(upbeat classical music) - [Narrator] There is a painting here that spans three floors and is part of the architecture of this Victorian mansion.

An elegant bedroom that has been restored using original furniture.

And we'll take a look behind the scenes at some of the ways the Preservation Society of Newport County maintains its homes and collections.

This is "Treasures Inside the Museum".

(upbeat classical music) (upbeat classical music continues) (soft classical music) This Newport Mansion was once alive with lavish parties, including one country picnic with over 2,000 guests.

The landscape and gardens here are rivaled only by the views and the diversity of Italian and French influenced architecture can be seen throughout.

Chateau-sur-Mer, the first of the grand homes on Bellevue Avenue in Newport is the house of many firsts.

- It is a very important house in Newport because it really was the first Newport mansion.

It was built in the early 1850's.

No other houses like it were in Newport.

It is the first house on Bellevue Avenue, and if you can imagine the countryside then, it's called Chateau-sur-Mer, Castle by the Sea.

All of the land around the house was meadowland so you could see all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The land just swept to the ocean.

Nothing interrupted the view.

So it's a very different place today.

This is really the house though that started the Gilded Age.

- [Narrator] With its commanding views and unrivaled Victorian architecture, it was the most splendid home in Newport.

- The owner of the house, the builder of the house was William Shepard Wetmore.

That's the person who planted himself here and he made his money in the China trade.

He made a lot of money.

He did very, very well for himself.

- [Narrator] When Wetmore died, his son and new wife hired a noteworthy architect to remodel and redecorate the mansion.

- The house was built in the 1850's.

In the 1870's, it is redecorated and it, they hired Richard Morris Hunt, who was the preeminent, the best architect in the world to come in and do the job.

And he changed it radically.

I think perhaps the biggest change that he made was he blew out the second and third floors and created a tower on the house and created the Great Hall, which is the entranceway, if you will.

And if you think about it, that Great Hall was really the practicing point for the Great Hall in The Breakers, which was built some 20 plus years later.

So Richard Morris Hunt, the most important, the preeminent architect of the period was using Chateau-sur-Mer in his earlier career, as a practice ground for what he later developed at Marble House and at The Breakers.

I think it's a fascinating story of the progression of an architectural style, and you can see it in this house.

- [Narrator] It's why so many of the treasures at Chateau Sur Mer are literally built right into the house.

- This structure, we, the space that we're in right now, if the footprint was a part of the original design of the house, but it was redone in the 1870's by Richard Morris Hunt.

And it was redone in a style that we call the Eastlake or the Aesthetic Movement style.

And it's highlighted by a series of blonde oak that's being used here.

And then also a wonderful inclusion which is on this fireplace, as well as the other five fireplaces on the first floor of Chateau Sur Mer, which are a series of tiles.

Most all the tiles that come to Chateau-sur-Mer during Richard Morris Hunt's first campaign are Minton tiles, from the Minton Manufacturing in England.

These particular tiles right here were designed and hand painted by Walter Crane, who was one of the founders of the arts and crafts movement, made popular in the late 19th and coming into the 20th century.

What they showcase is a desire to bring artistic creativity into all aspects of domestic, you know, life.

That goes from the way in which the tiles are painted and inlaid into this space, a working fireplace mind you, even into the room itself with the very decorative wood paneling that's all hand carved.

And this is something we see repeated throughout the house as part of that Richard Morris Hunt era, that Wetmore specifically wanted this design because it was in vogue at the time, and also represented that they were very much in an understanding of what style meant during the height of the 1870's.

Working fireplaces were essential for this space because it was large.

That's again, proportionately why that fireplace is so large to fill the entire room with warm air during cold winter months.

And even getting into the summer season sometimes evenings were a little bit chillier here in Newport.

That's again, one of the reasons why Newport is a wonderful summer destination even now, in the 21st century, because we have a more moderate climate during the winter as well as the summer.

(upbeat guitar music) - [Narrator] As part of the 1870's remodeling, a billiards table was added to this room, which today doubles as a morning room.

Directly above, on the second floor is a bedroom with original furnishings.

Here, no detail is overlooked.

- This bedroom is again a part of that 1870's Richard Morris Hunt redesign of the house.

And this room we've interpreted as George Peabody Wetmore's room in his youth.

And that's because of this bed that was made for George.

And we know that because of the very custom monogram that's here with the GEP and W, George Peabody Wetmore.

This was made by Leon Marcotte of New York, which was a prominent furniture designer.

Marcotte had his stamp on Chateau-sur-Mer in a variety of places in all levels practically.

This is also a great example for us in terms of original works that we've been able to bring back to Chateau-sur-Mer.

When the house and its contents were vacated and sold in 1869 as part of an auction actually held on the property at Chateau-sur-Mer, pieces like this left through the dedicated research and relentless patience of our curatorial staff over many, many years.

Items like this were identified and their, we had our eyes on them for many, many years.

And so this piece itself, this bed, came back to the Preservation Society as a gift, along with 17 other pieces that made up the original bedroom suite for George Peabody Wetmore.

And those pieces are exemplified in this room as well as in the adjacent dressing room.

(soft peaceful music) (soft peaceful music continues) (soft peaceful music continues) - [Narrator] Interpreting these rooms and restoring original pieces to this house and others like it, is part of the ongoing mission of the Preservation Society of Newport County.

(upbeat piano music) (upbeat piano music continues) - The first meeting of the Preservation Society was held in this room.

Edith Wetmore and her sister were both active preservationists, very good supporters of this newly created preservation society.

And she was actually the chairman of the board, the president, the first president of the Preservation Society.

She held that office I think for a year and then it was handed on to Catherine Warren.

And Catherine Warren is considered to be the person who really expanded the organization.

She served from the 1940's until the mid-1970's when she died.

But it wouldn't have happened if the Wetmores hadn't been there.

The two women hadn't been there to help support her and move things along.

And it's, I think it's really fun to think about the fact that the meeting, they all gathered in this room.

(upbeat piano music) At that point, they did not own Chateau-sur-Mer, the Preservation Society.

It was just the Hunter House.

And soon they would have the opportunity to show tours at The Breakers.

And then the Elms came along in the 1960's.

You have to wonder whether when the founders of the Preservation Society got started, did they have any sense that later they would be the owners of 11 important historic houses in America, really unique houses?

I don't know if they did or didn't, but they sure did have good vision.

I think another room that is really unique is the room next door, the ballroom, because it's French design, high style French design.

The interior is by a Leon Marcotte, who was considered in the art history world as being very significant.

(energetic classical music) - The furniture in this space tells both stories of the Preservation Society and of Chateau-sur-Mer in that we have at least four pieces we know to be original to the suite of furniture that Marcotte also designed for this space.

And then the other pieces have been acquired because they very closely resemble the original suite of furniture.

So we have a banquette here and two sofas behind me.

Those three we know to be original to Chateau-sur-Mer.

They were gifted to us after we acquired the house.

And the other pieces are so incredibly similar to the original furnishings that they were acquired to help supplement this space's interpretation.

(uplifting music) The Wetmores welcomed President Chester Arthur to Chateau-sur-Mer.

In fact, George Peabody Wetmore becomes governor of Rhode Island and hosts a very large inaugural party on the grounds of Chateau-sur-Mer inviting thousands of people.

And he also had his daughter's debutante balls that were hosted in this space.

So it maintained a great significance to the family and therefore we interpret that significance by maintaining it the way that they had for over a hundred years.

- [Narrator] Maintaining Chateau-sur-Mer and its treasures takes time and attention to detail.

(soft classical music) - This is the dining room of Chateau-sur-Mer and we're here in the alcove, the window alcove.

And a few years back we had noticed a lot of plaster deterioration happening behind some canvas painted panels.

And we had wanted the deterioration of the plater was actually causing failure of the paint on the canvas panel.

So we wanted to remove those painted panels to have conservation done of those.

And when we removed those panels, we actually found an earlier decoration on the plaster wall behind it that we didn't know existed.

What's interesting about this particular design is it's, although it's a plaster wall with a painted surface, it also has very fine paper decoration that's also hand painted.

And it was applied sort of like an applique to the surface, sort of like decoupage to the wall surface.

And that decoration actually mimics the decoration that's in the leather, the embossed guild leather wall covering here in the room.

There's imagery within here.

It's both the flower imagery and some of the insects that we have a butterfly here.

And up a little bit further there is a dragonfly and there are, there's evidence of some of the birds as well in this design.

This is gonna stay in place and the the other panels, the painted panels are gonna go back up.

But what we wanted to do was to document what was here, the decoration that was here and also consolidate the plaster so we wouldn't have any more of that material falling behind the other panel and causing like debris to cause damage to the painted panel that's in front of it.

(uplifting piano music) So we're in the process now of reinstalling the painted panels, canvas panels into the window bay and this one is just sitting in place before we reinstall all the molding around it.

And this one will be going into the area that I just showed you where the old decoration is existing.

And these were, when we took them out, the cross braces on the strainer for the canvas had basically become a ledge for a lot of the plaster that was falling off the wall.

And so the plaster debris had built up along with moisture being held in those locations.

And what it actually caused is blistering and flaking of the paint at those locations.

So there are several of these strainer bars across the canvas and that's where we saw the majority of the paint failure.

And that's what, when we sent this out for conservation they consolidated those areas of paint and then had to inpaint the areas of missing decoration.

So that was done in these areas.

But it's nice to be able to see again some of that similar imagery that we not only have in the leather wallpaper, but in the earlier applique version with the butterfly here.

And then also we have this fun monkey that's up here and he received a little conservation, you know, a little stabilization and inpainting as well.

(uplifting piano music) - I think that a historic house like Chateau-sur-Mer or Marble House or Breakers is no different than your own house.

There are things in your house that if you don't keep ahead of problems, you will have huge problems.

And you know as soon as a roof goes, you're in trouble.

Water is the worst thing in a house.

So we never get away from the burden of restoring.

We are constantly in construction on some project or another.

It never goes away, not unlike your own home.

(uplifting piano music) - [Narrator] From conservation to preservation, another ongoing project is helping to safeguard archival photographs in the collection.

(uplifting guitar music) - Genna Duplisea, our archivist here at the Preservation Society.

She's unframing a original photograph that depicts Edith and Maude Wetmore and two of their cousins.

And we're just trying to go through the house and unframe and digitize our original photographs, that way we can make them more accessible to researchers by having them housed in our archives.

And it gives the photographs a chance to have a rest.

We can address any conservation issues and we will replace the photograph with a facsimile so it, the visitors can still have the effect of the original being on display.

(uplifting guitar music) We have a lot of photographs in the archives.

We also have letters and ledgers.

Different houses have a different amount of archives with them.

Digitization is one of our initiatives at the Preservation Society.

That way we can make available the wealth of our collections online for researchers.

So we have been getting more of an influx of researchers who are interested in looking at our archives and seeing the primary source material that we have.

(funky upbeat music) - [Narrator] Throughout the mansion, the walls and rooms display an ensemble of original and thoughtfully interpreted exhibits.

Case in point, these two chairs.

- These two chairs are very representative of style in the 1880's.

They're both related to the Herter Brothers manufacturing furniture.

This chair right here, the slipper chair is actually attributed to the Herter Brothers.

While this one is in the Herter Brothers style and we're not quite sure who the maker of this chair is.

They're both called slipper chairs because they're lower to the ground.

This style and dimension was largely made for women to use when they were putting on their shoes or having their shoes put on for them.

But these chairs also tell a great story about Chateau-sur-Mer and that they're not original to this house.

And why would that possibly be important?

Well, when the Preservation Society acquired the house in 1969, the house was largely devoid of contents.

Everything had been sold at an auction that took place on the front lawn of Chateau-sur-Mer by Park Bernay.

All the pieces were categorized by chairs versus plates versus ceramics, not by where they belonged in the house.

So in order for us to fill this space with objects that made it feel like a home and reopen it to the public for tours shortly thereafter, pieces like this became very important for our institution.

They also represent some of the high style of the time period.

By no means are these filler, these are exceptional chairs of the 1880's and probably early 1890's.

This chair in particular is made of mahogany.

It features beautiful detail work here that's onset on back of a velvet backing here.

There is design throughout in terms of this rectangular back and then all the little florets that surround it.

And same here as well.

There's not an inch of this that isn't touched by some sort of specific design entity.

So it is beautiful to look at.

It has a whole host of international influence as well.

Both of these are very style influenced by Japanese design.

There's also a great detail here on this smaller chair of an open lion's mouth that has a reference to Egyptian design and Egyptian style, which we have a lot of Egyptian revival design work here in Chateau-sur-Mer, which is likely why it was thought appropriate for it to enter into the collection.

But again, in terms of other objects that we have that are original to Chateau-sur-Mer, it has taken us decades to identify, find and reacquire those pieces or have them gifted to us.

But in the meantime, we are more than happy and pleased to have other fine examples of wonderfully designed, built and visually compelling furniture from the same period.

There's no real recipe as to how we find these things.

We always have our alert antennas up, but in a lot of cases it becomes luck, because if an individual acquired something from the Chateau-sur-Mer auction from 1969 and it's been in their family, that note of it being from this house may have gotten lost in successive generations.

So we study the materials that we have to know what we're looking for and we're always open to people calling us, writing to us and letting us know what they might have.

And we'll then examine it and come to some conclusion whether it is or is not likely from this space.

- [Narrator] From the beautifully painted ceiling in the original entrance, to the carefully arranged fine art and antique furniture, there are treasures throughout Chateau-sur-Mer and all of them reveal a little bit about how Newport's elite live their lives.

- There are several really unique features of the house that you can learn from and one of the features that is really spectacular is the Tree of Life, which is painted underneath the staircase going up to the third floor.

(elegant piano music) - Right now we are in the stair hall of Chateau-sur-Mer that was added in 1870's by Richard Morris Hunt.

And what we have featured here is the very beginning of a three story fresco mural for the Tree of Life.

Now the Tree of Life as a symbol you find in a variety of cultures and religions.

Generally speaking, it means you know the cycle of life.

Immortal life is also one of the other interpretations but it also has some meanings in that it's the center of the universe and where else would you wanna have that but in one's home.

So it starts here with the base of the tree that escalates up onto this next level and extends all the way up the stair hall here, but then also over into the Great Hall that's right behind us.

And it then becomes part of sort of the architecture in the way that it's designed.

(uplifting piano music) It features small, little creatures such as small birds chasing little insects.

Again, probably the cycle of life being referenced there.

Independently there's also dragonflies, birds holding laurel leaves and then butterflies as well.

So it features a whole host of flora and fauna and it brings the the outdoors inside essentially.

It is a true fresco, so it is a Tempera paint used and painted onto wet plaster.

So it is one with the house.

There's quite a lot of custom artwork that's been done here at Chateau-sur-Mer by different artisans.

So for example, the artist whose name we are actually unsure of who painted this Tree of Life sequence is different from the artist who painted these canvas walls with a variety of different scenery that's supposed to look pastoral and also historic.

It is meant to imitate tapestry, however, it's not tapestry because it is painted rather than woven.

So the Tree of Life fresco starts here right above the front entrance and then it continues all the way up three floors.

(uplifting piano music) When you visit Chateau-sur-Mer and you look up and see the progression of this mural, you'll notice that obviously it changes.

The tree is growing as are the scenes that are around it.

In the stair hall, it is important to note that there is a distinctive difference in the style of the painting for the tree and the lattice work itself by comparison to what we see here in the Great Hall.

The lattice work itself is different.

The color palette is also slightly different, as is the hand of the artist, so it could be done by more than one artist.

Again, things we're just not sure of, more work for us to do here.

It does extend all the way up to the third floor, which beautifully shifts from this sort of vine work of cherries and grapes up to the very top where it's just blue sky and also a few speckled birds that are flying above us in the heavens.

- [Narrator] Preserving a fresco of this size and scale can present a unique set of challenges.

For example, you can't always choose when the piece will need attention.

- One day our staff came into the building and found a portion of this mural on the floor, on the staircase below.

It had fallen into millions of pieces.

Now, most people would pick those pieces up and throw them away.

The Preservation Society picked up those pieces.

We took them down to the stable at the Breakers.

We laid everything out.

We asked our staff who likes to do jigsaw puzzles to come in.

We put the pieces back together, then our conservators did the gluing and the painting and everything else and that is now back in place.

Tremendous restoration story.

(uplifting piano music) - In terms of the collection of the Preservation Society of the houses that are under our care, this mural is a treasure because it is so unique to our sites.

We don't see too often something that is so encompassing that takes up so much of the footprint of the house.

It also is of a time period that this house was at the height of its taste within the larger cultural idea and it was remained frozen in that by the family.

They didn't make any alterations to this mural, which shows us that they treasured it and it gives us this, it gives us that idea of what was important to the Wetmore family throughout successive generations.

And understanding that from our perspective, helps us understand the way the rest of the house was maintained and kept and then left to us to share with the public.

- [Narrator] The legacy of the Wetmore family is alive today in all of the rooms of this grand home and in the treasures that fill Chateau-sur-Mer.

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