​At The Elms, the season’s beginning is always marked by the arrival of the mansion’s extensive collection of Christmas decorations, strings of white and colored lights, historic toy collections, and artificial wreaths and pine trees. Boxes and boxes of these priceless treasures would arrive from the Society’s warehouse to be piled carefully in the kitchen area of the great house, staged for the workers and volunteers who annually transform the 60,000 square foot home into a magical wonderland. 
The weather this year made it easy to get in the spirit of the season. It was already snowing when the first boxes of Christmas decorations arrived at The Elms.
The visionary leader of this annual construction was a gentle soul named Jim.  For as long as anyone could remember, he was the home’s decorator and chief designer of the spectacular décor in these Gilded Age mansions. With a small but devoted corps of volunteer elves, he would appear each morning in The Elm’s grand ballroom to direct the placement of every object in its designated place around the house. As we watched, a half dozen artificial trees were unboxed in the basement staging area Just as quickly they were carried off by the mansion’s elves to be placed in their respective rooms and salons of the great house.
In just a couple busy weeks, they would transform the home’s spectacular first floor rooms and the second-floor bedrooms, filling them with lights, trimming, ornaments, and all the colorful décor of the Christmas season.  

​On Bellevue Avenue, several blocks from The Breakers, is Newport’s most elegant mansion, The Elms. This 1901 French chateau was the summer home of Pennsylvania coal baron Edward Julius Berwind, his wife Sarah, and later, his sister Julia. This two-story 60,000 square foot home, overlooking Newport Harbor, had been the setting for numerous balls and society gatherings for sixty summers. While the Berwinds never spent a Christmas in The Elms (they lived in Philadelphia), the Preservation Society has each year re-created the spirit of Christmas for today’s visitors with stunning trees, colorful lights, delicate ornaments, live poinsettias, and displays of antique toys and art from the early 1900s. One of the most popular attractions is the expansive one-of-a-kind Nativity scene displayed on the heavy marble table on the home’s second floor landing. It features some fifty animals and figurines of merchants, shepherds, and wise men all gathered around Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus lying in his manger.
This winter’s Christmas at The Elms also included self-guided tours and guide-led tours of the mansion’s main floors, as well as a Servant Life Tour exploring the lifestyle and lives of the Berwinds’ staff, many who lived on the third floor of the house.  

CHRISTMAS IN NEWPORT
Memories of One Christmas in Newport, Rhode Island.
A Modern Retelling in Nine Weekday Posts.
The Story is Mostly True.
By Kenneth Proudfoot
 
Chapter One (1/9)
Christmas Comes to Newport: The City-by-the-Sea

It was just three years ago, the winter of 2017, when the people of the city of Newport were busy decorating the streets, stores, mansions, bridges, and boats for the celebration of Christmas.  The weather was cold and blustery. Snow was on the ground and more was anticipated.  It would be a truly white Christmas. I was working as a tour guide at the Preservation Society of Newport County and was able to see up close all the preparations required for dressing up the society’s historic Gilded Age mansions with wreaths, lights, trees, and poinsettias.

The largest of them all -- The Breakers – was the first to get the Christmas treatment and it was stunning. It featured a towering poinsettia tree in the great hall, multiple lighted trees around the house, decorated fireplaces, thousands of sparkling lights, and a huge electric train display in the upper loggia overlooking the historic Cliff Walk and the Atlantic Ocean.

Two other mansions, Marble House and The Elms, would be next to welcome the Society’s decorators. Inside and out, the mansions at Christmas complement the city-by-the-sea’s public décor. Lights and decorations wrap around the electric poles and stretch up each historic street and down to the harbor where boats of every description are alive with colored bulbs and evergreen swag. When the first snow flies, there is no more beautiful place to be. As in past years, Newport’s Christmas at the mansions was going to be an experience to remember.

Tomorrow: Christmas at The Elms (2/9)
 
This and future chapters will be archived on the author’s website:  www.kennethproudfoot.com

​