My wife and I visited five Gilded Age mansions during our recent trip to Newport. Two of them were relatively modest affairs that were notable mostly for their architecture and furnishings. A third (The Elms) was grandiose, but contained several rooms that were both visually splendid and livable, an unusual combination. The fourth, The Breakers, made more sense as a stage for over-the-top parties and events than as a place for people to live. And then there was the Marble House.
The Marble House is a “cottage” built by one of the Vanderbilts. It apparently was modeled after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. It is full of very expensive brownish marble (they apparently ran out, so portions of the upstairs area are faux). The most striking thing about the place, however, is that the dining room contains large portraits of Louis XIV and XV, and the hall has a bust of Louis XIV flanked by reliefs of his principal architect and the architect of the Marble House.
My jaw dropped at the absurdity and arrogance of this. Could you possibly think of a more visible way of expressing contempt for the democratic values of your own country? Even having untold millions of dollars in the America of the Gilded Age didn’t make you the heir of French royalty. As far as I know, even Donald Trump wouldn’t make that kind of a statement.
I had to further ask myself: what was the purpose of the house in the first place? You can obviously make a case for a medieval castle based on its military value. English and French manor houses are a slightly harder sell, but those houses also served as the headquarters for a business establishment, and they helped to overawe the lord’s tenants, so there is a functional argument for them. The Newport “cottages”, however, didn’t serve either of those purposes, and they weren’t designed for comfortable informal living. Their only function, as far as I could tell, was to stand out in a neighborhood of similarly opulent homes, which is pathetic.