NEWPORT’S PALACES BY THE SEA

Had we let them have their way, we would have been in Disneyland. They’re children, after all. It was completely understandable that they were less than enthused to be in Rhode Island to visit what they could only surmise as “old houses.”

“Oh, but these aren’t just ordinary houses,” I explained to my children. “They’re glistening castles and palaces of a magical era called The Gilded Age.” I could see it in their young eyes. They were intrigued.

We enter the imposing gates of (Castle by the Sea), our first stop on Newport’s famed Bellevue Avenue, the mansion that kicked off an incredible construction binge unparalleled in American history. Built in 1852, this stately manor overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and bearing all the hallmarks of British,