A NEW CENTURY

Blithewold 1908 – 2008

             The year 2008 heralds several milestones at Blithewold – thirty years since the estate was opened to the public, in accordance with Marjorie Van Wickle Lyon’s wishes; ten years since Blithewold, Inc. saved the Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum from outside development; and one hundred years since the new Mansion was built to replace the former dwelling which had burned to the ground in 1906.  This Centennial Year is being celebrated in many ways to welcome the public, to inspire them as they stroll through the spectacular historic gardens, to educate adults and children through exhibits and lectures, and to entertain with musical evenings, family activities, and a special Centennial Gala in August.

            The summer’s main historic exhibit “A NEW CENTURY” opens May 14 in the Billiard Room.  Visitors will be able to study timelines, see photographs of the present house under construction, read letters discussing the totally new architecture by Kilham & Hopkins, and explore its curious similarities to Cranborne Manor in Dorset, England. 

             In January 1907 Bessie wrote to Estelle Clements “I wish you could see the watercolor Mr. Kilham has sent of the latest plan of the house.  It is perfectly lovely – has a good deal of the atmosphere of the old Blithewold but is certainly handsomer.  With the porch on the north end I almost think we will settle on this plan.”   The exhibit will follow the step-by-step progress as the family approved and modified plans, supervised construction, and finally moved into the new Blithewold.

            Construction began in May 1907 when the old foundations were removed and the new ones laid out.  Bessie wrote: “work on the new Blithewold is really beginning …” In July the last chimney of the old house was pulled down, and the Coleraine stone which would be used for the dramatic east façade arrived from a family mine in Bessie’s home town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania.  On the morning of August 19 1907 a time-capsule was buried in the foundations, containing newspapers and magazines, photographs, coins, postage stamps, and signatures of those present.  By September 1 the first floor was completed.  An accident on the site later in September stopped work temporarily – reports from the Bristol Phoenix tell us that one man was killed instantly, another injured, when the staging being used to lift the heavy stone to the second floor collapsed, hurling two masons 35 feet to the ground. 

            Work continued through the winter, and in June 1908 all the furniture was moved from the Stable into the new house.  Blithewold II was finally ready for occupancy at the beginning of July, one year after construction began.  July 7 saw the first dinner in the new Blithewold (see Bessie McKee’s Dinner Party Record Book on display in the exhibit, detailing guests present, menu, flowers, etc.) and Mr. McKee and Augustine slept in the house that night for the first time.  Everyone else moved in the following day, and family belongings were brought in from all over town where they had been stored after the fire.  The following week the hand-painted wallpaper in the Master Bedroom was installed, and Samuel Dean, Bessie’s Interior Designer, began to bring new furniture and furnishings for Bessie’s approval.  Landscape Designer John DeWolf spent the summer planting -  Bessie’s hand-written garden notes mention that the Andromeda Floribunda, the Iris, and the Peppermint Geranium were gifts from Mr. & Mrs. Dean,  the bushes of Shell Rose in front of the Greenhouse were from Bessie’s grandmother’s garden, and the Bay Rum trees and Bamboo came from Puerto Rico – gifts from George Van Wickle. 

            Visitors to the Exhibit, which is free with admittance to the Mansion, will see a timeline for the World in the year 1908, and a timeline for Bristol, along with a month-by-month account of the family’s activities.  Photographs of the house under construction, and the architects’ east and west elevation plans, show the development of the building which is so familiar to us all today.     

In the century since 1908 Blithewold has seen many changes - births, deaths and marriages, and the rise and fall of the McKee family fortunes.  Now, in 2008, we celebrate a new era of horticultural excellence, historic preservation, and fiscal responsibility.  The replacement of the slate roof (funded by the Capital Campaign) in the near future will ensure the protection of the building, the collections and the archives, for the enjoyment and education of future generations.   

BLITHEWOLD BURNS – The Fire that Destroyed Blithewold

The morning of Monday June 4th 1906 dawned bright and clear in Bristol, though a typical south-westerly wind was stirring. The family had arrived in Bristol from a European trip the evening before, and was looking forward to an idyllic summer at Blithewold. Bessie’s favorite brother Frank had rented Valmer (the house next door on Ferry Road) for the summer so that the two families could spend time together, and other relatives were expected to visit. Estelle Clements spent the morning wandering through the gardens, happy to be at Blithewold once more.

At 12:30 pm the peace was shattered when Bessie’s faithful, long-time maid, Katrina, noticed smoke pouring from the top of the elevator shaft in the servants’ wing on the south side of Blithewold. She immediately called William McKee who tried to put out the fire himself. As the situation worsened, Mr. McKee ordered everyone present to start carrying out the furniture, and Katrina called the Bristol Fire Station. Help arrived quickly, the King Phillip Steamer, the hand-pump Hydraulian and the hose-reel carriers. There were no water hydrants on Ferry Road, so water was pumped from the wells and cisterns on the property.

For two hours the firemen worked furiously on the south end of the house, an extension which had recently been completed. At 2:30 pm the south chimney collapsed, and at 3:00 pm the hot water tank in the kitchen exploded and part of the roof came crashing down. By then the wells had run dry and the cisterns were empty. The firemen ran the Hydraulion down to the water’s edge, using man power to pump sea water through the hoses up to the fire, but the uphill grade and the distance from the Bay resulted in a very feeble stream of water. The breeze which Estelle had noticed earlier in the morning was fanning the flames, and though valiant efforts had slowed the spread of the fire, everyone now realized that the end result would be, inevitably, total destruction.

Blithewold’s landscape designer, John De Wolf set about saving the garden plantings near the house by covering them with wet sacking. Sparks and burning embers were flying through the air, scorching the trees to the north of the house, and at one point setting fire to the shingled roof of John Best’s cottage in the North Garden. The Hydraulian saved the cottage by pumping water from the cistern near the Greenhouse.

Fifty men from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company were on the scene to help, and together with the firemen, family, friends, servants, and people from the town, they turned all their attention to saving the contents of the house. They worked so efficiently that by 3:30 pm all the family’s personal possessions, the furniture, and the furnishings, were all safely heaped on the Great Lawn. Still the workmen returned to the burning house and, with their tools, removed the staircase, fireplace mantels, paneling, chandeliers, bathtubs, doors and windows. Bertie Cheesebrough, a Herreshoff boat designer, pried the Blithewold Stone from the fireplace of the Living Room with such skill that it was able to be used in the second Blithewold. Today, one hundred years later, the Blithewold Stone is the focal point in the Billiard Room.

Letters to and from the family, and the diary of family friend Estelle Clements, describe the events. One letter, written by George Howe of Bristol many years later, describes how, as a small boy, he raced down Ferry Road on his bicycle following the fire engines until they arrived at Blithewold, and there he witnessed the whole drama. He mentions that even in the midst of disaster Bessie McKee was calm and gracious, “greeting her friends with complete self-control, though her house was blazing away behind her”.

The McKees had plans to rebuild Blithewold immediately as an exact copy of the original house. However, by October it was clear that Bessie was having second thoughts about rebuilding in the original Queen Anne style. William McKee and Bessie’s daughter Marjorie were anxious to replace the old house just as it had been, but Bessie wanted time to think about alternatives. Walter Kilham of the Kilham & Hopkins Architectural firm was asked to work on new architectural plans, and so rebuilding was delayed until late the following summer. Consequently, the new Blithewold, the one we know and admire today, was not ready for occupancy until June, 1908. On Bessie’s insistence, many of the old architectural features saved from the fire were used in the new house, a compromise that Walter Kilham felt keenly. He was not convinced that the old details fit well with the style of the new house.

The new house was built on the same footprint as the old, and the circular drive at the front can clearly be seen on photographs of the old house. The emphasis was still on the incomparable views of Narragansett Bay from porches and loggias and large windows. But the new house was built of stone and stucco in an English Country Manor style, and is much more resistant to fire. Always sentimental, Bessie looked for a place to use the stone “North Star” which had been imbedded in the turret of the first house. As work continued on her long-term plans for the gardens, Bessie decided to incorporate the star into the north-facing side of the retaining wall of the North Garden, near the fountain, where it can be seen today when not overrun by the Climbing Hydrangea.

In 2006 we mourn the loss of an architectural jewel, but as we approach 2008 and the centennial of the completion of the present Blithewold, we will turn our attention to the events of 1908 and the family’s first summer in the new house they came to love so dearly. A campaign is underway to conserve and restore the present house and its collections, even as archival research reveals a more and more complex picture of the family, their relationships and their activities. To the Van Wickles, McKees and Lyons, we owe thanks indeed for their gift to the public of this magnificent estate.