BREAKERS WELCOME CENTER
The Preservation Society of Newport County intends to build a visitors center on the grounds of the Breakers to replace their sales tent. This Welcome Center would be large, at 3700 square feet, and would require screening vegetation to hide the buildings from view. Completing this project would constitute a significant alteration of the landscape of the Breakers. After much study, the Bellevue Ochre Point Neighborhood Association Board believes this proposed project must be halted, for a combination of reasons.
Breakers, Garden Walk, Summer 1914. By Frances Benjamin Johnson, Mattie Edward Hewitt. All rights reserved.
The Breakers is an iconic property symbolizing the Gilded Age in America. It is easily the most famous historic property in Newport and all of Rhode Island. It is a National Historic Landmark. As commissioned by the Vanderbilt family in the 1890’s, it consisted of the mansion itself and also extraordinary landscaping. This included winding paths, complex hedges and massive flower beds, as well as specimen trees. Many of the trees remain, while other original features have been allowed to deteriorate over time. This landscape was integral to the originators' vision, and was cited as such in the National Historic Landmark nomination. It is now put at risk of permanent disruption by the proposed Welcome Center.
What will be irrevocably lost if the Center is constructed as planned is made crystal clear in the report from Heritage Landscapes, Inc., a copy of which can be accessed in the Links section to the left of this page. The Association employed this world-famous firm, (www.heritagelandscapes.com) which has worked on many World Heritage proposals, to advise us and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission. After studying the landscape history of The Breakers, Heritage Landscapes recommended that the new building proposal be abandoned in favor of restoring the important historic landscape. The Preservation Society apparently doesn’t comprehend that significant landscapes are a major tourist attraction in themselves. They give visitors the reason to return over and over again to an estate. At Biltmore (the Vanderbilt estate in North Carolina which draws more than a million visitors each year) most of the tourists who return are not coming to see the house again, but the gardens in their various seasons.
This Welcome Center is too massive, at 3700 square feet. This size is driven by adding a restaurant to the ticket sales pavilion, which is only 900 square feet. The Society already has two restaurants located within historic buildings of The Elms and Marble House; hungry visitors could easily be directed to these sites. A new-construction restaurant would establish a very dangerous precedent - that purpose built restaurants are acceptable in the Historic District. This precedent puts all the museum house properties at risk of added development.
A ticket sales building the size of that proposed by the Society could easily be put in the adjacent Breakers parking lot, with the loss of only 10 or 12 parking spaces. The Society agrees that few spaces would be lost, but apparently believes that parking spaces are more important than their mission of preserving the the Estate with its landscaping as a harmonic whole. There must be a higher level of stewardship than profit maximization or convenience to staff.
The Historic District Commission rejected the Breakers welcome center and the Newport City Council rejected food service licenses for The Elms and Marble House. The Preservation Society was able to get the Zoning board to overturn the HDC decision and is appealing the City Council’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has accepted BOPNA as an intervenor on behalf of the City and will hear the question of whether the Zoning Board properly interpreted the Zoning Ordinance, which we believe clearly prohibits food service to the public by museums. This decision is expected to rendered by year end 2016.
We also look forward to working with the Preservation Society in the future to help resolve this issue in a constructive manner. Ron Fleming’s article illustrates several alternative solutions to the need for a ticketing facility at the Breakers.
Finally, commissioning historic landscape reports and representing our position before the Rhode Island Supreme Court does not come cheaply. Join us in our cause by signing the petition below or making a donation.
What will be irrevocably lost if the Center is constructed as planned is made crystal clear in the report from Heritage Landscapes, Inc., a copy of which can be accessed in the Links section to the left of this page. The Association employed this world-famous firm, (www.heritagelandscapes.com) which has worked on many World Heritage proposals, to advise us and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission. After studying the landscape history of The Breakers, Heritage Landscapes recommended that the new building proposal be abandoned in favor of restoring the important historic landscape. The Preservation Society apparently doesn’t comprehend that significant landscapes are a major tourist attraction in themselves. They give visitors the reason to return over and over again to an estate. At Biltmore (the Vanderbilt estate in North Carolina which draws more than a million visitors each year) most of the tourists who return are not coming to see the house again, but the gardens in their various seasons.
This Welcome Center is too massive, at 3700 square feet. This size is driven by adding a restaurant to the ticket sales pavilion, which is only 900 square feet. The Society already has two restaurants located within historic buildings of The Elms and Marble House; hungry visitors could easily be directed to these sites. A new-construction restaurant would establish a very dangerous precedent - that purpose built restaurants are acceptable in the Historic District. This precedent puts all the museum house properties at risk of added development.
A ticket sales building the size of that proposed by the Society could easily be put in the adjacent Breakers parking lot, with the loss of only 10 or 12 parking spaces. The Society agrees that few spaces would be lost, but apparently believes that parking spaces are more important than their mission of preserving the the Estate with its landscaping as a harmonic whole. There must be a higher level of stewardship than profit maximization or convenience to staff.
The Historic District Commission rejected the Breakers welcome center and the Newport City Council rejected food service licenses for The Elms and Marble House. The Preservation Society was able to get the Zoning board to overturn the HDC decision and is appealing the City Council’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has accepted BOPNA as an intervenor on behalf of the City and will hear the question of whether the Zoning Board properly interpreted the Zoning Ordinance, which we believe clearly prohibits food service to the public by museums. This decision is expected to rendered by year end 2016.
We also look forward to working with the Preservation Society in the future to help resolve this issue in a constructive manner. Ron Fleming’s article illustrates several alternative solutions to the need for a ticketing facility at the Breakers.
Finally, commissioning historic landscape reports and representing our position before the Rhode Island Supreme Court does not come cheaply. Join us in our cause by signing the petition below or making a donation.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
As seen on Page 4 of Newport This Week, Thursday, June 26, 2014
Alternative Location for the Breakers Visitor Center
All that remains of the former Greystone Villa across from the Breakers is the property's curved walls that serve as entrance to the parking lot.
Photo courtesy of the Newport Historical Society.
The Peabody and Stearns barn moved off the Breakers site in 1896.