In the end, it wasn’t Jimmy Buffett.
Ending more than a year of speculation, 802 Partners LLC said last week that it had purchased Christie’s of Newport, a restaurant and marina that has attracted people to the city for 60 years.
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The buyer is a Delaware-based company owned by a trust established by Dorrance H. Hamilton, a philanthropist from Philadelphia who maintains a residence in Newport, according to 802 Partners spokesman Paul Fleming.
Hamilton recently donated $25 million to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, spurring a $60 million project that is expected to revitalize the school’s urban campus.
In a statement, 802 Partners said the popular restaurant will remain closed throughout the summer. After some immediate upgrades, the marina is to reopen toward the end of July.
Long-term plans for the site have not been finalized yet and likely won’t be in the next 18 months, Fleming said. However, he said the marina will be the main focus.
“[The restaurant] was closed under the former owners,” Fleming said. “It will remain closed for the summer while [802 Partners] evaluates potential plans for that building. … That is somewhat up in the air, although it fairly safe to say that marina support-related services will be part of that building complex in the long run.”
The property, which was placed on the market in spring 2005 with an asking price of $12.5 million, has 842 linear feet of dock. The broker who handled the sale – Paul Hogan, of Hogan & Stone – said that he could not disclose the final sale price; public records, however, show it was $6.7 million..
Christie’s opened in Newport in 1945, when original owner Steve Christie moved the restaurant from its location in New York’s theater district. With six dining areas and three bars, the restaurant had a capacity of 500 during peak season.
Until its closing, it had been Newport’s oldest waterfront restaurant.
Since the 1960s Christie’s had been owned and operated by the Crowley family, who also own Newport’s La Forge Casino. After the death of patriarch Michael F. Crowley, his children decided to sell Christie’s so they could liquidate the estate.
In the past year, the property has been the subject of rumors and controversy. When Christie’s first went on the market, rumors of its sale flew through the community, with gossip spreading that Jimmy Buffett had expressed interest in the property (not true).
Hogan has said he received inquiries from people who wanted to build condominiums on the land, and that the possibility of selling “dockaminiums” in the marina had great appeal. The restaurant itself, he has said, wasn’t worth as much as the land and the marina.
In recent months, as the Crowleys came closer to selling, employees of the restaurant publicly pleaded with them to keep Christie’s open throughout the summer, the peak season for Newport’s hospitality industry. They did not, and the restaurant closed on June 17, three days before the announcement that the sale was finalized.
Peter Crowley said that the family had no comment on the sale.
Evan Smith, president of the Newport County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that the community is experiencing a “sense of loss” with the closing of the landmark. The restaurant had become embedded into Newport’s culture throughout the years, he said, and was a place where family and friends shared many memories.
“I think some people think of Newport institutions as our great mansions or the [International Tennis] Hall of Fame and some the other cultural and historic landmarks,” Smith said. “But in its own right, Christie’s was a Newport institution.”
