Belcourt Castle, French Renaissance mansion in Newport, US
This three-story mansion incorporates French Gothic elements, German design features, and Italian architectural details throughout its 60 grand rooms and courtyards.
Richard Morris Hunt designed this summer residence in 1891 for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, completing construction with 300 workers in 1894.
The mansion presents exhibits of Armenian life, hosts regular public tours, and maintains collections of artifacts from 33 European and Oriental countries.
Visitors can explore the mansion during guided tours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, viewing more than twelve rooms including ballrooms and galleries.
The first floor initially contained carriage spaces and horse stables, while the master bedroom displayed wall paintings depicting nobleman life.
Location: Newport
Inception: 1894
Architects: Richard Morris Hunt
Architectural style: châteauesque
Floors above the ground: 3
Part of: Bellevue Avenue Historic District
GPS coordinates: 41.45750,-71.30627
Latest update: May 27, 2025 08:47
These North American houses tell the story of big wealth built during the industrial age. Around the late 1800s and early 1900s, families like the Vanderbilts and the Hearsts built homes that mix European styles with new ideas in building. The Breakers in Newport draws from Italian Renaissance ideas with its 70 rooms. The Hearst Castle in California has art and old objects from Europe. Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935, is built over a waterfall in Pennsylvania, showing modern style. Other places like Pittock Manor in Portland or Vizcaya in Miami have decorated rooms and gardens. In Canada, Château Ramezay in Montreal dates back to the 1700s and keeps many items from New France. Château Craigdarroch in Victoria shows the love for woodwork and stained glass from Victorian times. These sites give a look into a world where buildings, gardens, and art collections were part of one whole. They reflect a time when people built to impress and last long.
Rhode Island appeals to travelers curious about places often left out of main routes. Along the coast, several lighthouses show the area's maritime history: the Beavertail Lighthouse Museum in Jamestown tells the story of sailors through its optical instruments, while the Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island, made of red bricks, has watched over the Atlantic since 1875. In Portsmouth, the Green Animals Topiary Garden features over eighty plant sculptures shaped like animals, one of the oldest such gardens in the United States. Parks and gardens invite for walks in quiet settings. Wilcox Park in Westerly surrounds a pond lined with old plants, Kinney Azaleas Garden blooms with three hundred kinds of flowers in spring, and Blithewold Estate in Bristol shows a 1908 house with forty-five acres of botanical gardens. For nature lovers, Napatree Point Conservation Area offers 2.4 kilometers of dunes and marshes where migrating birds rest, and Stepstone Falls reveal small cascades in the West Greenwich forest. In Providence, the Armory Arts District uses old 19th-century warehouses turned into sixty galleries and studios. Prospect Terrace offers a nice view of the Capitol and the city rooftops from a hill.
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