Beacon Hill Estate (Newport, Rhode Island)

 place with historical importance, interesting place

Beacon Hill House, named for the beacons that were once lit at its crest, was designed to blend into its natural environment in keeping with F. L. Olmsted, H. H. Richardson, and R. M. Hunt’s recommendations for the development of this sector of Newport. Built of native gray puddingstone, the exterior was relatively austere. The interiors, however, included fully paneled walnut reception rooms and the “della Robbia” room, done in Guastavino tiles.

Mr. James was Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, heir to the Phelps-Dodge copper mining interests, and a major Western railroad investor. His estate was the largest in Newport at one hundred and twenty-five acres, with three villas, a “Swiss Village” model farm, formal gardens, and boathouse.

With the death of Mr. and Mrs. James, within three weeks of each other in 1941, the estate was willed to a foundation that, in 1951, after ten years of vandalism, gifted the houses and real estate to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. One of the villas, Zeerust, was converted to a convent and novitiate, and a service building into an elementary school. The main house was seldom utilized and, in May of 1967, vandals started a fire in Beacon Hill House. Gutted, the estate was demolished in August of 1967 and seventy acres were sold for residential development.

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