Land's End // 1864
December 31, 2021 December 28, 2021 Buildings of New England
One of the more architecturally modest and refined Gilded Age summer cottages of Newport sits on one of the most picturesque pieces of land at the southeastern point of Aquidneck Island and is aptly named Land's End. The cottage was built in 1864, Land's End was designed by John Hubbard Sturgis for Boston banker, Samuel Gray Ward, his father's business associate. The home features a refined Italianate style base with a roof comprised of a variation of the Second Empire mansard style called a "turtleback roof". Land's End is probably most famous as the residence of Edith Wharton (1862-1937) after she acquired the property in 1889. She worked with Boston designer Ogden Codman, Jr., to experiment with a style of subdued classical interiors and a remodel of the exterior, which was later featured in their book, "The Decoration of Houses". Wharton was inspired to show what good taste is after the influx of Vanderbilts and other newly moneyed summer residents of Newport. The book focused on how to build and decorate houses with nobility, grace, and timelessness. It would, they hoped, lead its readers out of what Wharton called (pace the Vanderbilts) a "Thermopylae of bad taste" and into an aesthetic Promised Land. Wharton only lived at Land's End for a decade, when the "stuffiness" of high-society there led her to move to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, where she worked with architect Ogden Codman to design her new home, The Mount. It the monstrous Lippitt Mansion, Breakwater was built at the time, just next door! did not help that Sadly, many of the interiors have been altered since Wharton's time there, but with more recent interventions, but the book did help shift some of Newports later homes to a more refined, classical taste.
Colonial Revival, Newport, Second EmpireArchitectural History, Architectural History Blog, Architecture, Architecture Blog, Blog, Edith Wharton, Gilded Age, Gilded Age Mansion, Historic Preservation, History Blog, House History Blog, Land's End Cottage, Land's End Newport, Ledge Road Newport, New England, New England Architecture Blog, New England Blog, New England History Blog, New England Travel Blog, Newport, Newport architecture, Newport Mansions, Newport Rhode Island Architecture, Newport RI, Newport RI Architecture, Newport RI Architecture Survey, Newport RI History, Newport RI Real Estate, Ogden Codman, Ogden Codman Jr
Previous Article "Beachmound" Mansion // 1897
Next Article "The Waves" // 1927
One thought on "Land's End // 1864"
Pingback: "Breakwater" – Charles W. Lippitt Mansion // 1899-1924 – Buildings of New England