Newport with Jane

Had one of the nicest weekends I've had in quite some time. Saturday I went to Newport, RI to meet aurora_knight* and have a great time walking around through the city. That was a great trip. I'd never been there before, but I knew it was a pretty town by the sea where lots of Gilded Age millionaires built their summer homes. We went on a tour of two of the grandest, The Breakers and The Elms. The Breakers in particular was opulent, seventy rooms all styled like high French aristocratic chateaux, designed by the famous Vanderbilt family. The ceilings were all crenelated with carvings of animals, mythology, angels, and fruit, and covered over with painted murals. The gilt covering the moldings and the furniture was made of actual gold. The billiard room was walled entirely in marble. There was a fountain under the staircase. It had ballrooms and sitting rooms and dining halls and a breakfast room and dozens of bedrooms. It was grand and gorgeous but honestly rather overdone. It was rather too much for my tastes, and honestly did not seem liveable by modern standards. I was trying to imagine rolling out of bed, padding down that giant staircase in my pajamas and walking across my cavernous hall to eat my breakfast in my opulent breakfast suite. It made me kind of uncomfortable, honestly. Maybe it works better if you're expected to be fully dressed in elegant clothes and have servants waiting on you and making everything happen, but Jane said that even for the age it was considered over-the-top. I like the say I could expand into any amount of space you gave me-- throwing parties and hosting dinners and running larps and having rooms for sewing and gaming and maybe even a performance space --but I found the Breakers to be just too much even for me. My favorite part of it was the butler's pantry, a place like a kitchen except without fixtures like a stove or anything, which was elegant in the simplicity of its very fine dark wood cabinets and endless counter space. By contrast, the other house, The Elms, of the coal family the Berwinds was very fine and grand but more tasteful and liveable. I'm sure I could move in there just fine. :-)

Overall it was a lovely trip, walking around and chatting with Jane, who is always lovely company. I'm so glad she invited me. Thanks, dear! Here is a nice picture of Jane in one of the Newport shops we browsed. Her hair looks very pretty.