Newport Casino
The Newport Casino is a building in the seaside resort of Newport in Rhode Island on the North American east coast. It was built in 1880 and was the venue for the American tennis championships (now the US Open ) from 1881 to 1914 . Since 1954 it has housed the International Tennis Hall of Fame . In 1987 it was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks as a building worthy of special protection .
Contrary to the name, it was never a casino . Rather, casino refers to an exclusive clubhouse for members of the upper class.
history
The construction of the building goes back to the New York newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett , who was a regular guest in Newport in the summer. The occasion was a bet between him and the British cavalry officer Captain Henry August Candy in the summer of 1879, according to which Candy was supposed to ride his horse onto the veranda of Newport's most important gentlemen's club to date , the Newport Reading Room . Candy won the bet and even rode into the club in the process. When Candy was then banned from the Reading Room, his friend Bennett decided to start his own club.
In October 1879 he purchased a piece of land on Bellevue Avenue and hired the architects McKim, Mead, and White to build it. Work began on January 8, 1880. In July, the three-story building was completed. Inside, several lounges, a billiards and reading room, a real tennis hall , a theater with a ballroom and numerous overnight rooms for guests have been set up. Three lawn tennis courts were created in the park behind the casino .
The casino quickly established itself as a meeting place for vacationers in Newport, including the then wealthiest families in America like the Vanderbilts and the Astors . The American tennis championships, which were held on the tennis courts in the park from the end of August to the beginning of September from 1881, made a significant contribution to its popularity. After the area had become too small for the championships and they were moved to New York in 1915, an annual invitation tournament, the Newport Casino Invitational , was held at the casino . In 1921 the tennis facility hosted a Davis Cup encounter . Until the 1920s, the casino was a popular meeting place for American high society . After that, the importance of Newport, which was considered the Queen of Resorts ("Queen of the seaside resorts") during the Gilded Age , and its casino decreased.
Towards the end of the 1930s, the structural fabric of the casino was badly damaged due to the lack of renovation work. Even greater damage was caused by a fire on April 18, 1953 in the north wing of the now barely used building. A real estate company then offered to buy the casino and intended to demolish it. However, the board of the club, led by James Van Alen , decided against it and decided to rebuild and set up a tennis museum. In 1954 the International Tennis Hall of Fame was inaugurated, which was recognized by the International Tennis Federation in 1986 and is known worldwide today. The Newport Casino Invitational tennis tournament was discontinued in 1967. In 1987 the building was added to the National Historic Landmarks List .
In addition to the tennis museum, the casino now hosts numerous music festivals and concerts. The Hall of Fame Tennis Championships , the only grass tournament on the ATP Tour in North America, have been held on the tennis facility every July since 1976 . From 1971 to 1974 and from 1984 to 1990 a women's tournament was also held here. The theater, which closed in 1980, has now been renovated for $ 5.2 million and reopened in 2010 for the 130th anniversary of the casino. National and international championships are held in the Real Tennis Hall, one of the few in North America.
literature
- International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum (Ed.): Tennis And The Newport Casino. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston (South Carolina) 2011. ISBN 978-0-7385-7482-0 .
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 28'56 " N , 71 ° 18'27" W.