Historic Grounds

Despite what its name implies, the Newport Casino is not, and never was, a gambling facility. However, the beautiful property’s history does have its roots in a story about a bet. The setting was Newport, Rhode Island, August 1879. Per legend, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the influential publisher of the New York Herald and a summer resident of Newport, reputedly bet his polo partner, Captain Henry Augustus Candy, a retired officer of the Queen’s 9th Royal Lancers and skillful British polo player to ride his horse onto the front porch of the exclusive gentlemen’s-only club, the Newport Reading Room. One version of this story is that Candy took the dare one step further and rode straight through the clubrooms, disturbing members, resulting in Candy’s guest membership being revoked. This in turn impelled Bennett to purchase the land across the street from his home, Stone Villa, on Bellevue Avenue and move forward with building his own social club.

In reality, Bennett already had plans in 1878 to create a social gathering place. Nonetheless, by October 1879, Bennett had purchased land on Bellevue Avenue opposite his summer home Stone Villa and had decided on his preferred architectural firm. The Newport Casino opened in the summer of 1880 and quickly emerged as the center of Newport’s social society.

Bennett commissioned the newly-formed architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to build a social club with both private and public areas. McKim, Mead & White was a premier architectural firm of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Newport Casino was the firm’s first major commission. The name, Newport Casino, was never meant to refer to gaming and gambling as we think of the term in the modern sense. The word casino in this context traces its origins to the Italian word casina, and refers to a structure found on an idyllic Italian countryside villa used for social gatherings.

Conceived as a new model for a social club, the Newport Casino combines shingle, stone, and brick to evoke an English design. The horizontal façade on Bellevue Avenue includes storefronts and a restaurant on the ground floor, with club rooms, reading rooms, and billiards on the second and third floors. Gables, tall chimneys, and small windows complete the building’s architectural aesthetic. The grounds were designed to include a theatre, court tennis facility, and lawn tennis courts. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, the Newport Casino represents one of the finest examples of American Shingle Style architecture.