Looking north, this gazebo in the property’s
center frames a view of the two-story McIntire
Tea House (or Derby Summer House). Built in
1926 by Fiske Kimball, the tea house is a copy of
the eighteenth-century eponymous folly that
Samuel McIntire designed for famed millionaire
merchant Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, Mass.
Coincidentally, Martha Codman, for whom Ogden
Codman Jr. designed Bellevue House, was
Derby’s great-great-granddaughter.
Historical Context
“I’m not as much of a plantsman as I should be,” confesses
Ronald Lee Fleming. Fleming is the owner of Newport’s Bellevue
House, and regardless of this self-perceived weakness, one thing
is certain: What he lacks in plant knowledge, he compensates for
with other expertise.
Since purchasing the three-and-a-half-acre estate in 1999,
Fleming — a lauded urban planner, placemaker and historic
preservationist — has applied his talents and resources toward
revitalizing the house and its grounds.
Bellevue, a Colonial Revival mansion, was designed by
architect Ogden Codman Jr. in 1910 for his cousin, Martha
Codman. French garden designer Achille Duchêne designed
the property’s original formal gardens, but by the time Fleming
arrived, the gardens — like the house itself — required
attention. “There were gardens that were there originally that
had been plowed up,” he says, and the existing gardens “were
not in any shape at all.” The back of the property has also been
subdivided into five lots. “I got it back into one property again
and began to think about how it could tell the story of our
family and our life.”
76 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JULY 2020