctive in the daytime.

Point Judith Light

Beyond the lighthouse tower is a small gravel/cobblestone beach where the favorite activity seems to be building cairns. Simply put, cairns are piles of rocks. They can range from a few, small stones stacked on top of one another to huge piles. Cairns have been used since prehistoric times as landmarks, trail markers, grave markers and for ceremonial, astronomical and religious purposes. Many times they are used just to say, "I was here."

Numerous cairns on the beach at Point Judith

Paul even built a small cairn of his own.

Paul's cairn

After Point Judith, we stopped back at the motor home for a while. Later in the afternoon, we drove to the waterfront area in Narragansett to Monahan's Clam Shack for lupper. Monahan's got excellent on-line reviews for their lobster rolls, so we wanted to give them a try.

Monihan's Clam Shack

The lobster rolls are available cold with mayo or hot with butter. The hot ones are grilled. Since we prefer butter, we had both had a hot lobster roll ($15) and we shared a fried clam strip dinner with slaw and fries ($11).

Margery with her lobster roll

The lobster rolls were the largest we have had, and they had excellent flavor; but as we found with most of the lobster we have had in New England, the meat was tough. The clam strips were so-so. They weren't very sweet, and the coating was a little too heavy.

The ambiance at Monahan's was excellent. We had a nice view of the ocean right from our table. From the fishing pier behind the restaurant, we also got a good view of the Narragansett waterfront.

Narragansett

We relaxed around the campground on Sunday and watched everyone else leave.

Since we didn't have sewer hookup while at Fishermen's Memorial State Park, and since we won't have sewer at our next stop either, we needed to do laundry. Margery found The Pier Washtub, a new laundromat in Narragansett that got excellent on-line reviews, so we headed there on Monday morning. From the website we learned that they had complimentary Wi-Fi and the machines took credit cards. Doing the laundry at a commercial laundromat is one of our least favorite things to do, but this laundromat was exceptionally nice with all new equipment, and there was an attendant who was very helpful.

After finishing the laundry, we headed back to the motor home after a brief stop at the grocery store. When we got back, we did some pre-departure chores then relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We headed out to our next destination on Tuesday morning. We'll tell you where that was in our next post.

Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum

Narragansett, RI - Events of Friday, September 6, 2013

On Friday, we headed about an hour north of Narragansett to Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum in Bristol, RI. Blithewold was the summer home of Augustus Van Wickle and his wife Bessie. Augustus Van Wickle was from Hazleton, PA where he had made his fortune in coal mining.

The Van Wickles bought 70 acres along the banks of Narragansett Bay in 1894 and completed their summer home in 1896. They only got to spend two summers there together because Augustus was tragically killed in a skeet-shooting accident in 1898.

Bessie remarried a businessman from Boston by the name of William McKee in 1901, and they continued to spend summers at Blithewold. The original Queen Anne-style summer home burned to the ground in 1906. Plans were set in motion right away for a replacement house. The house that exists today was built in the style of an English manor house and is even grander than the original.

Bessie was interested in horticulture, and she hired a landscape architect to assist with her garden plans for Blithewold. The gardens include numerous varieties of trees, which is the reason they use "arboretum" in their name. Admission to the gardens is $11 for adults, $10 for AAA members and $9 for seniors and includes a self-guided tour of the house.

We bought our tickets and headed toward the Moon Gate through which there is a path that leads to the house.

Entrance through the Moon Gate

We paused long enough to enjoy some of the roses that were still blooming in the garden area by the Moon Gate.

Roses in the garden by the Moon Gate

We get so caught up in writing our blogs, we always forget to mention you can enlarge a photo by clicking on it; and if you click on it a second time, it will get even bigger. That might be something useful to know for a composite like the one above if you would like to get a better look at the individual flowers or at some detail in one of the other photos.

From the Moon Gate, we continued a short distance up the path to the house.

Blithewold mansion

The tours of the mansion are self-guided, but there are docents throughout the house to provide additional information and to answer questions. The house has all the original furnishings.

Living room

Dining room

In the 1930s, Bessie and William McKee, feeling the effects of the stock market crash, sold their home in Boston and moved to Blithewold year round. They also sold part of the land at Blithewold so that only 32 or 33 of the original 70 acres remain today. Marjorie, who was the older of Bessie and Augustus' two daughters, continued to spend summers at Blithewold until her death in 1976 when she left Blithewold to the Heritage Trust of Rhode Island (now known as Preserve Rhode Island).

After our tour of the house, we went out onto the veranda where we spent a little time enjoying the view of Narragansett Bay and studying the map of the grounds to decide which way we wanted to go next.

Paul studying the map of the grounds on the veranda

View of the rear of Blithewold

The arboretum at Blithewold consists of mature specimens of dozens of varieties of trees. The most notable tree specimen is a 90-foot giant sequoia located to the northeast of the house. The tree is the largest sequoia east of the Rockies. Bessie's landscape architect, John DeWolf, planted the tree at Blithewold in 1911 because at a height of 12 feet, it had outgrown its former home in a greenhouse in New York where DeWolf had been growing it. There are a dozen other sequoias on the property, all but one of which were started from seeds or cuttings from this one.

90-foot giant sequoia - largest east of the Rockies

After passing the sequoia, we headed to the largest garden area, which is located next to the greenhouse.

Vine-covered archway leading to the greenhouse area

Garden area with the greenhouse in the background

Another view of the garden

Shady sanctuary near the bamboo grove

We continued on our way around the garden path to the rock garden. This garden has changed little since Bessie's time.

Rock garden

Next to the rock garden is the water garden.

Water garden

We walked along Narragansett Bay for a short distance then headed back toward the house. On our way, we stopped at the summer house. Inside we took advantage of the opportunity to watch home movies of the family enjoying summer activities like a 4th of July celebration in 1925. While walking along the Bay earlier, Margery had commented on how big the yard was from the veranda to the shore. The home movies included everyone admiring a biplane that had landed in that yard. It was really fun to see the family enjoying the very property that was on display today.

After the summer house, we stopped to check out the North Garden located at the north end of the house.

North Garden

We relaxed in the Adirondack chairs by the North Garden for a time and enjoyed the view of Narragansett Bay.

Margery trying one of the Adirondack chairs at the North Garden

Even though it was late in the summer and some of the flowering plants were past their prime, there was still plenty of color at Blithewold. The next composite photo shows just a few examples.

Plenty of flowers still in bloom even late in the summer

We enjoyed our visit to Blithewold very much. Even though many of the mansions in Newport are much grander than Blithewold, we chose to tour Blithewold because of the gardens, and we weren't disappointed. Truth be told, we haven't met a garden we didn't like. Some are just better than others. 

We headed back to the motor home for an evening of relaxation. We had another outing planned for Saturday, so stay tuned.

Newport, RI

Narragansett, RI - Events of Wednesday, September 4 to Thursday, September 5, 2013

The state park where we were staying in Narragansett is on the western side of Narragansett Bay. Newport, RI is on the eastern side. Newport is best known as a location for summer homes of the rich and famous back in the Gilded Age of the 1890s through the 1920s. The Vanderbilts, the Astors and the Wideners (Peter Widener was one of the founders of U.S. Steel and the American Tobacco Co.) all had summer homes here as did many other of the country's well-to-do. Some of the summer homes in Newport were very extravagant. The owners seemed to be trying to outdo one another. To call them mansions is almost an understatement - they are more like palaces.

Some of the mansions are still private residences, but some of largest of them have become museum houses that are open for tours. The price for tours for each mansion ranges from about $14 to $28, although the Preservation Society of Newport County that operates 10 or 11 of the mansion-museums has tickets available for 5 of their mansions for $34.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find any of the mansions that allow photography inside. Because of that and because of the relatively high prices, we decided not to tour any specific mansion, but to head to Newport on Wednesday morning to take a walking tour of the outside of several of them instead.

The Cliff Walk is a walkway that travels about 3.5 miles along the cliffs behind some of the mansions on the eastern side of Newport above Rhode Island Sound. The wealthy estate owners created the walkway back in the late 1800s a lot like they did with the Shore Walk in Bar Harbor.

On our way to the Cliff Walk, we went through the historic downtown area. Newport, which was founded in 1639, has the highest number of surviving colonial buildings of any city in the United States. Everywhere we looked, buildings had plaques marking them as historical landmarks.

One of the many surviving colonial buildings in Newport

Another colonial house in Newport

As is typical for a town as old as Newport, the streets are very narrow. All coastal towns have evacuation routes, and the one through Newport is up a narrow street with only one traffic lane.

Evacuation route up a narrow, one-lane street

After driving through town, we made our way to Memorial Blvd. and found a parking place at First Beach about half a mile from the northern end of Cliff Walk. Parking is also available on a couple of the side streets that dead end at the Cliff Walk, which we found out later would have been a lot closer.

Unfortunately, the southern portion of about 2.2 miles of Cliff Walk is closed due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. We would only be able to walk the northern part, but that was okay, especially since we had to walk almost half a mile from where we parked just to get to the Cliff Walk.

View of Cliff Walk from the end of the beach

View of First Beach from the start of Cliff Walk

View of the cliff toward the south

Most of the private residences have tall hedges and shrubs to maintain their privacy, but occasionally, you can see roofs and chimneys above the bushes.

Occasional view of roofs and chimneys above the bushes

We did get to enjoy an occasional wild flower along the way, however.

A couple of the flowers along the way

The coastline, while not as spectacular as Maine, it still picturesque.

Rugged, picturesque coastline looking south

Coastline looking north

Finally, we came to a mansion we could get a good look at. Ochre Court, which has 50 rooms, is the second largest mansion in Newport. Ochre Court was built at a cost of $4.5 million in 1892 by Ogden Goelet, who was a banker and real estate investor. In 1947, Goelet family heirs donated Ochre Court to Salve Regina University, which was founded by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy. Today it is the administration building for the university. Salve Regina owns 7 historic mansions.

Ochre Court, now owned by Salve Regina University

Next to Ochre Court is a mansion built by tocacco heiress Catherine Lorillard Wolfe that was originally called Vinland. Vinland was built in the Richardson Romanesque style and was completed in 1883.

The heirs of a subsequent owner of the Vinland, now called McCauley Hall, donated it to the university. The building once housed the university library, but it is now used for faculty offices, student meetings and limited classes.

McCauley Hall, originally called Vinland, also owned by Salve Regina University

The next mansion along millionaires' row is the Breakers. At 70 rooms, the Breakers is the largest mansion in Newport. It was completed in 1895 by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the favorite grandson of railroad tycoon and industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt. There were also several other mansions in Newport built by other members of the Vanderbilt family.

The Breakers, completed in 1895

Cliff Walk is closed south of the Breakers, so we walked back to the car and then drove down Bellevue Ave., which is the street that runs past the front of the southern half of the mansions. We parked for a few minutes at the lot for Marble House, which is one of the mansions that is open for tours, and we walked a block or two up and down Bellevue Ave. This was the center of much social activity during the summers of the Glided Age so we got to see quite a few mansions in a short distance.

Marble House was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt, who was another grandson of railroad magnate and industrialist, Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was also the younger brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt II who built the Breakers. Built between 1888 and 1892, Marble House is a 50-room mansion that is built in the French Baroque style. It cost $11 million, $7 million of which was just for the 500,000 cubic feet of marble used in its construction. Even the privacy walls along Belleview Ave. are marble.

Marble House

At only 22 rooms, Champ Soleil (French for Sunny Fields) located across the street from Marble House is relatively modest. Being across the street also means it doesn't have an ocean view.

Champ Soleil

Beechwood is just up the street from Marble House. It used to be open to the public, but it was purchased by a new owner in 2010 for $10.5 million and is now being renovated, presumably to be made a private residence once again.

Beechwood was originally built in 1851 for New York merchant Daniel Parrish. The mansion was purchased in 1881 by William Backhouse Astor II, who was the grandson of John Jacob Astor. John Jacob Astor made his fortunes in fur trading. Caroline, the wife of William Backhouse Astor II, did many renovations to Beechwood including adding a ballroom for their many parties. Caroline was the undisputed queen of New York and Newport social life.

Beechwood undergoing renovation for the new owner

Caroline Astor, who was later widowed, left Beechwood to her son, John Jacob Astor IV. John Jacob Astor IV and his wife perished aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912.

A short distance down Bellevue Ave. is Rosecliff. It was built from 1898 to 1902 by Herman Oelrichs and his wife, Theresa, who was a Nevada silver heiress. The mansion is modeled after the Grand Trianon, a palace built in Versailles, France by Louis XIV.

Rosecliff

After our short walking tour of Belleview Ave., we continued driving south on Belleview Ave. Belleview turns into Ocean Drive and continues around the southern tip of Newport and then turns northward and goes up the western side. There are there are several places to pull off and enjoy the views of Rhode Island Sound. Lots of people brought their folding chairs and were enjoying the sun and watching the waves.

Views of Rhode Island Sound from Ocean Drive

When we completed our circuit of Bellevue Ave. and Ocean Drive, we headed to Middleton, RI, which is a little to the north of Newport, where Margery had scoped out a seafood restaurant. Anthony's Seafood Market and Restaurant was supposed to have good fried clams, so we stopped for lupper.

Anthony's Seafood

We both had fried clam strips, which included 6 oz. of clams, cole slaw and fries for $8. Margery substituted onion rings for her fries at a small additional cost.

Paul with his dinner of fried clam strips

The clams were pretty good. However, clam strips can sometimes be a little chewy, and Paul thought these were a little more so than what we have had in New England recently.  We have yet to find any clams that even come close to those we had in Ipswich.

After our lupper, we headed back to the motor home to rest our feet. Thursday was mostly cloudy, so we hit the local grocery store to restock the fridge and pantry and then puttered around the rig the rest of the day. We had more planned for Friday, and we'll tell you all about it in our next post.