Architect Horace Trumbauer modeled this graceful 48-room French neoclassical mansion and its grounds after the Château d'Asnières near Paris. The Elms was built for Edward Julius Berwind, a bituminous-coal baron, in 1901 and was one of the first in Newport to be fully electrified. At the foot of the 10-acre estate is a spectacular sunken garden. The Behind the Scenes tours, which offer a...
Architect Horace Trumbauer is said to have been inspired by the Château d'Asnières outside Paris, and a first look at the ornate dining room of The Elms, suitable for at least a marquis, buttresses that claim. So do the sunken gardens, laid out and maintained in the formal French manner. The owner was a first-generation millionaire, a coal tycoon named Edward J. Berwind. His cottage was...