NRF promotes and invests in the architectural heritage of the Newport community, the traditional building trades, and Doris Duke’s fine and decorative arts collections, for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of all.
As a leader in the preservation of early American architecture, NRF supports research and education in areas directly related to its collections and issues of critical concern to the field of historic preservation.
Visit Doris Duke’s art-filled mansion and enjoy panoramic ocean views from the extensive grounds. Open late March to November.
The Vernon House is a site for expansive story-telling, contemporary dialogue, and preservation trades skill-building.
Newport Restoration Foundation holds one of the largest collections of period architecture owned by a single organization anywhere in the United States.
Celebrate excellence in historic preservation efforts within the City of Newport, Rhode Island.
Live amidst history by renting one of our many historic properties.
Let us help you celebrate the season! We’ve made holiday shopping easy by putting together some great gift ideas from the NRF Museum Store.
Thank you for supporting the Newport Restoration Foundation and for shopping local. All proceeds benefit NRF and help promote our mission.
Enjoy free standard shipping—as well as free local delivery and free local pickup.
Take the stress out of gift-giving! Your gifts will be beautifully wrapped in paper featuring hand-drawn illustrations and patterning. Select “gift wrapping” during checkout.
Limited Edition Tiger Lily Print collection: Featuring the tropical tiger lily print of Doris Duke’s 1938 Jantzen swimming suit, these limited-edition products are perfect for holiday gifting (or as a treat for yourself)!
Gift Sets: Perfectly curated gift sets for a special someone—or yourself! Each set includes a natural homemade soap bar, a hand-poured wood wick candle that crackles when lit, and a natural balm that nourishes and protects lips.
Holiday Collection: Celebrate the holidays with featured ornaments, exclusive products inspired by the museum collections, and special gifts (for you, or to share!)
Ornaments: From the iconic exterior of Rough Point, to an homage to Doris’s passion for jazz, to brightly-colored handcrafted designs, these ornaments are perfect to display at home all year-round.
For Entertaining: Entertain in style (or dress up a cozy night at home) with these beautiful, collection-inspired, eco-friendly napkins, plates, coasters, and guest towels.
For the book-lover: From Doris Duke’s closets & collections, to historic Newport buildings, inside looks at Rough Point, colonial life & Newport furniture, garden-related stories for gardeners & enthusiasts, and kid-friendly new favorites & classics—discover a book for everyone!
For the decisive decision-maker: Featuring a saying from a pillow gifted to Doris Duke, these items showcase Doris’s sense of humor (and your own!)
For the furniture fan: These items are inspired by Whitehorne House Museum’s collection of exquisitely crafted furniture and the stories of the people who designed, made, and purchased furniture and related crafts.
For your furry friends: Our pets deserve some TLC this winter season (*all products are rated two paws up!)
For the gardener: Stylish & sturdy gardening gloves, beautiful books, hand salve, & more. NRF Estate Gardener approved!
For hardworking hands: Soaps, hand butter, hand salve & more! Everything you need to pamper your hard-working hands. From relaxing to invigorating scents—go ahead and indulge. Locally made with organic and sustainably sourced ingredients.
For kids: Fun, educational, and whimsical products for the littlest explorers, artists, and gardeners.
For restoration buffs: Founded in 1968 by Doris Duke, NRF works to study climate change resilience in Newport, develop new community-oriented programs, preserve our museums and historic buildings, and steward centuries-old properties. You too can join us in supporting this work.
For the yogi: These custom yoga pants are relaxing, comfy, & stylish. Limited quantities!
NRF Museum Store gift cards are also available for use online or in store.
Follow us on social media @nptrestoration or sign up to receive newsletters to stay in the know about new products and sales.
Our special holiday pop-up is located at Rough Point Museum, 680 Bellevue Ave. Open weekends during the holiday season, including November 26th.
Cheers!
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Doris Duke was a stranger to me.
I say, “was,” because after you sort through someone’s clothing (including underwear), you get to know them fairly well.
The main objective of my internship at Rough Point over the summer and fall was to accession (or catalogue) a recent collection of her clothes that were shipped from her former Shangri-La property in Hawaii to the museum staff at NRF.
Some things I learned about Doris while doing this were that she loved belts, enjoyed a comfy caftan, and had a penchant for bright colors and modern fashions. A portrait of her, printed to a life-size scale, watched over me diligently in my temporary office as I browsed her clothing collection, which was busting out of the boxes from Hawai’i. The vast swath of styles stretched over decades from the 1930s to the 1980s, and, of course, I had some personal favorites along the way.
I enjoyed seeing the bright prints and short skirts of the 1960s and 1970s, and cooed over the delicate beadwork on bias-cut gowns. However, there was, and still is, an academic barrier that kept me from loving them. As a graduate student who is versed in fashion history, each of these garments turned into a mini-study. These things, to me, were relics to be treated with the utmost delicacy and care. A majority of the clothing I referred to as objects, divided from me by time and space. These objects were cool, but they were not applicable to my life.
What was applicable, and the clothes that I loved, were tourist t-shirts from the mid-to-late 80s. I never grew up wearing crinolines or mod suits, nor did I ever see anyone wearing any in my day-to-day life. But having been born in the late 90s, I did recognize t-shirts.
Doris had t-shirts from trips she took to Hawai’i, Montana, and more– little “touristy” things that might even be considered cheap looking to some people. These shirts made Doris feel real to me, and not just some larger than life figure that watched me from a poster. These are things that she would have acquired late in her life, and very much reminded me of my own grandmothers. It was a very bittersweet moment, looking over these casual clothes and being reminded that Doris was once my grandmothers’ age. The experience left me feeling melancholy, but with a new affinity for an aging woman who had a life well-lived, and probably grew to enjoy the comfort of a t-shirt.
I once again think of my own grandmothers and the stories they tell about their lives. The decades scarcely understood by myself, having never lived them, but still sharing an intimate connection through clothing. They love a good t-shirt, I love a good t-shirt, and so did Doris.
By Paige Bailey
Paige Bailey was the curatorial graduate intern for 2021 summer and fall. Paige is in her second year of the Master of Science degree in Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design at the University of Rhode Island.
Newport Restoration Foundation is excited to be able to continue in-person programs and events at our museums this season. Rough Point Museum, Whitehorne House Museum, and Prescott Farm will offer a variety of free and ticketed programs for all ages and interests. Please mark your calendars for upcoming special events including:
Picnic Performances at Rough Point: String Poets Rough Point Museum (680 Bellevue Avenue, Newport) September 3 / 6:00 – 7:30 PM $15 – Advance registration recommended
In the intimate Formal Garden at Rough Point, the String Poets will perform string versions of hit pop songs through the decades. Visitors can lounge on the grass amongst the blooms in the Formal Garden, or bring blankets, chairs, or pillows to relax. Grounds open at 6:00pm, performance begins at 6:30pm.
Yoga in the Yard at Rough Point Rough Point Museum (680 Bellevue Avenue, Newport) September 9 / 6:00 – 7:00 PM $15 – Advance registration required
Join us for a Slow Flow session led by Patti Doyle from Middletown’s Innerlight Yoga, set against our expansive ocean backdrop.
Wood Identification Workshop Whitehorne House Museum (416 Thames Street, Newport) September 10 / 6:00 – 7:00 PM $15 – Advance registration recommended
Join us in the pocket garden as furniture conservator Randy S. Wilkinson of Fallon & Wilkinson, LLC guides you through the very basics of wood identification.
Second Sundays Prescott Farm (2009 West Main Road, Middletown) September 12 / 12:00 – 3:00 PM Free admission
Each month, NRF joins with a non-profit partner to highlight the expansive history and horticulture of Prescott Farm. Climb inside the historic windmill, explore our varied gardens with URI’s Master Gardeners, and enjoy themed activities and crafts.
A Taste of Newport Tea Whitehorne House Museum (416 Thames Street, Newport) September 18 / 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM $30 – Advance registration required
Get a taste of 18th century Newport in the garden at Whitehorne House Museum! This tea tasting features historic teas of Revolutionary and Early America and a talk by Merrill Kohlhofer.
Roam Around Rough Point Rough Point Museum (680 Bellevue Avenue, Newport) September 25 / 5:00 – 7:00 PM $0-$20; Newport County Residents are free!
On the last Saturday of every month, explore the house and gardens after hours. Newport County residents receive FREE admission! For more info visit newportrestoration.org/events.
Art&Newport and Newport Restoration Foundation invite you to
I N T H E W A V E S
by
MELISSA McGILL
at Rough Point
Newport RI
Curated by Dodie Kazanjian
Artist painting on site
Aug 2 – 14 (10AM – 5PM)
Performances
Aug 18-21 & 24-28 (3 + 4PM)
IN THE WAVES is an admission-free public art project in support of Newport Restoration Foundation’s Keeping History Above Water Initiative — created with an ensemble of local community members.
Melanie George/producer and dramaturg
Davalois Fearon/choreographer
Visitors invited to interact with the artist, choreographer, and ensemble between performances.
To register: www.newportrestoration.org/events
Parking available at Rough Point.
No performances during rain or high winds—cancellations/updates will be posted on NRF website and Veevart.
For more information: www.artandnewport.org, www.newportrestoration.org, www.melissamcgillartist.com
In the Waves, by artist Melissa McGill, is a series of live free public art performances activating the landscape and evoking the urgency of rising sea levels and a rapidly changing climate. The artist invites members of local communities to join the ensemble of this inclusive movement artwork and support the community through a shared meaningful experience about these environmental themes.
Be part of a community ensemble in this work’s creation under the guidance of the artist and Melanie George, producer and dramaturg and Davalois Fearon, choreographer. The project will take place at Rough Point in Newport, Rhode Island presented by Art & Newport, curated by Dodie Kazajian, with Newport Restoration Foundation’s initative Keeping History Above Water. For more about Artist Melissa McGill, click here.
OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS! YOU ARE INVITED!
WE ARE LOOKING FOR A TOTAL OF 100 COLLABORATORS — ages 15 and older — no experience necessary — available for all performance and rehearsal dates
THE PERFORMANCES DATES August 18 to 21 (Wednesday through Saturday) August 24 to 28 (Tuesday through Saturday) 2:00pm—4:30pm Rehearsal dates August 15, 16 and 17 from 1pm- 5pm
THE DETAILS $15/hour for both performances and rehearsals. We’ll also provide snacks and beverages. Email inthewavesnewport@gmail.com with questions.
TO SIGN UP For easy application click here. Please help us spread the word!
Working in a garden makes you keep track of seasons and time in a different way than the calendar. As the Estate Gardener at the Newport Restoration Foundation, I watch for the year’s passing through the evolution of the grounds, what blooms and what fades, and I feel more in tune with the world through the looking glass of nature. My anticipation for July starts when I begin to notice rose buds forming on our formal garden rose arbor. The American Heritage Pillar roses bloom only once a year, in a fantastic show of simple pink blooms, which serve as a kind of landmark for summer’s true beginning. Visitors stand in awestruck amazement at the display and walk through the arbor as if walking through a fairytale. For a brief two weeks we watch the roses as if listening to a well-constructed symphony- quietly they begin to bloom, then suddenly the flowering picks up its pace and crescendos to a loud explosion of color. It holds at that grandeur, almost too briefly, and then the petals begin to fall, colors begin to fade, and the rose arbor becomes silent again.
I am most excited for the roses to bloom this year because for the entirety of the cold month of February I labored over the vines; pruning out dead wood, cutting out last year’s rose hips, and re-tying the vines to the arbor. After a few late fall windstorms last year, the rose arbor needed much reinforcement- whole sections of the vines fell from the structure and needed to be pulled back into place over the arches and sides. This was a difficult, lengthy, and painful task. In order to pull the vines up I had to separate sections of them out from each other, untangling years’ worth of growth, while trying not to damage too much of the vine as to not lose rose buds for the summer. Using soft wire around a section of vines I would pull them into place, attaching it as close to the arbor as possible, then do the same over again, readjusting the tightness of each wire as I went. Slowly, piece by piece, the vines would be brought back into place, and secured back to the arbor in several places to ensure that it would stay in place during future windstorms. For good measure, I tied new wire around all of the sections of the rose arbor, as the old wire put in place years before was starting to break and sag under the sheer weight of the vines. I stood on the ladder, face turned to the February sun and smiled knowing that all the work would be worth it when I could see the flowers bloom in July.
For the first few weeks of June I kept checking in on the roses every week, looking, almost frantically, for the buds- as if, all the work I had done to keep the plant healthy might have actually resulted in an absence of buds and a year without flowers. Finally the buds began to emerge, and with the buds came aphids. Four years ago when I first started working in the gardens at Rough Point, I was seriously alarmed when I noticed them. There were so many aphids they seemed to almost drip from the buds. Using an organic pest control method, I sprayed the aphids out of fear of them damaging the blooms by sucking the sweet sap from the rose buds. I would check on the aphids every day until finally I noticed lady bugs, in all stages of their life cycle appearing to feast on them. Looking closely through a loupe I spotted aphids that had been parasitized by tiny parasitizing wasps. With a sigh of relief I realized that nature takes care of itself. I no longer fret over the aphids on the roses, and they continue to bloom spectacularly regardless of the alarming numbers the aphids that suddenly show up year after year.
After the rose arbor blooms and fades there is still so much to look forward to in our gardens. The Kitchen Garden will soon be producing a plentiful summer bounty of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, and peppers. Summer flowers will be blooming on their tall stalks reaching for the sun, the dahlias will grow taller and push out their first blooms.
As mid-summer approaches, we prepare for the heat and the promise of beach days, ice cream cones, longer days, and fantastic sunsets. As a gardener, I prepare for the great crescendo of a symphony of color and my immense feeling of gratitude and wonderment as I watch the world around me unfold in spectacular beauty. I gather everything that I have learned in these gardens together and begin to wonder what else can I add to this symphony of growth and color? How can we draw out summer a little longer through the progression of colors that rise and fall in our gardens with the ticking of time? The answer comes slowly, with patience and understanding. It comes with experimentation, new ideas about plantings or growing methods that either fail or succeed. Most importantly it comes with the recognition that gardens are all around us and will always be there to provide inspiration. The world needs more gardens, so that we can all look around ourselves and experience the joy of the summer in the vibrant colors of blooms that only get the chance to arrive but once a year.
By Tessa Young, Estate Gardener, Newport Restoration Foundation
Summer Stories Whitehorne House Museum (416 Thames Street, Newport) Fridays: July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 / 10:00 – 11:00 AM Free admission
Listen to storybook readings in the garden and put together a themed craft to take home. Recommended for kids aged Pre-K to 1st grade.
Picnic Performances at Rough Point: The Rhode Island Black Storytellers Rough Point Museum (680 Bellevue Avenue, Newport) July 2 / 6:00 – 7:30 PM
$15 – Advance registration recommended
Join us for our monthly outdoor art performance series on the grounds of Rough Point. In July, the Rhode Island Black Storytellers take the stage at Rough Point for a series of independence-themed stories set to music. Visitors can lounge on the grass amongst the blooms in the Formal Garden, or bring blankets, chairs, or pillows to relax. Grounds open at 6:00pm, performance begins at 6:30pm.
Woodcarving Demonstration
Whitehorne House Museum (416 Thames Street, Newport) July 10 / 2:00 – 3:00 PM $30 – Advance registration recommended
Mary May, founder of Mary May’s School of Traditional Woodcarving, leads a woodworking demonstration in the garden at Whitehorne House Museum. Discover how Newport’s distinct block-and-shell patterns are carved, seen on a number of 18th-century furniture pieces inside the museum.
Second Sundays Prescott Farm (2009 West Main Road, Middletown) July 11 / 12:00 – 3:00 PM Free admission
Each month, NRF joins with a non-profit partner to highlight the expansive history and horticulture of Prescott Farm. In July, the crew of the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry visits to demonstrate the surprising connections between ships and windmills (hint: it’s all in the sails!).
Jazz on the Lawn
Rough Point Museum July 15 / 6:30 – 8:00 PM $20 – Advance registration recommended
Grab a picnic basket and blanket, and take in the ocean breezes while the Leon Lee Dorsey Quartet jams on the Rough Point terrace.
Historical Makerspace Workshop: Paint Making
Whitehorne House Museum (416 Thames Street, Newport) July 25 / 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM $20 – Advance registration recommended
Kids from 10-100 are welcome at this fun paint making workshop outside of Whitehorne House. Discover how people have made paint throughout history using a variety of sources to create different colors and textures, then make your own painted masterpiece in this hands-on program.
Roam Around Rough Point
Rough Point Museum (680 Bellevue Avenue, Newport)
July 31 / 5:00 – 7:00 PM
$0-$20; Newport County Residents are free!
When someone asks me what some of the more interesting things in Doris Duke’s fashion collection are my usual answer is how many lesser-known designers are in it. This is a bit misleading because Doris Duke did have a fair amount of high-end, couture, and custom fashions in her Rough Point closets from big name designers that you would think of like Christian Dior and Balenciaga. I think the diverse range of designers in her wardrobe speak to Doris’s independence and her interest in supporting up and coming artists, both in the fashion world and as she did through her philanthropy within the music and dance world.
For a 1981 Met Gala (before Anna Wintour made it THE fashion event of the year), Duke chose to wear a relatively unknown designer, Dimitri Kritsas (born late 1930s), a fashion designer from Greece with only a small New York boutique. We don’t know how Doris Duke came upon the designer, but she made a big decision to wear his gown that evening and chose to be photographed wearing it.
Tina Leser (1910-1986), an American designer who is becoming more recognized in scholarly fashion history circles in the last decade or so, was clearly one of Doris Duke’s favorites. There are over a dozen items from Leser in the collection that span the range of her career and Doris’s life. It is possible the two women knew each other as they both spent considerable time in Honolulu prior to World War II; Leser and Duke likely would have been a part of the same social circles. There is still more research to be conducted on the extent of their relationship, including how long Doris was a client of the designer (much of Leser’s company archives are housed at the FIDM Museum in Los Angeles). Leser’s design aesthetic fits well into Doris’s jet set lifestyle, interest in Eastern aesthetics, and the casual elegance of caftans, robes, and sundresses.
Some of the lesser-known designers in the Doris Duke fashion collection are items purchased on her world travels. Many of these items represent traditional dress of countries she visited, especially in Southeast Asia where Doris Duke spent considerable time in the 1960s and 1970s to build a collection of Southeast Asian art. Star of Siam (founded 1955 by Americans Vera & Lewis Cykman) was a Bangkok, Thailand-based silk company that specialized in custom tailored clothing in the Thai style. There are close to twenty pieces of fashion from this company, as well as many yards of Thai silk used in upholstery around Doris Duke’s homes, including the curtains in Doris’s bedroom at Rough Point.
Taj of India (founded 1950) is perhaps one of the most fascinating lesser-known designers in Doris Duke’s closet—a maker of a pair of shoes so beloved by Doris, she owned over 20 pairs of the pointy-toe flats in almost every color available! Taj Tajerie, a female designer from India, created the brand. Doris purchased them from small boutiques and well-known department stores both in Hawaii and in New York like M. M. Merry, Ltd. and Nordstrom. A fun fact about this brand- the designer created all the shoes for the show I Dream of Jeannie!
There’s an old adage that you can learn a lot about people of the past through looking at their clothes. If you look at the many items of Doris Duke’s clothing collection, you would learn that her clothing is almost as eccentric as the woman herself – and these pieces hold many memories and stories we are still learning about today.
By Kristen Costa, Senior Curator at Newport Restoration Foundation
As we get ready to welcome visitors to a new season at Rough Point, we looked back to how former residents used to prepare for Doris Duke’s arrival at Rough Point for the season.
We spoke with Linda Knierim, who remembers arriving at Rough Point on a February evening as a young girl. This year marks the 50th anniversary of when she first came to Rough Point to live with her parents, who were the new caretakers of the estate, and her younger brother.
Listen as Linda shares her story.
LK: And then we came here and it just seemed like such a long drive to come up. And then that ferry – I didn’t know there was a ferry that we had to take either.
While Linda was excited about living in a grand summer cottage on Newport’s famous Bellevue Avenue, she did not expect it to be so, well, haunting.
LK: We must have got here and it was maybe five, six o’clock at nighttime, so it was dark. So all I knew [was] we were coming to a summer cottage. I had no idea what the summer cottage was like, and we were greeted by a painter [at the] back door and came in… He opened up the Dining Room door, and everything was covered in white. It was like different size ghosts greeting us. And I was like, “Oh my gosh,” because I had it in my head that we were going to see real thick carpeting [and] all this beautiful furniture, not ghosts. And then we saw each room and everything. It wasn’t until the next day when my brother and I went outside that you saw how big the house really was. Then we thought, “Hmm. I think we’re gonna like it.”
Linda also recounts what it was like to prepare for Doris’s arrival each year.
LK: Well, I think my mom was busy, I guess probably like in March, getting the house ready, taking some of the cloths off and putting things away, folding them up. But then my dad was busy outside getting the gardens ready and then my brother and I had kind of like control of the house, like on this side [the public spaces in the house beyond the servant spaces] and then, then everything was so different in June when Miss Duke came.
Today, we still continue the tradition of covering furnishings and putting away decorative objects during the winter months.
And Linda’s first impressions of Doris Duke did not meet her expectations of a grand, stylish, larger-than-life woman.
LK: I know she came up in May. It was because Duke Farms called and said the lady of the house will be coming, and just to keep the front gate open. And they didn’t know what time she was coming, so my brother and I went to friends’ houses. I couldn’t wait to get home to find out what kind of car she came in, how she was dressed. My mom said she just came in an old car, and she didn’t have that fur coat on or those gold jewels or anything. She just had on jeans and a t-shirt.
Linda does have some lasting impressions from her time at Rough Point.
LK: The crash of the water against the rocks and the smells of geraniums. My father had those real tall geraniums in the Solarium. They were in big pots and they were almost as tall as I am. So the smells of geraniums always bring [it] up… [Also] when I see those little oyster crackers because [the kitchen] stove had big long shelves always filled with them.
While we no longer have oyster crackers in the Kitchen, you can still experience the sound of the waves breaking dramatically on the rocks and enjoy the scent of the geraniums in the Solarium.
We hope you will visit us this upcoming season and discover (or re-discover) Rough Point for yourself.
On January 3rd, 2021, the museums of NRF completed their 2020 season, and the museum staff closed Rough Point to the public until our reopening in early spring of 2021. Because I am a tad superstitious, I have held off on writing about the success (and challenges) of the season. However, now that it is well and fully over, and thankfully with no reported cases of COVID-19 from any of our visitors or front-line staff during the season, I can finally take the rabbit’s foot out of my pocket, the horseshoe off my doorway, stop asking the Magic 8 Ball for predictions about the future, and share a little bit about how it all turned out.
As with so many industries, the challenges posed to the museum field by the spread of COVID-19 have proven daunting. For example, as some readers of NRF’s blogs may know, my previous position was at a museum in Los Angeles. I know from conversations with my former colleagues that, at the time that I am writing this piece, not a single museum in Los Angeles County has opened its doors to the public since the closures in Mid-March of 2020. This sad reality has resulted in countless layoffs, financial uncertainty for institutions and individuals alike, and numerous careers delayed or destroyed.
At the outset of the pandemic, there was no reason to think that what has happened in California’s museums wouldn’t happen in Newport as well. Thankfully, at Rhode Island’s museums in general, and Newport’s museums in particular, things progressed differently. Our state government has done a very fine job of trying to help businesses open safely and as soon as possible. Based on the guidance of the state, most of Newport’s cultural institutions were able to open to the public by July (sometimes sooner) provided they developed and adhered to a detailed safety plan that integrated reduced attendance based on a venue’s square footage, enforced social distancing and mask wearing, added additional cleanings of surfaces, created greater circulation of fresh air, and gathered attendee data in case the state needed it for contact tracing.
NRF’s museum staff began work on our plans well in advance of the Governor’s announcements. Shortly after the March shutdowns, we suspended all public programming and our staff began to create a wonderfully diverse, creative, and robust collection of online programs to share safely a piece of the museum experience with the broader public and to provide opportunities to virtually attend some of the events we had hoped to hold in person throughout our season. If you have not seen these programs yet, I encourage you to visit our YouTube channel by clicking here. There’s something for everyone, including yoga classes, community spotlights (our Second Sunday series), a two-part jazz concert in the Great Hall at Rough Point, a four part scholarly symposium, and some really wonderful educational pieces on the life of our founder Doris Duke as well as closer looks at our exceptional collection of 18th-century Newport furniture at the Whitehorne House Museum.
Our virtual presence notwithstanding, it was always our hope to reopen our museums to the public as safely and as soon as possible. By early April, members of my staff and I met weekly to create a COVID-19 plan long before the announcement of any state mandates. While our concerns were broad-ranging, one particular worry was how to protect our front-line staff, by which I mean the guides, greeters, and other visitor experience staff who typically interact with our visitors in ways that, today, most of us would find risky. Naturally, we shared similar concerns about our visitors, but our front-line staff, who spend hours at a time encountering the public, would undoubtedly face the most significant health risk if we got any of our planning wrong.
With those risks in mind, we created a wide-reaching COVID plan that included, among other things, required online ticketing, moving our registration process outside at Rough Point (until November when the weather proved too cold), and the suspension of guided tours, creating instead a singular path through our museums with guides stationed throughout. Once we had everything in place, and the state permitted us to do so, we opened our doors to the public. The Rough Point Grounds opened in late June, Rough Point itself in early July, and the Whitehorne House Museum ten days after that. On the whole the plan worked well, and its success and adherence to state guidelines was reconfirmed by a surprise visit to Rough Point from the Rhode Island Department of Health in August.
During the season we took feedback from staff and visitors to see if they felt safe and comfortable, and while we received the occasional visitor complaint about our necessary changes and our insistence on mask wearing, I am happy to say that on the whole our staff felt safe and most of our visitors enjoyed their time with us while also commenting positively on the ways in which we had worked to ensure their safety.
Our museums were a respite for our visitors during these difficult times. Anecdotally, I know that many of our visitors were deeply appreciative that we could provide a pleasant and safe distraction from the difficulties of our new normal and the never-ending stream of bad news. At the Whitehorne House Museum, we provided an opportunity for our visitors to get away from the crowds of people on lower Thames Street so that they could spend a quiet hour safely enjoying our exceptional furniture collection and learning about Newport’s past from our talented guides. At Rough Point, sales of our grounds passes grew exponentially, and many visitors would spend hours outside enjoying the boundless seascape, our exceptionally beautiful gardens, and the Fredrick Law Olmstead designed grounds. On my evening drive home, I would pass Prescott Farm, and see the parking lot filled with minivans and kids and parents feeding the ducks in the pond. I suppose that none of these activities can replace the concerts, weddings, trips to visit distant friends and relatives, and other plans that so many of us wound up cancelling in 2020. Still, I am extremely pleased to know that we offered a pleasant, if somewhat less hoped for, alternative form of entertainment. And I am most pleased to note that we achieved all of this without a single reported case of COVID-19 from any of our staff or visitors.
Indeed, that last point, the absence of a COVID case, is the thing that I am most pleased about this past season and, likely, the thing that we are least responsible for achieving. For while I would like to think that our success was the result of exceptional planning, skillfully executed by a devoted and brilliant staff (which in some sense it was), I still can’t help but think that part of our success was sheer luck. Nevertheless, the thing that I most want our readers to know is that the NRF museum staff took the COVID-19 threat seriously every day (we still do), and every day they brought their energy, creativity, and brilliance to our museums to ensure the best and safest museum experience possible for our visitors. They did so because we care about each other’s safety and about the health and safety of our potential visitors, something we will continue to do now and in the years to come.
We look forward to demonstrating that care and creativity to all of you in the 2021 season, which begins in late March and runs until just before Thanksgiving followed by weekend programming until the new year. We will continue to take everyone’s health and safety quite seriously while simultaneously planning to create new opportunities to reach people remotely and to engage people in person as the world becomes a little safer and we can all congregate together a little more. You have my promise that (as with the season just past) the entire NRF museum staff will do everything that they can to keep you safe, educated, and entertained, and if you just want to be left alone to spend a few hours on our the grounds at Rough Point, you can do that too. We’ll see you in Newport!
By Dr. Erik Greenberg, Director of Museums, Newport Restoration Foundation
