The Breakers (built in 1878) was a Queen Anne style cottage designed by Peabody and Stearns for Pierre Lorillard IV and located along the Cliff Walk on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island.

History

thumb|right|Side view of the original Lorillard cottage

On August 28, 1877, Pierre Lorillard IV paid $96,147 for 10 acres (480,736 square feet) Lawrence had originally acquired 60 acres for $12,000 in 1850 from Newport farmer George Armstrong.

Lorillard hired Peabody and Stearns who designed the residence in the Queen Anne style, construction began in 1877 and was completed in 1878 at a cost of $90,000. It is open for tours on the grounds of the current mansion. In 1879, Lorillard purchased an additional three quarters of an acre (45,138 square feet)

The estate and partnership between Lorillard and Peabody and Stearns may have led Lorillard's cousin, philanthropist Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, to purchase the property next door to his and to hire Peabody and Stearns to build her Vinland estate in 1882. The property acquired for $200,000, also from the estate of Gov. Lawrence, featured a Romanesque Revival style exterior consisting of red sandstone with Aesthetic Movement style elements. After her death in 1896, the estate was also sold to a Vanderbilt descendant, Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly and her husband, Hamilton McKown Twombly.

Vanderbilt ownership

Rumors persisted for several years that the Lorillard estate was to be sold. In October 1883, it was reported that Cornelius Vanderbilt II purchased the "house and grounds, with all improvements" for an amount between $400,000 and $500,000. Lorillard actually sold the house in October 1885 to Vanderbilt for $400,000, in what was then the largest real estate deal ever made there. A week earlier, James Cook Ayer had offered Lorillard $375,000 for the property. After the sale, he used the proceeds to buy an "undeveloped tract of hilly lakeside land about an hour northwest of New York" a community of "rustic, shingle-style 'cottages' that would blend in with the beautiful wilderness setting."

After acquiring the property, Vanderbilt rehired Peabody and Stearns to remodel the building, becoming the first of many Vanderbilts to own property in Newport. Reportedly, Vanderbilt spent an additional $500,000 improving the estate over the next five years, The new dining room, at 40 feet by 70 feet was the largest in Newport. The family, including Cornelius, Alice, Gertrude and Gladys, had been staying at the house for the Christmas holiday.

Vanderbilt replaced the 1878 residence with the massive and now more well-known The Breakers, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed between 1893 and 1895. This new structure became a 70-room mansion with a gross area of and of living area on five floors that is today owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County.

See also

  • The Breakers
  • Vinland

References

pt:The Breakers#História