Belcourt Castle

Built for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont by architect Richard Morris Hunt between 1891 and 1894, the sixty-room summer cottage now known as Belcourt Castle is unusual. For one thing, it is the only Newport mansion where the owners still reside and open their home for tours. Perhaps even more extraordinary are the mansion's uninvited visitors, which include a spectral monk, a boisterous suit of armor, an eighteenth-century military man, and The White Lady--not to mention the mansion's haunted chairs, mirrors and other furnishings. If the mansion walls could talk, they might tell some colorful stories about stately people with all-too-human emotions, such as love and jealousy. And the imported furnishings from all over the world--many from the distant past--may have their own stories, too. Could it be that these artifacts are, indeed, trying to communicate with us so that we might help them find peace at last? One of the most-seen apparitions is that of a monk robed in brown. Soon after moving into Belcourt with her new husband in 1960, Harle Tinney saw the monk standing next to her bed.

Text © Dr. Michael Bell