Ochre Court – Trail Marker #5
Ochre Court
1890-1895
Designed in the French Chateau Revival Style, by internationally known and trained architect Richard Morris Hunt, Ochre Court is the second largest mansion in Newport.
At approximately sixty-thousand square feet, the house served as the summer home to New York real estate mogul, Ogden Goelet, who spent six weeks a year in the home. After Goelet’s death in 1897 the home was left to his son and daughter Robert and Mary Goelet. In 1937 the home was donated to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and was then given to the Sisters of Mercy in 1947 for $1.00.
The building served as the first and only building of Salve Regina College, until they began to amass more homes on Ochre Point Avenue. The home now serves as the administrative building of Salve Regina University. The first floor remains open to the public, and is used for many public and private events throughout the year.
The homes’ exterior is built of Indiana Limestone, and features many decorative, hand carved gargoyles and friezes.
The interior of the home is one of the most extravagant in Newport. The grand hall and vestibule is carved from Caen Limestone imported from France. The remaining two levels of the three story great hall are made of hand carved and hand turned oak, extenuated with gold leafing. The ceiling of the great hall includes a large mural of Zeus entertaining the gods of Ancient Greece. Other rooms in the home include a large state dining room, with a side-by-side fireplace with an orange marble mantel and firebox surround from Africa. This room includes many murals on the ceiling and dark oak boisserie taken from a chateau in France, this can also be seen in the library. The home also includes a family dining room, a smoking room, morning room and a large ballroom modeled after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.