Belcourt
Museum of Music, Life and Culture
THE FOUNDATION OF FREEDOM
Liberty is preserved in iron and continued in art.
Art is how a free society speaks.
Painters, musicians and makers have always moved culture first — the Renaissance was theirs before it was anyone else’s. Freedom of expression and freedom of creation are the same freedom, and artists are the ones who test it, define it and carry it forward.
Belcourt was built for that, has always housed it, and houses it still: the music, the makers, the work.
Preserving liberty and making art
are the same act here.
Two and a half miles of American history.
Bellevue Avenue is a National Historic Landmark district and the densest concentration of Gilded Age architecture in America. The Breakers. Marble House. Ochre Court.
Belcourt stands among them: 60 rooms across 56,000 square feet, the third largest house in Newport, and unlike anything else on the avenue.
The family that built it.
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was his son: horseman, yachtsman, and a man of exacting and unusual taste.
Belcourt was built for Oliver alone — a divorced bachelor’s house and his office. Sixty rooms and a single bedroom. No kitchen; his meals came from town. the entire ground floor was given to his horses: heated stalls, tack rooms, and two arched carriage entrances cut into the facade.
August Belmont arrived in America as the agent of the Rothschild banking house and became one of the wealthiest men int he country. He chaired the Democratic National Committee for twelve years. He found the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown, which still carries his name. Edith Wharton modeled a character in The Age of Innocence on him.
RICHARD MORRIS HUNT
Hunt was the first American trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the founding force behind the American Institute of Architects. He drew The Breakers, Marble House, Chateau-sur-Mer, the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art — and the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
He built Belcourt between 1891 and 1894. He died the following year. It is among the last works of his life.
Hunt is the thread between her and this house: he drew her pedestal, and he drew Belcourt.
THE BUILDING ITSELF
Hunt took the Louis XIII hunting lodge at Versailles as his model. Westerly granite and brick; slate and copper roof; chestnut beams; sculpted plaster; oak and marble floors. The ballroom is French Gothic under a double-height vault, hung with thirteenth-century stained glass that Belmont collected in France, the ironwork carrying his own monogram. It cost $3.2 million to build in the 1890s.
250 bars.
250 years.
In the nation’s 250th year, Belcourt is building the Founders’ Wall into the South Wing: 250 preserved bars from Lady Liberty’s armature, one for each year.
A Dedicated Wall
The restoration of the South Wing includes a dedicated wall carrying all 250 bars and all 250 names. The wing itself holds the residency rooms, where artists, speakers and visionaries come to stay and to work — and what they make here is documented and kept.
Recognition
A gift of $500,000 to Belcourt places a name permanently on a bar. The name is recognition of the gift; the gift supports the museum in full. Gifts above this level are recognized in consultation with the museum.
What the gifts build.
250 gifts of $500,000 raise $125 million toward a $150 million campaign. The balance comes from leadership gifts above that level.
The funds preserve and maintain the house and its grounds; restore and build out the South Wing and its residency rooms, where visiting artists and speakers stay; install the permanent Liberty exhibit; carry the Speaker Series, the Music series and the tours, all of it filmed and archived; and establish an endowment fund that secures the museum’s future in perpetuity.
For comparison
The Statue of Liberty Museum at Ellis Island raised $100 million behind a mural of fifty sculpted stars, each underwritten at $2 million, in a campaign chaired by Diane von Furstenberg.
Belcourt offers 250 names on her actual iron, at $500,000.
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
** THIS IS ALL TBD AND MAY NOT BE INCLUDED ***
$250 a year membership includes:
Full Access to Belcourt grounds 9:30am - 4:30pm
Two complimentary guest passes: $10 per additional person day pass
Roam the grounds, grab lunch, hang out, and be inspired
Cafe & Grounds-
Belcourt Cafe Club (BCC)
courtyard, library, ballroom
Access to Belcorut Sings & Belcourt Speaks Series
Member rates at our restaurants and retail brands
Inquire
Become part of something timeless; help forge a legacy that will endure. If you’re ready to leave your mark, complete the form to inquire about joining us on this extraordinary journey.
LINKS
To explore our initiatives in more detail, please visit the links below.