Malbone is one of the oldest mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. The original mid-18th century estate was the country residence of Col. Godfrey Malbone of Virginia and Connecticut. The main house burned down during a dinner party in 1766 and the remaining structure sat dormant for many years until New York lawyer Jonathan Prescott Hall built a new roughly castellated residence directly on top of the old ivy-covered ruins.
History
Located on Malbone Road, the estate has a history dating to the mid-18th century, but the present main house was built in 1848–49. The estate once served as the country residence of Colonel Godfrey Malbone (1695–1768) of Virginia and Connecticut. Colonel Malbone made his fortune as a shipping merchant and slave trader, becoming one of the wealthiest men in Newport during the 1740s through privateering and the triangle trade. Malbone's 1741 mansion was designed by Richard Munday, a noted colonial architect who also designed Newport landmarks Trinity Church and the Old Colony House.
Future President George Washington boarded and dined at Malbone in February 1756 when he visited Col. Malbone, who was Washington's friend dating back to Malbone's childhood in Virginia. In 1766, during the course of a gala dinner party, a kitchen fire reduced the house to a pile of sandstone rubble. By several accounts, Colonel Malbone, seeing no reason why the party should be interrupted, ordered dinner to be served outside, proclaiming, "By God, if I must lose my house, I shall not lose my dinner!"
From 1766, the year of the fire, until the 1840s, the ruins of Malbone's estate was a popular attraction among Newporters.
1840s mansion
thumb|left|300px|Malbone Castle as printed in The Architectural Heritage of Newport Rhode Island 1640 - 1915 (and credited originally from the [[Knickerbocker Magazine, 1859).]]thumb|right|300px|Malbone in 2013
In 1848 a new mansion was built directly on top of the old ivy-covered ruins by Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan Prescott Hall. Hall was an eminent New York lawyer and direct descendant of two signers of the Declaration of Independence.
The Halls commissioned Alexander Jackson Davis, a notable 19th-century New York architect, to design a house of pink Connecticut sandstone in the popular Gothic Revival style of the time, incorporating some original elements such as the porte-cochere from the previous home. Hall, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, died in September 1862. In 1875, the house's interiors were remodeled under the supervision of noted local architect Dudley Newton who added a "massive carved oak staircase." The mansion remained in the same family for over 130 years, serving as the summer "cottage" of the Morris-Bedlow family (including Lewis Gouverneur Morris), a prominent family from New York who held positions of social and political prominence in America and Newport in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Malbone Estate had some of the most prominent formal gardens in America during the 18th and 19th centuries. The gardens were originally established by Col. Malbone to the south of the house because it was from this direction that visitors and merchants from Newport town would approach the estate. Prescott Hall renovated these gardens from 1848 to 1850, expanding them to 17 acres and enlisting Andrew Jackson Downing, the leading landscape designer of the 1840s and an advocate of architectural philosophy. In 2013, Leach listed the estate for sale for $2.2 million;