Country House Conference 2025

Please join us on November 15th for the annual Country House Conference.  This year we will be looking at Rhode Island country houses with an emphasis on Newport.  The 2025 host is Salve Regina University, home to  three beautiful Gilded Age Newport cottages.

Program Schedule:
 
“Golden” Before Gilded: 18th Century Rhode Island Country Houses and their Furnishings

Presented by MaryKate Smolenki, PhD candidate in American Studies at Boston University. Smolenski specializes in the history of American 18th century material culture. An exploration of emergence of 18th century Rhode Island country houses and

Thick of the Whirl: Newport’s Coming of Age as a Summer Resort Colony

Presented by Leslie B. Jones, Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator at The Preservation Society of Newport County. Jones explores the emergence the “cottages,” built across the landscape beginning in the 1830s with a look at Newport Mansions Kingscote (1839) and Chateau-sur-Mer (1852).  These once “country” estates and their period impact on Newport’s ascendency as the resort destination.

Bois Doré, building a Sustainable Future for a Jazz Age Newport Cottage

Presented by Anne Fairfax, AIA RIBA founder of Fairfax & Sammons Architects, PC. Fairfax an award winning architect and designer discuss the groundbreaking work she and her husband Richard Sammons have brought to reinvent the landscape of a Jazz Age summer mansion for a contemporary sustainable future.

Designing the Great American Country House

Presented by Richard Sammons, AIA founder of Fairfax & Sammons Architects, PC. Sammons an award winning architect and designer along with his wife Anne Fairfax have been pivotal in keeping the legacy of classical architecture and the American country house alive into the 21st century.  He will discuss some of their defining projects.

Building Conservation in modern day Rhode Island

A look at contemporary conservation practices in Newport.

​Tour of Ochre Court, Wakehurst and Vineland

with Jeroen van den Hurk, Salve Regina University Coordinator, Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Program. ​ Prof. van den Hurk will provide a historical overview and insiders tour of the three Gilded Age mansions that help define Newport as  the social hub of the Gilded Age.  

Host Site Information:

Salve Regina University is a private coeducation institution charted in 1934 by the Sisters of Mercy, the core of the campus is made up of Ochre Court and the associated outbuildings, commissioned in 1892 by New York real estate scion Ogden Goelet and designed by noted society architect Richard Morris Hunt in the châteauesque style. In addition to Ochre Court, the campus includes former summer cottages Vinland commissioned in 1882 by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe and designed by Peabody & Stearns and Wakehurst completed in 1888 for J.J. Van Alen and designed by C. E. Kempe and D. Newton.

Additional House Tours

Friday, November 14th

Curator led house tour of Kingscote

Private Residence , information to be given to Friday house tour ticket holders week of.

Space is limited for additional house tours.

Lunch provided.