NEWPORT – Another Gilded Age mansion along Bellevue Avenue is set to become a historic museum once the current owners die.
The Miramar estate, which has been a private residence since it was built in 1915, will join the avenue's roster of historic mansions open to the public, owner Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, said in a statement to The Newport Daily News.
“We intend to put the property into a charitable foundation at the time of our deaths, which will establish Miramar as a private museum for the benefit of the Newport community and public in perpetuity,” said Schwarzman, who purchased the property in 2021 for $27 million.
Details still need to be finalized, however the property will not be open to the public until after Schwarzman and his wife, Christine, die. Schwarzman plans to bestow ownership to the charitable foundation through his personal philanthropic foundation or a foundation specifically for the museum, The Newport Daily News reported.
Built in 1915 at 646 Bellevue Ave. on the famous Cliff Walk, the 40,982-square-foot Miramar estate is known as one of Newport’s Gilded Age mansions, as well as one of the city's largest private homes.
The building was designed in 1912 by architect Horace Trumbauer at the request of the prominent and wealthy Widener family of Philadelphia, with a neoclassical French petit palais building constructed of limestone on an 8-acre property designed by French landscape architect Jacques Greber, according to Gustave White Sotheby's International Realty.
The patriarch of the family, George Widener, a Philadelphia streetcar magnate, died on the Titanic along with his son, but when his wife, Eleanor Elkins, returned to the U.S. after getting saved on a lifeboat, she followed through with plans to build the Newport mansion, which is named after the Spanish word for “sea view."
Elkins married physician and explorer Alexander Rice Jr., who retired and lived at the Miramar estate until his death in 1956.
The mansion has gone through extensive renovations after being purchased by Schwarzman, according to The Newport Daily News.
The interior walls have been stripped to reveal their original colors, and gilded molding and 18th-century French wood paneling have been reinstalled in the living room.
French furniture from the 1915 era and paintings have been placed in the mansion, including works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and John Singer Sargent.
“We extend our sincere thanks to the many local contractors and tradespeople who helped restore the home and grounds and to the Newport community for welcoming us in so warmly,” Schwarzman said.
