Destination: Rhode Island : House Party : It’s 100 candles for the Breakers, one of Newport’s most famous mansions

Every once in a while, I’m seized by an instinctive and compelling urge to smell the sweet scent of privet.

A good many Newporters use privet for hedges. The salt air carries its fragrance through my open car window as I drive every year or two along Newport’s winding, 10-mile Ocean Drive. Its allure is powerful. It evokes memories of Victoria, B.C., that very English city at the sun-swept, southern tip of Vancouver Island in Canada, where I was born, and where the privet-like scents of wildflowers and bright yellow broom along the wild Pacific Coast evoke in me a powerful sense of belonging.

Here in Newport, just 25 miles southeast of somewhat gritty Providence and about 70 miles south of Boston, the allure of lazy but exhilarating days with my camera is probably as much a draw as the scents of privet and salt air. This town may be unsurpassed in terms of architectural heritage that is both majestic and vulgar, unfathomable extravagance that is now priceless. Its grand seaside mansions compare favorably with more than a few European palaces. They date back to a period when guests at a banquet in Marble House were handed silver trowels to dig in silver pails full of sand--for diamonds and rubies, the objects of the hunt--as a sort of pre-dinner entertainment while they waited for their soup. More than once, while peering through my camera viewfinder in search of a new angle, I’ve reckoned that many of these great old stone and marble houses quite easily put the White House to shame.

This year, I am lured not just by the privet and the photographs but by a grand celebration of the 100th anniversary of Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s outrageously opulent Breakers, designed by the great 19th-Century architect Richard Morris Hunt after another Vanderbilt home on the site was destroyed by fire. The Breakers frequently impresses even the most jaded world travelers with its promiscuous gold and crystal, magnificent Great Hall, sweeping staircases and medieval European tapestries. While other Newport mansions, especially Marble House next door (pictured on L1), can rival the Breakers in terms of gold and crystal, none can match its immense indoor spaces, its soaring, vaulted ceilings with their richly colored murals or its unparalleled scale.

Architects of many of the Newport mansions took their inspiration from the palaces of France, and one--the Elms--is a perfect chateau. Thus the Breakers sometimes seems oddly out of place. Unlike Newport’s other mansions, it’s decidedly Mediterranean, a deliberate choice by Hunt, who sought to turn medieval Italian design to advantage here by incorporating great palm-filled loggias to provide the summer comfort that Vanderbilt, patriarch of the country’s richest family, sought.

In addition to its treasures of European paintings, sculpture and ancient tapestries, the latter quite common in Newport, the Breakers also is home to sculptures by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Cornelius II’s daughter, who was so determined that American artists be afforded the same recognition as their European counterparts that she founded New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.

As part of the 100th anniversary, a temporary exhibit of Vanderbilt-related railroad memorabilia will open on Memorial Day weekend in the Breakers’ elaborate stables. (The Vanderbilts made much of their money in the railroad business and, like other socially prominent people of their day, would ride to Newport in sumptuous, private rail cars.) The same weekend, the Newport Art Museum will open another summer exhibition, this one about the Vanderbilts themselves. Later, there will be a grand ball and a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” in the Breakers’ Great Hall. (Back in Newport’s heyday, its elite would import whole Broadway shows--with their casts--for nights of summer entertainment.) The Breakers also will host lectures about the Vanderbilts and their mansions, including one by a descendant, Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr.

This summer also marks the 50th anniversary of the Preservation Society of Newport County, which has been almost single-handedly responsible for preserving most of these palaces, at least those that are open to the public. (There are dozens in and around the area.) The Preservation Society’s celebration will include everything from an open-air pops concert to a children’s garden party to fireworks.

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Many of Newport’s magnificent mansions march down Bellevue Avenue, which leads two miles south to Rhode Island Sound from the heart of town. Many are still strictly private, but a stellar nine or 10 (depending upon how the word “mansion” is defined) are open to the public and draw tourists, as well as students of architecture and history. Others are scattered around the town, many of them in sparsely settled neighborhoods away from its bustling downtown wharves.

For our trip last August, my wife packed a book in her purse for those hours she knew I’d be lost to photography. When we got in, we grabbed a picnic lunch at a downtown deli and headed for Ocean Drive--out past some of the estates whose privet hedges had drawn us here, until we came to Brenton Point State Park, a magnificent field and rocky beach where kids flew kites and other folks sunbathed or picnicked. There I began taking pictures, and for three days I didn’t stop.

Driving Ocean Drive’s loop around the peninsula occupied by the town and its environs is probably the best way to get your bearings. For my wife and me, it’s a standard drill each time we arrive in town. This route not only traces the rocky, ragged shoreline--passing by not just the shoreline but a great many private mansions and private hedges--but it ends on Bellevue Avenue. Having seen the harbor and the yachts that have also earned the town distinction, you’ll end up in mansion territory. Bellevue Avenue, in turn, will lead you back to the heart of town. For hikers, the 3 1/2-mile Cliff Walk--which extends along Newport’s eastern shore past many of the great mansions--is an ideal excursion.

Young Jacqueline Bouvier, who came to Newport when she was 15, must have known Brenton Point, although her stepfather’s nearby farm, the Auchincloss family’s Hammersmith, offered all the fields she needed for the horseback riding and jumping that she loved. We’d skipped Hammersmith before, but this time it drew us.

Jackie spent most of her teen-age years in this fine shingled house, which rambles like an old seaside hotel. And even long after President John F. Kennedy’s death, she’d return with her children, Caroline and John Jr. Unlike most other Newport mansions, many inspired by European palaces, Hammersmith is quite American. It was here, in this vestibule--where wood predominates instead of the marble, crystal and gold found in such excessive abundance elsewhere in Newport--that the future First Lady stood for two hours at her wedding reception, greeting each of her 1,200 invited guests.

We stood on the staircase by the ancient grandfather clock from which the young bride tossed her bouquet. We glanced into her teen-age bedroom, eyeing family mementos. And we liked the feel of this house, with its low ceilings (compared to the 30-footers at some other mansions), dark wood floors, huge picture windows and comfortably plush--but worn--furniture. We noted that there were table lamps instead of the crystal, bronze and gold chandeliers you find along Bellevue Avenue, some so heavy they had to be suspended from the buildings’ frames. This mansion, unlike most of Newport’s other historic properties, is still privately owned, and various Auchinclosses still stop by now and then, our guide told us, “to rearrange the pictures.”

We took in two other mansions on this trip, although over the past decade we have visited seven. The inside of the very formal Marble House glowed pink in the morning sun. Built for cross-ventilation, it was stifling without an ocean breeze. Given this glittering mansion as a somewhat lavish birthday gift by her husband, William K. Vanderbilt, Alva Vanderbilt held meetings of suffragettes here and, while one place setting for 200 was trimmed with gold, another demanded “Votes for Women!” Of the two services, the first was probably better suited to the mansion’s glittering gold and crystal and the lush, rose-colored fabric, trimmed in darker tassels, that covered the tall chairs surrounding the great dining table. This mansion, however, is best known for its dazzling Gold Ballroom, whose excess of gold leaf is not only stunning but the epitome of the extravagance it represents.

Airy Rosecliff, which provided the backdrop for scenes in last year’s action movie “True Lies” (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jaime Lee Curtis), as well as “The Great Gatsby” (Robert Redford) and “The Betsy” (Laurence Olivier), struck us as much more charming. The ceiling of the ballroom, the largest in Newport, is covered by a mural of clouds and happy cherubs, and the heart-shaped staircase looks like the creation of a Hollywood set designer.

Designed after the Grand Trianon palace at Versailles, Rosecliff is the most romantic of Newport’s mansions. Graceful and evenly proportioned, it’s also elegant and refined rather than ostentatious. White on the outside with French windows, full of pastels--not gold--on the inside, it looks like a place where people really did enjoy themselves, not just show off. The garden outside the ballroom is called “The Court of Love.” Out back, weathered stone cherubs grace a terrace facing the ocean. An oval fountain lies beyond.

The Elms, closer to downtown on Bellevue Avenue, may be the most elegant, if not grandiose, of all of Newport’s mansions. To catch more than a glimpse through its gates, you’ll have to buy a ticket and take the tour. But it’s well worth it. Built early this century, considerably later than many Newport mansions, the Elms is a reproduction of a neoclassic French chateau outside Paris, complete with statuary along its roof lines and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Decorated with much less gold than Newport’s other great mansions, the Elms has a classical interior in whites and ivories and a notable art collection, including significant works by the 16th- and 17th-Century Italian painters Paolo Pagani and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini.

Many local experts recommend visiting no more than three mansions a day; after that, they begin to look similar. Asked which three mansions she’d choose for a visitor who had only a day in town, Monique Panaggio, the Preservation Society’s spokeswoman, listed the Breakers, Marble House and either the Elms or Rosecliff, depending on whether the visitor is more interested in touring a French chateau or a place that still inspires good times and movie makers.

Visitors who really want to get a handle on Newport might want to consider another choice, between Hunter House, down on the waterfront (a mid-18th Century wooden dwelling that was headquarters for the French navy during the Revolutionary War), and another perfect period piece, the Victorian Chateau-sur-Mer.

Chateau-sur-Mer, a stone “cottage” built a century later and much larger than Hunter House but still much more modest than its newer Bellevue Avenue neighbors, reflects more prudent tastes and was continuously modified over the years as its owners endeavored to add architectural flair as times changed. Somewhat grim on the outside, built of stone with little ornamentation and rather bleak windows, inside it’s rich with lacquered wood, stained glass windows, Oriental rugs and gas lamps.

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GUIDEBOOK: Taking a Rhode Trip

Getting there: From LAX fly United, USAir, American, Delta, Continental and Northwest to Providence, R.I., with connections through various U.S. cities. Lowest advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at about $500.

Birthday bash events: “All Aboard! The New York Central With the Vanderbilts,” a railroad exhibit in the Breakers’ stables, one mile from the mansion, May 27 through Labor Day. Also, “The Cornelius Vanderbilts of the Breakers--a Retrospective Exhibition,” at the downtown Newport Art Museum, May 27 through Oct. 2.

Lectures at the Breakers: Among this summer’s special lectures at the Breakers: “The American Renaissance and the Breakers,” June 8; Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr. will speak about his family July 21.

New York City’s Blue Hill Troupe, a light opera company, will perform “The Pirates of Penzance” in the Breakers’ Great Hall June 24.

The Breakers’ stable will be the setting for a Country Dance and Buffet Sept. 9.

The Preservation Society has already kicked off its 50th birthday party. Upcoming events include a July 9 pops concert by the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra; a Children’s Garden Party July 14 at Green Animals topiary in nearby Portsmouth, and fireworks at Newport’s Easton Beach, Aug. 8.

Other events: 27th Annual Newport Music Festival (classical), July 8-23; Newport Folk Festival, Aug. 5-6; Newport Jazz Festival, Aug. 11-14.

Where to stay: Newport Marriott, 25 America’s Cup Ave., Newport, 02840; rates about $175-$185 per night for a double (until June); tel. (401) 849-1000.

B&Bs;: Cliffside Inn, 2 Seaview Ave., Newport, 02840; rates about $145-$325 per night for a double; B&B; at the foot of the Cliff Walk, a paved path that passes by many mansions; tel. (401) 847-1811.

Mansions: The Preservation Society of Newport County (401-847-1000) maintains the following properties: the Breakers, Chateau-sur-Mer, the Elms, Hunter House, Kingscote, Marble House and Rosecliff. It also operates Green Animals, a historic topiary garden. For information on tours of Hammersmith, tel. (401) 846-7346.

For more information: Newport County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 23 America’s Cup Ave., Newport, R.I. 02840; tel. (800) 326-6030.

--M.K.