Bailey's Beach - Spouting Rock Beach Association (Newport, Rhode Island)

 beach, place with historical importance

Dissatisfied with the growing numbers of visitors of other classes coming to Easton's Beach, the public beach in Newport for many years, Newport's Gilded Age upper-class families adopted Bailey's Beach as their exclusive playground.

Owned and operated by the Spouting Rock Beach Association, Bailey's Beach became the ultimate test of one's acceptance into Newport society.
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Spouting Rock Beach Association, commonly known as Bailey’s Beach (1852, 1897, 1938-39; Augustus Noel, architect):

The centerpiece of this 51⁄2-acre beachfront property is the stuccoed clubhouse, a 5-part, shallow-H-plan composition with 2-story, 3-bay-façade, center-entrance, hip-roof central section with concave-hip-roof Regency Revival entrance porch and large chimneys centered on the east and west elevations; 1-story wings with parapet-lined flat roofs extend to the east and west of the 2-story section. Toward the waterfront just beyond the clubhouse are extensive cabanas to the east and west, arranged in tightly serried rows internally and culminating at beachside in a double-elliptical plan: a deeper, narrower interior ellipse extending north and south from the clubhouse itself and a broader, shallower exterior ellipse extending north and south respectively from each end of the inner ellipse.

An exclusive venue for seaside recreation from the time that Alfred Smith developed the southern end of Bellevue Avenue in the mid-19th century, the Association was incorporated at the end of the 19th century; soon after a bathing pavilion was in place at its east end. The previous pavilion and cabanas were destroyed by the 1938 Hurricane and replaced with the present complex, expanded several times since its completion. (3 contributing elements: 2 buildings, 1 site)

Robert Yarnall Richie aerial photo ca.1932-1934 - digitalcollections.smu.edu/u?/ryr,395

'Newport's most exclusive recreational club was Bailey's Beach. Only the
elite could bathe here, and they disported themselves in full-skirted
costumes and long black stockings. Mr. Van Alen always went into the
sea wearing a monocle and white straw hat, and Mrs. Oliver Belmont
carried a green umbrella while bathing. A watchman protected the beach
from all interlopers; he fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped down
upon them and demanded their names. Unless they were accompanied
by a club member, or bore a note of introduction, they were ejected. If
they wanted to bathe, they could go to Easton's Beach the common
beach, as the habitues of Bailey's Beach called it. There they could share
the sea with the townspeople, referred to by the summer colonists as
'our footstools.'
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