Castle Hill Inn & Resort (Newport, Rhode Island)

USA / Rhode Island / Newport / Newport, Rhode Island / Ocean Avenue, 590
 hotel, restaurant, place with historical importance
590 Ocean Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
(401) 849-3800
www.castlehillinn.com/

Castle Hill was built as a summerhouse, in 1874, for the renowned scientist and explorer, Alexander Agassiz. ($$$ from Copper mine at Calumet and Hecla Mining Company based in Calumet, Michigan)

Castle Hill, the Alexander Agassiz House, now The Inn at Castle Hill (1874-75, 2003; Charles H. Slack [Boston] 1874-75, and The Newport Collaborative 2003, architects): A large and prominently sited shingled 2½-story, cruciform-plan, complex-hip-and-cross-gable-roof Modern Gothic house with stone foundation, regularly spaced 1-over-1 and 2-over-2 windows, large double-leaf principal entrance with ample sidelights at the center of the façade within a projecting-end-gable-latticework porch and adjacent to a projecting pavilion to the east, wraparound strutwork porch (partially enclosed) that extends from the entrance porch around the southwest corner to a 1-story hemicyclical glazed pavilion that extends to the west, large 4-story, octagonal-plan, ogee-roof tower at the southwest corner, multiple-level deck at the northeast corner, porch set within the mass of the house at the northwest corner of the main block, board-and-batten walls on the attic story, 1½-story service wing to the east and set back from the plane of the façade, steep wood-shingle roof, 2 symmetrically placed corbeled chimneys with pots on the south slope of the main block’s roof, 1 large corbeled chimneys with pots near the ridge of the north slope of the main block’s roof, 1 corbeled chimney with pots on the service wing, and iron cresting along the main block’s ridgeline.

Agassiz (1835-1910) was a noted marine biologist who made a
fortune in the 1860s from copper mining in Michigan; from the late 1860s until his death he was engaged in natural history at Harvard and numerous expeditions. He and his sister and brother-in-law, Pauline and Quincy Adams Shaw built summer houses at Castle Hill at the same time, and Agassiz first occupied this house in early July 1875; both were built in Maine and shipped to this site. The Shaw house, south of this, was never occupied and burned to the ground, unused, in 1880. Over the course of the 20th century, the Agassiz House was simplified, and its tower was reduced in height. Beginning in 2003, the house was carefully restored and its outbuildings were rehabilitated.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Emanuel_Agassiz
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   41°27'44"N   71°21'38"W

Comments

  • Great high end food and accommodations, one of my favs, take a stroll out to the lighthouse in the off season, the views will last a lifetime http://www.castlehillinn.com/Castle-Hill-Inn-Story/history-of-castle-hill.htm
  • Currently part of the ever-expanding Newport Harbor Corporation, a history of which can be found here - http://www.newportharbor.com/About-NHC/newport-harbor-corporation-history.htm
  • The architect was ROBERT H. Slack, not Charles H. Slack
This article was last modified 9 years ago