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In Newport, Everything Old Is New Again
For your next corporate retreat, Y not Newport's Vanderbilt Hall?
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Business New Haven
11/3/1997
By: Michael C. Bingham
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It's Newport, R.I.'s newest “mansion,” and it's at your disposal for corporate retreats, sales incentives or even - horrors - just a pampered weekend away from what Groucho Marx used to call “all this madness.”
It's Vanderbilt Hall, built by (though not for) a genuine Vanderbilt in this historic resort town where some swells summer, and others just roll in.
Vanderbilt Hall was constructed beginning in 1907 by Alfred G. Vanderbilt in memory of his father, Cornelius Vanderbilt, as a gift to the citizens of Newport. By the time it opened in 1909, construction costs had totaled about $110,000.
Alfred would scarcely recognize the place today. After lying derelict for years, the long-time YMCA building was purchased in 1996 by CountryHouse Hotels, which poured $10 million into restoring, renovating and expanding the original structure on a breakneck schedule. It opened this year over the July 4 weekend.
Now guests spend $100 to $700 per night to luxuriate in one of the 50 individually decorated guest rooms, enjoy afternoon tea, soak in the indoor pool and Jacuzzi or sweat it out in the adjoining steam room and sauna.
Each guest room is individually appointed with distinctive wallpapers, fabrics and linens. All have private baths. Accommodations are offered in five categories: House, Executive Study, State, Studio and Suite.
We enjoyed a brief stay in the “Lighthouse Tower” suite, an “up-and-down” suite designed to mimic a New England lighthouse, complete with spiral staircase, foldout downstairs bed and two full bathrooms.
Vanderbilt Hall is nestled into Newport's historic Hill district on Mary Street, less than a block from bustling Thames Street and just around the corner from historic Trinity Church and the original Newport town green. To the south lie the great summer “cottages” of Bellvue Avenue, which housed the great plutocrats of America's great Industrial Age during the eight-week summer season: William K. Vanderbilt's Marble House, the Astors' Beechwood, William S. Wetmore's Chateau-sur-Mer, George Noble Jones' Kingscote and the most eye-popping of all: Cornelius Vanderbilt's Breakers.
Just down the street is the bustle of Newport's retail district, which encompasses Thames Street and America's Cup Avenue. And sports enthusiasts are always rewarded by a visit to the nearby International Tennis Hall of Fame, its pristine grass courts among the last of a dying breed (and available for public play by advance reservation during the season).
From its rooftop deck, Vanderbilt Hall guests may take in a breathtaking panorama of Newport Harbor and, beyond it, Goat Island and the graceful arch of the Newport Bridge.
Speaking of high, that's where Vanderbilt Hall's management has aimed. And those aspirations certainly extend to matters gastronomic. The kitchen staff, headed by executive chef Scott E. Hoyland, serves up an ambitious five-course prix fixe ($50) dinner in the candle-lit main dining room.
This autumn's dinner feast begins with golden quail and celery-root consommé with fine herb dumplings, pan-seared sea scallops with Frisse salad and caramelized onion pissaldiere, osso buco with roasted fall vegetables and a confit of Yukon Gold potatoes, and ends with a warm pear tart with white caramel sauce and something your correspondent actually recognized: vanilla ice (or, as the menu had it, “iced”) cream.
Guests may also dine in an airy conservatory or one of three private dining rooms.
The hotel's management has courted corporate clients aggressively, and Vanderbilt Hall was reconstructed with the meeting and conference market squarely in mind. Three smaller (285 to 650 square feet) meeting rooms plus the 1,240-square-foot Vanderbilt Room can accommodate groups from a dozen to 100. A full range of telecom, A/V and support services complete the package.
Just four months into its new incarnation, Vanderbilt Hall has already hosted a number of Fortune 500 gatherings for business retreats, which include work and play. Some companies have even booked the entire hotel for high-level confabs.
Vanderbilt Hall doesn't have it all right, not yet. One party's room wasn't even vacated by the time of their pre-arranged arrival. One of our commodes was non-functioning. The exercise room has only a single treadmill, exercise bicycle and rowing machine - no free weights or resistance apparatus. There is about the place a lingering air of chaos which is understandable given the hotel's still-tender tenure.
One other caveat: Try to ensure that your visit to Vanderbilt Hall not coincide with a two-day retreat for executives of the New York Times. Because, as everyone knows, the New York Times is a terribly important organization which, like the sun, obscures from sight everything near it. In that event the mere private guest might not receive all the attention and courtesy we might otherwise expect of a facility with such lofty pretensions.
Bon voyage.
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