Chinese Tea House – Trail Marker #12
Chinese Tea House
In 1912, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont commissioned Richard and Joseph Howland Hunt to design an oriental garden pavilion to stand on the cliffs overlooking the ocean behind her summer cottage, Marble House. The Hunts journeyed to China to research the project. The roof with upswept eave ends, decorated with stylized animal figures, was inspired by temple buildings in southern China. The interior decoration includes wooden panels painted in the style of the Ming Dynasty.
Alva officially opened her whimsical teahouse with a lavish Chinese costume ball at Marble House in July 1914. The Marble House terrace, a footbridge over a man-made pond, the path and the teahouse itself were illuminated by Chinese lanterns and banked with exotic plants and flowers.
The teahouse originally stood directly above the Cliff Walk, 75 feet east of its current location. The Preservation Society of Newport County, which acquired the Marble House property in 1963, moved the teahouse back from the seawall for safety in 1977, and undertook a complete restoration of the building a few years later.