A visit to Newport, Rhode Island, is incomplete without a tour of Bellevue Avenue’s famous homes. Though their original owners (Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgans) dubbed them “country cottages,” they stand as imposingly as any mansion on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue. We’d even go as far as to argue that these homes—properties like Marble House, The Elms, and The Breakers—are the coastal New England town’s main draw. But there are also the ones you can’t tour, the privately-owned mansions that you need an invitation to step inside. The alternative? You can check into Newport’s newest hotel Gardiner House.
Photo: Courtesy of Gardiner House
Opened late last year, Gardiner House is a 21-room property located on Lees Wharf, directly next to the International Yacht Restoration School. The hotel’s proprietors, Wirt Blaffer and Howard Cushing, have a deep connection to the town—especially Cushing, whose 1860s family home, The Ledges, inspired much of the interior design of Gardiner House. (The original white Stick-style Victorian house of The Ledges was built by Cushing’s great-grandfather, the artist Howard Gardiner Cushing, and has sat on a cliff perch overlooking the town’s member’s club, Bailey’s Beach, for 150 years.)
Photo: Courtesy of Gardiner House
This elder Cushing, a celebrated painter whose works can be admired at the Newport Art Museum, painted the entryway of The Ledges with a powdery mural in rose quartz-pink and turquoise blue, featuring butterflies mid-flight and peacocks on the branches with viney weeping willow trees. A wallpaper of the very same mural, digitally reproduced by twenty2 Wallpaper + Textiles, now greets guests of Gardiner House hotel in a loving nod to the Cushing family home. As guests walk up a winding staircase alongside the mural, they’ll notice unfinished traces of flora and fauna, as well as cracks in the artwork. Howard Gardiner Cushing passed before he could finish it, and the charming patina of the 100-plus-year-old mural is reflected in its recreation—a thoughtful design choice that winks to Newport’s rich design legacy.