HOUSING: The Dismantling of Newport

Last week Tessie Oelrichs, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who made millions in the Comstock Lode, turned in her grave. Before she died in 1926 she knew that grand-manner Newport could not retain its grandeur. Perhaps she could imagine it slowly falling apart. Each year something happened to it — some dealer bought one of the great houses that nobody ever really lived in, some heir sold the crystal chandeliers, the grand pianos, the organs, the stained glass windows, the gold-inlaid bathtubs, the tapestry, the silver and the collections of classics that nobody read — until Newport grew more & more like some ancient beauty whose memory is fading, whose sight is failing and whose hearing and teeth are gone. But Tessie never anticipated what happened last week.

Among all Newport’s stately summer palaces, the pride and grandeur of the Oelrichs house, Rosecliff, stood out for almost 40 years as one of the most glittering white elephants of them all. Built at a cost of 2,500,000 solid turn-of-the-century dollars, this summer place of 22 master bedrooms, a fabulous hand-decorated, two-story ballroom and immense dining rooms, stood on Bellevue Avenue, along with the palaces of the Whitneys, the Belmonts, the Havemeyers, Fahnestocks, Goulds and Astors. In those days, hard-eyed, black-mustached, hard-driving tycoons (who enjoyed such titles as “the Wolf of Wall Street,” “the Pirate,” “the Robber Baron,” “the Plunger” or “the Looter of the Erie”) were generally terrorized by their little women, who in mortal rivalry built great houses which, after the next crash, became known as Somebody’s Folly.

Hermann Oelrichs was no exception. His wife, Theresa Fair Oelrichs, began the building of Rosecliff when there were already some mighty mansions to surpass. Stanford White designed the house; Augustus Saint Gaudens built the outer court, patterned after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. There she gave her most famous party, the Bal Blanc, arranged by Ward McAllister, attended by the 400, and costing Mr. Oelrichs $30,000. Into Rosecliff she packed what Henry James called the “loot” of Europe: Gobelin tapestries, cloisonné vases, Renaissance statuary, Jacobean furniture, Sèvres china, paintings, libraries, silver sets, visiting aristocrats. In 1939, 13 years after she died, the Oelrichs family closed the house. Last week house and furnishings were auctioned.

Away went the chandeliers, pianos and knickknacks to dealers; a church bought the built-in organ. Bidding for the house and grounds started at $5,000, went to $16,000. Roared the auctioneer: “The U.S.O. and the Navy are seriously considering this estate. You are looking at a steal, ladies and gentlemen!” Before he could finish his going-going-gone, a little lady named Anita Niesen cried: “Twenty-one thousand!” A group of auctioneers rushed her into another room, slammed the door. Said Mrs. Niesen: she was buying the house as a birthday present for her daughter, Singer Gertrude Niesen.

In Manhattan, Singer Gertie explained her mother’s gift: “It’s very simple, very simple.” And: “Well, you see, our family kind of collects houses.”* Amid yells of laughter Papa Niesen, a plump, blue-shirted baldy, once a Brooklyn real-estate operator, shouted: “That woman [Mama] is wonderful! I haven’t seen the joint yet, but I understand it’s the most tremendous thing you ever saw.”

* Two in California.