Belcourt
Castle
Built
for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont by architect Richard Morris Hunt
between 1891 and 1894, the sixty-room summer cottage now known
as Belcourt Castle is unusual. For one thing, it is the only Newport
mansion where the owners still reside and open their home for
tours. Perhaps even more extraordinary are the mansion's uninvited
visitors, which include a spectral monk, a boisterous suit of
armor, an eighteenth-century military man, and The White Lady--not
to mention the mansion's haunted chairs, mirrors and other furnishings.
If the mansion walls could talk, they might tell some colorful
stories about stately people with all-too-human emotions, such
as love and jealousy. And the imported furnishings from all over
the world--many from the distant past--may have their own stories,
too. Could it be that these artifacts are, indeed, trying to communicate
with us so that we might help them find peace at last? One of
the most-seen apparitions is that of a monk robed in brown. Soon
after moving into Belcourt with her new husband in 1960, Harle
Tinney saw the monk standing next to her bed.
Text © Dr. Michael Bell |