Ocean Lawn (Newport, Rhode Island) | place with historical importance, cottage, estate (manor / mansion land), compound - to be deleted

USA / Rhode Island / Newport / Newport, Rhode Island / Cliff Avenue
 house, place with historical importance, cottage, estate (manor / mansion land), compound - to be deleted
Built 1888-1889
Original Owner: Mrs. William Gammell
Architect: Peabody & Stearns

Queen Anne and Tudor styles. Two-and-one-half stories under cross-gabled and hipped roofs with bargeboards; irregular rough-faced ashlar wall cover with timbering; grouped and
irregularly-spaced windows; entrance at south between wings.

In the early 1950's, millionaire Harvey S. Firestone, son of the founder of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., decided he and his wife, Elizabeth Parke, needed a proper summer home. Harvey suggested Long Island or Lenox. Elizabeth had somewhere else in mind, Newport.

Elizabeth convinced her husband to buy Ocean Lawn, a sprawling 1888 Peabody & Sterns mansion overlooking the water on the corner of Narragansett Avenue and the Cliff Walk. They bought the home for some $70,000. They also bought the mansion next door to them, Southside Cottage, demolished the existing home and had a magnificent pool and garden built on the land.

Mrs Firestone had developed a wonderful collection of clothing over the years (often boasting she had so much clothing that she never had to wear anything more than once) and she needed a place to store all of it. The closet that had originally been at Ocean Lawn was completely inadequate for her needs, so she decided to expand. The two guest bedrooms next to her bathroom suite and the three servant's rooms next door were torn down and all turned into one large closet. Still not enough. Then she tore out all the rooms above that, making it two stories. Still not enough. So she had a large out building built on the property, dedicated only as her closet. Finally, that was enough.

With Harvey's death, Elizabeth retired to Ocean Lawn permanently, she would live there year round till the end of her days. Mrs Firestone still continued to spend and live extravagantly. She emptied the Firestone's New York City townhouse of it's rare collection of Jamaica furniture and shipped them to Newport. When it arrived, Elizabeth realized that she had no room at Ocean Lawn to put it all. So, to solve the problem, she bought the mansion on the other side of her property and moved the furniture there.

"It is good for the furniture and life will be much more peaceful without neighbors"
-Elizabeth Firestone

Shortly after, one of her favorite granddaughters was moving to Newport and needed a place to live. Elizabeth had a grand pool house built for her, overlooking the pool and the ocean.

Elizabeth died in 1990, leaving a fortune of around $13 million. Ocean Lawn was sold, the estate being subdivided. Elizabeth's rare Jamaica furniture was auctioned off and the mansion she bought to house it sold and subdivided. The Firestone heirlooms and antique furniture collection, as well as all of Elizabeth's famed clothing collection, were all auctioned off. The pool house was sold, along with the building Elizabeth dedicated to only her clothing. The new owner of Ocean Lawn have managed it well, though converted Elizabeth's house-sized closet back into three bedrooms and a large library.

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Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   41°28'38"N   71°17'54"W

Comments

  • recently owned by the firestone family.
  • The estate, the former home of the late rubber executive Harvey C. Firestone, finally sold last year for $1.7 million, down 23 percent from its initial asking price. Pittsburgh investor Robert Chute, who bought the house, says he looked at the Hamptons and Nantucket, but "when I had an opportunity to get Harvey Firestone's house, I loved the history of the whole thing."
  • "Southside" was originally located in the southwest corner of the property and incorporated what is now the pool house. It was built before 1876 by Robert Hale Ives. Alterations in 1898 were attributed to McKim, Mead & White.
This article was last modified 7 years ago