Gooseberry Beach (Newport, Rhode Island)

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Gooseberry Beach (ca 1967 [central pavilion]):

A 71⁄2-acre public-recreational property with a small clubhouse/cabana complex, an ample parking lot the to the east of the building, a wide beach south of the building and a narrower beach stretching to the east. The clubhouse/cabana complex has a square- plan, low-hip-roof, center-entrance pavilion with a double leaf principal entrance below a cantilevered trusswork end-gable roof. To the west of the pavilion are 4 parallel and closely serried low-end-gable- roof pavilions with 15 cabana units on each of their east and west elevations; to the east is 1 low-end- gable-roof pavilion with 11 cabana units on its east and west elevations.

This beach has been used recreationally since at least the 1850s, when the first “bathing-houses” (as the Newport Mercury described them) were built here. While the building on this site does not contribute to the significance of the district because it falls outside the period of significance, it nevertheless is consistent in type, form, scale, and setting with those properties that create the district’s significance; the recreational use of the landscape has continued unchanged for more than a century and a half. (1 contributing site, 1 non-contributing building)