The Belmont Estate, By-The-Sea (Newport, Rhode Island)

 house, cottage, estate (manor / mansion land), demolished, historical layer / disappeared object

Belmont Estate 1860
Architect: George Champlin Mason
Located on Bellevue Avenue at Marine Avenue
Demolished: 1946


Due to family ties that united the Perry and Champlin families in Newport, George Champlin Mason’s fledgling architectural practice was assured when launched in 1860 with the commission for the August Belmont Villa By-the-Sea. The project was received through Mrs. Belmont, née Caroline Perry, a daughter of Commodore Matthew Perry. Mr. Belmont began his career in New York as the Rothschild family’s American representative. Summering in her native Newport, Mrs. Belmont introduced the Rothschild’s “penchant” for things French, from liveried footmen to a celebrated “demi d’Aumont” carriage, to the summer colony.

The house was classic early Mason: an Italianate cottage with mansard roof, a three-bay entrance front pavilion, and conventional bracketed trim. By-the-Sea was softened considerably during the classicizing alterations undertaken by the Mr. Belmont’s son Perry Belmont of Washington. Sold out of the family by his estate, By-the-Sea then became a rental property and the legendary summer home of Washington-based socialite Evalyn Walsh MacLean. The property was subsequently sold for delinquent taxes, from the 44 East 34th Street Corporation to J. C. O’Donnell, who promptly resold to Ray Alan Van Clief, the then-owner of Rosecliff, the abutting former Oelrichs estate. Mr. Van Clief demolished By-the-Sea in 1946 to join its lands with those of Rosecliff. Following Van Clief’s sudden death, the Belmont and Oelrichs estates were jointly sold in 1947 to J. Edgar Monroe of New Orleans, who in 1971 donated the combined properties to the Preservation Society. Twelve acres, comprising the bulk of the fourteen acres of the former By-the-Sea property, were promptly sold to a land investment company and proceeds placed in an endowment for Rosecliff. The estate was subdivided and modern homes built on the site beginning in 1986.