00:00This is the Elms, the summer home built for Hermione and Edward J. Berwyn during the Gilded Age.
00:14The Elms was built for the Berwyn family as their summer cottage amongst many of their friends who came from
00:20New York for about six weeks a year.
00:23Those neighbors and friends included the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and many other names you might recognize from the turn of
00:29the century.
00:35The Elms was completed in 1901 and came to a total of 60,000 square feet.
00:44Most of what that 60,000 square feet serves, however, are the domestic workers and not the Berwyns themselves.
00:54But you'd never know because of the way the architect designed and engineered this building.
00:58The Elms was designed to conceal the labor that made it run and perform at one of the highest levels
01:04during the Gilded Age.
01:05Nearly every great space of this house has a support space adjacent to it, where servants are doing their work
01:11in a nearly invisible way.
01:13So that the house would operate like magic.
01:27Edward Berwyn was a first generation American born to German immigrants and then went on to become a multimillionaire in
01:34a global empire of not only coal production, but also shipping.
01:39What we see in this hall are a variety of different kinds of marble imported, as well as gilt bronze
01:46and a whole host of artwork that helped communicate to the Berwyns' guests what a Gilded Age interior should and
01:53could be.
01:54It was a time of enormous wealth, but also enormous disparity of wealth.
01:58So this is the servants' staircase and the service entrance, where the domestic workers of the house would have their
02:03comings and goings.
02:04While the main staircase was proportioned for ease of ascending and descending and difficult shoes and large dresses, this staircase
02:13did not offer the same luxury.
02:14It's incredibly steep because it's hidden inside the main body of the house.
02:19If you're looking at the elms from the exterior, you'll notice that the house is totally symmetrical and there isn't
02:24a true servants' wing that you might expect.
02:27And that's because the architect designed it so that you couldn't even see the service happening.
02:31So on the north side of the building, from the outside, it looks like a two-story home.
02:35But in fact, this is eight flights of stairs going from the basement, where most of the work took place,
02:40all the way up to the servants' quarters, where they lived and had their personal time.
02:44Where the staircase starts on this level is where the kitchen is housed.
02:48Up on the next level of the first floor, you're direct access to the butler's pantry, where food would be
02:52then served to the breakfast room or the dining room.
02:55The mezzanine level above that would be another access level to a two-story butler's pantry.
03:00And then where the primary bedrooms are located on the second floor, you have access to the maid's room, where
03:05Mrs. Berwyn's beautiful outfits would be altered and changed by her lady's maid.
03:10And finally, at the top would be where the servants lived and slept, in a corridor, almost dormitory style, where
03:16they had their living spaces, bathrooms, and additional offices.
03:19And by design, you can't tell that any of these spaces actually exist when you're a guest in the home.
03:30We find ourselves here in the dining room of the Elms.
03:33Part of creating a house like this during the Gilded Age was that when it was completed, everything was furnished,
03:39all the artwork was on the walls.
03:41The Berwins, like many of their peers, hired a man named Jules Lallard from Paris, who was able to source
03:46all these historic works of art and build whole rooms around them.
03:50The grouping of paintings that we have here were created by a variety of artists in Venice during the 17th
03:56century, depicting the life of Scipio Africanus.
03:58This entire collection was bought en bloc and placed in here to give not only the sense of beauty, but
04:05also the idea of centuries-long permanence that the family was trying to communicate through building a house that was
04:10historically referential.
04:11The Elms was not unique in this way.
04:13Many of their neighbors, as well as their peers, were also building their Gilded Age mansions in this historically referential
04:19style.
04:20Think about the Breakers, a giant Genoese palazzo, or Marble House, which is based on the Petit Trianon of Versailles.
04:27Everyone was finding their own unique ways of bringing history into the contemporary.
04:33There was not an aristocracy in the U.S., but there was a wealth class that was of the same
04:38level as the aristocracy.
04:39So why not copy their buildings?
04:42The idea of copying aristocracy wasn't just limited to the buildings themselves.
04:46The ways in which the Vanderbilts, the Berwins, and their peers were entertaining was also mimicking what they saw in
04:53the elite classes of Europe.
04:55In order to serve the dining room, there had to be an adjacent space for the servants to also prepare
05:01and give that level of service expected of people like the Berwins.
05:04So we're in the butler's pantry, and this is the area where food service had its last stop before the
05:10servants and the domestic workers would present the food to the Berwins in either the dining room or the breakfast
05:16room.
05:17The entire food experience here at the Elms actually takes place over three levels.
05:21We have the two-story butler's pantry, and below us we have the kitchen space, which in total is nearly
05:282,000 square feet of how food would be stored, prepared, and then also presented.
05:34By comparison to dining room and breakfast room were far less, perhaps 200 square feet.
05:39By making the butler's pantry two levels, it allowed for storage to be vertical rather than horizontal, allowing for greater
05:47spaces on the main floor of the Elms for dining and entertaining.
05:51So up here on the second level where I am, I'm surrounded by glass cases filled with porcelain.
05:56They would have had a series of silver flatware as well, sterling silver, that would have traveled with them in
06:01specially designed trunks.
06:03And that would also be stored up on this level in a carefully designed and concealed safe.
06:08The silver at the time that was used for utensils was solid sterling silver, and therefore its weight was judged
06:15by the actual value of silver itself.
06:17This three-story dumbwaiter system actually made it possible for the service spaces on the main level of the house
06:24to be made smaller so that they weren't as present and appeared almost invisible.
06:28The dining room and the butler's pantry are one of the best examples in this house, of where one floor
06:34for the Berwins is two floors for the servants.
06:47We're here on the second floor of the Elms in the hallway, which is lined with the bedrooms for Mr.
06:53and Mrs. Berwind, as well as their guests.
06:55Running parallel to this larger hallway is a small, narrow passageway that was designed specifically for servants to have access
07:02to Edward and Hermione Berwind.
07:04In that hallway also is a concealed door that leads directly into Hermione's bedchamber that both Edward and the servants
07:10would have had discreet access to visit with her or conduct business.
07:14There are two skylights on this level, one of which is behind me, and they both allow natural light to
07:19pass through and light up these spaces.
07:21What you can't see, however, is that there's another level above where those skylights are.
07:26We are standing now on the third floor of the Elms, which is a long corridor lined with the bedrooms
07:33of the family's household servants.
07:35So what I'm standing on right now is actually the skylight that you saw downstairs.
07:39And what the servants have on the third floor is essentially the middle space between where the natural light is
07:45actually coming from and lighting up their living spaces as well.
07:49So from the perspective of the Berwins and their guests on the second floor, seeing that natural light coming through
07:56the ceiling would indicate that there is not another level of this house.
07:59So this is an engineering trick and a design trick created by the architect to again make another part of
08:06this space invisible.
08:08This floor is actually 15,000 square feet, but you wouldn't even know that this level exists because there's a
08:14large cornice designed all the way around four sides of the house, hiding it from the street view and from
08:20the public.
08:20Having that cornice did also serve the servants in its own way because it allowed for an outdoor space for
08:27them to get fresh air, get more natural light into their living quarters and privacy in particular.
08:34At this time, working in domestic servitude was an option and it was one of many options that people had
08:40for a career path.
08:41So to get the best and highest quality staff members, you had to have really lovely accommodations for them, their
08:48own bathrooms, their own bedrooms, access to natural light and fresh air.
08:53As the Berwins were known to entertain quite a lot, their servants were kept very busy.
08:57And so when they had the opportunity to get a breath of fresh air, it was actually a luxury to
09:03be able to just step outside of one's room and go out on the roof to have that outdoor space.
09:08They also did have access to the grounds of the Elms and on occasion would bring family members to come
09:13experience the 13 and a half acres that make up the Elms property.
09:27We are in the sub-basement of the Elms and behind me is a very long tunnel that is secretly
09:32hidden underground where Edward Birdwin would have his coal delivered out of sight.
09:36It was actually coming through an opening in the sidewalk outside of the property walls, dumped into a cart just
09:44like this one, and then hand pushed by the servants into the boiler room.
09:49So coal delivery during the Gilded Age was an incredibly dirty utility.
09:54And in order to get the coal into the house, most of these Gilded Age mansions in Newport had very
10:00specific coal chutes or tunnels in which the coal would be deposited and delivered.
10:04Usually it was attached somewhat to the house where even a coal delivery would be made on the property.
10:09But Berwyn went through the extra and more extraordinary expense of having the tunnel dug out underground and then having
10:16the coal delivered outside of the property walls so that he wouldn't even have to see it.
10:20Having ample coal was important to Berwyn because it was part of the industry that he had helped foster and
10:26mature in North America.
10:28And the mining of coal, as well as the refining of it, was the basis of Berwyn's fortune.
10:33This is one of the prime examples as to how the Elms was designed to conceal the labor that made
10:39it run and perform at one of the highest levels during the Gilded Age.
10:42We can learn a lot from this house and from Berwyn himself.
10:46The Gilded Age stems from the 1883 publication by Mark Twain, which was essentially describing the time in which he
10:52lived.
10:52And the term gilded was not a term of endearment.
10:55It was actually used to describe the great disparity between the wealthy and the poor that was happening.
11:01The Elms reflects a rather pivotal moment in our nation's history and essentially brings us into the idea of what
11:08modern America means.
11:10The Gilded Age
11:24The Gilded Age
11:24The Gilded Age
11:25The Gilded Age
11:26The Gilded Age
11:26The Gilded Age
