ON the SEA
For the best yachting vessel money can buy , Gilded Age families took a ride up Narragansett Bay .
AS WITH ANY LEISURE ACTIVITY , WHEN THE ELITE families of Newport took to the water to enjoy the popular pastime of yachting , they wanted the best . And in Rhode Island , the best meant buying from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol .
“ The biggest names of the Gilded Age were Herreshoff customers , and yachting was as significant a means of displaying your wealth and privilege as coaching , or having a magnificent mansion built , or racing horses ,” says Evelyn Ansel , curator at the Herreshoff Marine Museum .
The company , founded by two local brothers , was known for its luxury yachts and sleek racing vessels . Between 1895 and 1937 , the Vanderbilt family alone purchased forty-nine Herreshoff boats . Other customers included the Astors , Goulds , Morgans , Belmonts , Iselins , Goddards and Tiffanys , some of the biggest names of the day in wealth and business .
Though the America ’ s Cup races didn ’ t take place in Newport until the 1930s , the prestigious New York Yacht Club made regular cruises through Newport , and families and clubs sponsored individual races on Narragansett Bay that were often covered in the New York Times . Ogden Goelet , owner of Ochre Court , and James Gordon Bennett Jr ., founder of the Newport Casino , were among the goliaths of the era who sponsored sailing cups bearing their names . Trophies were made by the best silversmiths of the age , including Tiffany and Co . and the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence .
In addition to sailboats and steam yachts , Herreshoff constructed fishing vessels and other power boats for local families and , later , torpedo boats for the United States Navy . With only one small bridge spanning the Sakonnet River , Aquidneck Island was largely cut off from the mainland except by sea .
“ It wasn ’ t just the elite that had a much closer relationship with boats and the water during the Gilded Age — it was virtually everyone in Rhode Island ,” Ansel says . “ Ferries were the transport of the day .” — L . C .
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : J . B . Herreshoff and friends aboard the steam yacht Eugenia ; Nathanael G . Herreshoff ’ s personal sailboat Alerion under construction in the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company small boat shop in 1913 ; Katoura ( left ) and Resolute ( center ), an America ’ s Cup defender , photographed in Bristol in 1914 .
FROM TOP : Consuelo and Muriel Vanderbilt at Bailey ’ s Beach with their escorts , c . 1925 ; young William K . Vanderbilt Jr ., Harold Vanderbilt and Harry Lehr at Bailey ' s Beach , c . 1898 ; the trolley to Easton ’ s Beach , c . 1900 .
BAILEY ’ S BEACH
BY THE 1890S , NEWLY ELECTRIFIED TROLLEY LINES had made Easton ’ s ( First ) Beach accessible to the general public , to the dismay of its better-heeled patrons . Not wanting to associate with the masses , Newport ’ s wealthy claimed a small strip at the far end of Bellevue Avenue as their own and formed the Spouting Rock Beach Association , better known as Bailey ’ s Beach . Today , the establishment remains a private club that occasionally makes headlines for its exclusive membership . In 2021 , then-club president Alexander Auersperg ( an Austrian prince who happens to be the son of Sunny von Bülow ) felt compelled to respond after multiple media outlets described Bailey ’ s as an “ all-white club .” “ I can assure you that there is no one on our board of governors who would ever tolerate such an offensive practice ,” he wrote in an email obtained by WPRI . — L . C .
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JUNE 2023 61