Oscar Wilde In America

Not a Casino

The Newport Casino is not a 'casino' in the modern sense—indeed, it has never been used as a public gambling establishment.

The Italian loan word 'caseina' with its sense of a farmstead or 'little house' was used to describe a small villa built for leisure. In its Gilded Age heyday the Newport Casino offered a wide array of social diversions to the summer colony including archery, billiards, bowling, concerts, dancing, dining, horse shows, lawn bowling, reading, lawn tennis, tea parties, and theatricals.

The grounds and club became a center for American lawn tennis, and from 1881–1914 hosted the National Championships (later the U.S. Open). Today, it is still an active grass-court tennis and croquet club, and home to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Designed by the famous New York architect, Stanford White, it still stands as a fine example of the Victorian Shingle Style.

Accommodation

Wilde spent six days in Newport, and stayed at least one night (July 14) at ‘Oak Glen’, the Summer home of Julia Ward Howe, who had earlier received Wilde at her Boston home that year. 

Julia Ward Howe was the sister of Sam Ward, the lobbyist and socialite, who taken Wilde under his wing in New York. There was also much unfounded talk of a pending engagement between Wilde and her daughter Maud Howe (later Elliott).

At other times Wilde stayed at Ocean House, a large hotel adjacent to the Casino, from where he wrote to Charles Eliot Norton c. July 15 (Letters, 176).

Ocean House on the right along Bellevue Avenue.

The adjacent Newport Casino and Ocean House.

A REMINISCENCE

Memoir : Grandmother’s Blue Coach, unpublished manuscript of Henry Marion Hall (grandson of Julia Ward Howe)

Being a small boy at the time my presence at the tea was not requested, but later I was allowed to accompany the guests down into the valley. The party included Tom Appleton, the famous Boston wit, Adamowski, leader of the Boston Symphony orchestra, Mrs. Paran Stevens, Lilla Eliott, Grandmother’s nephew F. Marion Crawford, and Oscar Wilde, then at the peak of his popularity.

Knowing nothing about a fad then known as “dress reform” I was bewildered at Wilde’s costume when I walked into the vale beside him. He wore a black velvet jacket, knickerbockers to match, dark silk stockings, and low shoes with glittering buckles. A salmon-colored scarf and slouch hat completed his get-up. It struck me as rather queer, but not half so startling as his hair – long, black, and curling to his shoulders… He held a red rose in one hand and sniffed it as he chatted.

Source: Newport Historical Society.