Gilded

By Deborah Davis
Wiley, $25.95, 309 pages

Before there were movie stars, America focused its celebrity obsession on aristocratic families, namely, the elite Knickerbocker families of New York.  And anybody who was anybody summered in idyllic Newport, Rhode Island.  Beginning in the mid-1850s, these moneyed families built lavish “cottages” in Newport, and each, with the help of a household staff of over 100, hosted and attended dawn-till-dark social functions for the duration of the two-month summer season. 

Gilded is book that is custom-written for lovers of Newport and the Gilded Age, as well as any person who is curious about the private lives of the uppermost tier of American society.

Although much of Gilded studies the famous one-upping Vanderbuilt and Astor families at the turn of the 20th century, author Deborah Davis also treats readers glimpses of post-World War II Newport, including the story of John F. Kennedy’s marriage to Newporter Jacqueline Bouvier, and Grace Kelly’s film industry presence in some of the famous Newport cottages.  Most importantly, Davis studies the Newport’s tourism industry through the years, focusing on the post-World War II decline of the cottages which, along with the colonial homes in Newport that date to the 1630s, were meticulously restored by a forward thinking-preservation society.

Reviewed by Megan Just