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Made-to-Order Weekend: Be Alone Together
The Chanler Hotel, Newport, RI
By Amy Donohue Korman
- The Chanler's adult appeal. / Photo courtesy of the Chanler
Though the Chanler will accommodate children, management gently discourages you from bringing the kids, and understandably so, since this is a vintage Newport mansion filled with oil paintings and crystal chandeliers. So it feels only right that you reserve this 20-room hotel — with its Oriental rugs and clubby paneled bar and dark-suited staffers constantly arriving with snacks and chardonnay — for its obvious purpose: mature, romantic twosomeness. (117 Memorial Boulevard, Newport, 401-847-1300; thechanler.com.)
Digs: Marie Antoinette meets modern in the Renaissance room, where the bed is draped in damask and the marble bathroom could accommodate the Phillies infield. Along with gold-leafed walls and several chandeliers, there are three flat-panel TVs. (Rooms are $395 to $1,245 a night.)
Eat: The Chanler’s luxe Spiced Pear restaurant has ocean views along with Kobe beef and surf-and-turf carpaccio (401-847-2244; dinner for two, about $200). For lunch, hit Pasta Beach, a simple café with the best thin-crust pizza and rigatoni marinara we’ve had since Rome (7 Memorial Boulevard; 401-847-2222; lunch for two, about $35).
Do: Jog along the Cliff Walk, with the ocean on one side and Astor and Vanderbilt mansions on the other. (Park and enter at Memorial Boulevard.) Tour “cottages” such as the Breakers and Marble House. (Buy tickets from the Newport Preservation Society, 401-847-1000.) At night, join yachties (crew members) and heiresses at Sky Bar, the roof deck atop one of Newport’s venerable nightspots (Clarke Cooke House at Bannister’s Wharf, 401-849-2900).
And: Take a drive past all the mansions on Ocean Boulevard to Bailey’s Beach, Newport’s tightest private beach club. You have to be born or marry into it to get inside, but it’s still fun to snoop.
Travel time: Just over five hours.
Digs: Marie Antoinette meets modern in the Renaissance room, where the bed is draped in damask and the marble bathroom could accommodate the Phillies infield. Along with gold-leafed walls and several chandeliers, there are three flat-panel TVs. (Rooms are $395 to $1,245 a night.)
Eat: The Chanler’s luxe Spiced Pear restaurant has ocean views along with Kobe beef and surf-and-turf carpaccio (401-847-2244; dinner for two, about $200). For lunch, hit Pasta Beach, a simple café with the best thin-crust pizza and rigatoni marinara we’ve had since Rome (7 Memorial Boulevard; 401-847-2222; lunch for two, about $35).
Do: Jog along the Cliff Walk, with the ocean on one side and Astor and Vanderbilt mansions on the other. (Park and enter at Memorial Boulevard.) Tour “cottages” such as the Breakers and Marble House. (Buy tickets from the Newport Preservation Society, 401-847-1000.) At night, join yachties (crew members) and heiresses at Sky Bar, the roof deck atop one of Newport’s venerable nightspots (Clarke Cooke House at Bannister’s Wharf, 401-849-2900).
And: Take a drive past all the mansions on Ocean Boulevard to Bailey’s Beach, Newport’s tightest private beach club. You have to be born or marry into it to get inside, but it’s still fun to snoop.
Travel time: Just over five hours.
Originally published in Philadelphia magazine, September 2006
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