Clarendon Court (Newport, Rhode Island)

USA / Rhode Island / Newport / Newport, Rhode Island / Bellevue Avenue, 626
 place with historical importance, estate (manor / mansion land), interesting place
[Reef Point - Sarah F. Ingersoll Estate prior to the building of Clarendon Court, see 1893 map] www.historicmapworks.com/Overlay/?m=14667&c=US
Clarendon Court (1904) - Reef Point

Architect : Horace Trumbauer
• Horace Trumbauer modeled this Georgian Revival style house after an 18th century design by Colen Campbell. Clarendon Court was home to Edward Collins Knight, Jr., son of a Philadelphia sugar refiner and director of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
• The estate was acquired in 1930 by Mae Cadwell Hayward, who later married the powerful New York banker and financier, John E. Rovensky.
• The entrance gates to Clarendon Court were featured in the 1956 movie High Society starring Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra.
• Mr. and Mrs. Claus von Bulow owned Clarendon Court from 1970 to 1988.
• The house remains a private residence.

Former estate of Sunny & Claus von Bulow

Perhaps the most notorious of the Newport "cottages," this twenty-room structure was built in 1904 and was named Claradon for Clara Knight, the wife of Edward R. Knight, the Pennsylvania Railroad executive who commissioned the house. A subsequent owner changed the name of the house to Clarendon Court.

In 1956 Clarendon Court served as a set for High Society, the musical version of The Philadelphia Story that starred Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly (in her last film).

the VonBulow story - quahog.org/attractions/index.php?id=43
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Von_Bulow
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   41°27'35"N   71°18'15"W

Comments

  • This is the residence where Sonny Von Bulow supposedly tried to poison his wife, Sunny, twice although he was aquitted on both charges. The last I heard she was still in a coma in a hospital in Manhattan.
  • She died in December of 2008
  • Currently for sale. Asking price $15,800,000.00. The owner is an art dealer from Washington D.C.
  • Sold for $10.5 million last month to a private buyer
  • NEWPORT – Clarendon Court, the Cliff Walk mansion and former home of Claus and Sunny von Bulow, has sold for $13.1 million, the highest price in the state this year, listing agent Paul A. Leys of Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty announced. The 7.2-acre property at 626 Bellevue Ave. was sold by Glenn C. Randall, who bought it in 1988. The name of the buyer was not disclosed.
This article was last modified 8 years ago