Saplings & Spirits

Cocktail Reception & Fundraiser

Please join the 
Newport Tree Society and
Newport Tree & Open Space Commission
at Bellevue House 

for cocktails and light refreshments
as we celebrate Newport's
incredible urban forest.

DONATION:   $30 

Payable in advance or at the door.  
The Newport Tree Society is a nonprofit organization.

About 'Bellevue House'

Bellevue House (1910) was designed by celebrated architect Ogden Codman Jr., who co-authored the canonical Decoration of Houses with Edith Wharton.The residence is a masterful example of the Federal Revival style with a magnificent Georgian rotunda rising forty-four feet at its center, and the Palladian interior is a study in elegance and proportion.  

When Mr. Ronald Lee Fleming purchased Bellevue House in 1999, it had sat empty for seven years. An historic restoration of the residence immediately commenced, continuing through 2006.

The grounds of Bellevue House, as distinguished as its architecture, have received equal attention as over three acres of gardens continue to evolve under the direction of Mr. Fleming. A French Garden with topiary and pollarded trees was originally designed by Achille Duchêne, the most significant garden designer in Europe at the turn of the century. A reproduction of an 18th century Samuel McIntire tea house was built in the garden in the early 1920’s, and two more full-scale reproductions of McIntire’s Federal Period architecture have been added as garden follies. 

This extraordinary property, which boasts over 17 species of trees, also includes an allée, orchard, pergola and gazebo, Yew Garden, Japanese Garden with pond and waterfall, and an American Renaissance Water Garden.  

Read more about Bellevue House.

View a video about Bellevue House.

About The Newport Tree Society

“A veteran nurseryman, Cornelius Hoogendorn, commented that he had invited his fellow nurserymen from all over the country to Newport to view the trees. They enthused most over the Beeches on the estates and elsewhere in Newport. He observed that Newport’s climate, soil, and moisture favor beeches as do few other places. ” (Trees of Newport, Richard L. Champlin, 1976.)

The recent serious decline in our Copper Beech population marks the end of a long ‘gilded age’ for the European Beech in Newport. Mounting losses (note the particularly sad example of the three majestic beeches slated for removal in Aquidneck Park, including the 2011 Tree of the Year) remind us that the health of our urban forest can never be taken for granted.

The Society is assisting Newport’s Forestry Division and private property owners in their response to the sudden losses by sponsoring replanting efforts and helping fund preventative treatments for our most important specimen trees. 

On a happier note, the first professional survey of Newport’s public street trees in two decades was completed this spring. (We continue to raise funds for a complete a survey of our parks.) We have also been gratified to witness the adoption of over 70 trees during this, the first year of our Specimen Tree Restoration Program, a model program designed to engage citizen foresters in the renewal of our urban forest.  

Looking back on a year of both pain and progress, we ask you to please join us as we toast the generation that is replanting Newport.

www.newportarboretum.org