Newport Elks Lodge #104 logo Newport Elks Lodge #104 Newport · Rhode Island

141 Pelham Street

Parkgate: A Two-Century Story

The corner of Bellevue and Pelham has anchored Newport history since 1844 — across two entirely different landmark buildings.

Did you know?

Many people assume the U.S. Naval Academy was housed in this building during the Civil War. Actually, the Academy occupied an entirely different building that stood on this same corner — the Atlantic House Hotel, demolished in 1877. The Parkgate villa you see today wasn't built until 1879, two years after the hotel came down.

Same Corner, Two Buildings

1844 – 1877

Atlantic House Hotel

Greek Revival temple form, designed by Russell Warren for William T. Potter. Housed the U.S. Naval Academy during the Civil War. Demolished after 33 years.

1879 – present

Parkgate

Queen Anne Victorian villa designed by George Champlin Mason Sr. Newport Elks Lodge #104 has called it home since 1920. Still standing today.

Two of Newport's most historic buildings — back-to-back on the same lot.

A Two-Century Story

1844 – 1877

The Atlantic House Era

Greek Revival hotel, Civil-War Naval Academy, and the country’s first roller rink.

The Atlantic House Hotel — Greek Revival temple form, 1844.1844

The hotel rises

Proprietor William T. Potter purchases the land at the corner of Bellevue and Pelham and commissions Rhode Island architect Russell Warren to design a Greek Revival temple-form hotel — four stories, 250 rooms, facing Touro Park. A central two-story Ionic portico, hipped-roof side wings, a wrap-around deck on three sides, and smooth wooden siding scored to resemble granite blocks for added stature.

It quickly becomes Newport's pre-eminent lodging during the city's “Queen of Resorts” era — a harbinger of musical delight, with regular concerts, balls, and dances.

“From about the year 1840, and the erection of the Ocean House and the Atlantic House, may be dated the renaissance of Newport. There is an immortal excellence in the air and the island which will not suffer it to fall into forgetfulness or complete decay.” — Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1854
U.S. Naval Academy group portrait in front of the Atlantic House, c. 1862–63.1861 – 1865

The Naval Academy comes to Newport

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Academy is moved north from Annapolis to keep it safe from Confederate forces. The midshipmen are initially billeted at Fort Adams — cold and damp no matter the season — and morale collapses fast. Parents and cadets pressure the administration, and on September 20, 1861 the midshipmen take up new residence at the Atlantic House. Touro Park, just across the street, becomes their drill field.

Upper-class midshipmen live in the hotel; the lower classes live aboard the frigate USS Constitution — joined by the USS Santee in October 1862, and later the schooner-yacht America. Steam heat and other hotel comforts are a far cry from shipboard life: the middies dub the Atlantic House “paradise” and the Constitution “purgatory.” The Academy returns to Annapolis on August 9, 1865.

Midshipman Pegram described the move as “luxury” — two men to a room, iron-framed beds, bureaus, a table and two chairs, a far cry from hammocks aboard ship. Newport residents often saw midshipmen doing a double-quick pace down Bellevue Avenue back to their hotel home.
Victorian roller skating — illustration of what the Atlantic House rink might have looked like.1866

America’s first public roller rink

James Plimpton, inventor of the modern quad roller skate, leases the Atlantic House's dining room and on August 11, 1866 opens what is widely cited as the first public roller skating rink in the United States. It hosts "Roller Polo" tournaments — a precursor to ice hockey.

No photographs of the original rink are known to survive — the image at left is a period illustration of what the scene might have looked like.

1877

Demolished

Just 33 years after completion, the aged hotel is torn down to make way for a new private villa. Newer hotels across town had already taken its place at the top of Newport's lodging scene.

1879 – 1920

The Gilded Age Villa

Architect George Champlin Mason builds Parkgate; the Stitts and Annie Leary make it a society address.

Parkgate as a private villa — the asymmetrical façade, polygonal tower, wrap-around porch, dentils, and spindle-work all hallmarks of architect George Champlin Mason’s Queen Anne style.1879

George Champlin Mason builds at human scale

A private Queen Anne villa called “Parkgate” rises on the cleared lot. Its architect is George Champlin Mason Sr. — Newport’s first resident architect, born in town in 1820, and nephew of both Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (the “Hero of Lake Erie”) and his brother Commodore Matthew C. Perry (who opened Japan to the West).

Mason designed nearly 150 buildings in Newport. What ties his work together is a sense of human scale — a house you can live in, not a Vanderbilt-era airport terminal. He builds Parkgate for Seth Bunker Stitt, a Philadelphia wool merchant, and his wife Eliza.

Chepstow on Narragansett Avenue — another building by architect George Champlin Mason, half a mile up the road. Same human-scale instinct.1879 – 1894

The Stitt years at Parkgate

By the time he commissions Parkgate, Seth Stitt is a wealthy Philadelphia woolen manufacturer who built his fortune on government contracts. His two mills wove the blue cloth that uniformed American soldiers in the Mexican–American War — and a generation later, the Union Army through the Civil War. In Little Falls, where the mills ran, every small boy reportedly owned a miniature soldier suit cut from the defective scraps.

The next twenty-three years at the house bring a steady run of legal entanglements. His wife Eliza sues him over the deed — she had always understood, she says, that her name belonged on it alongside his. His neighbor, a Mr. Johnson, takes to cutting diagonally across the corner of the lot on his daily route through town; when Stitt puts up an iron fence to block him, Johnson sues. The case runs in the Newport Mercury for half the 1890s. Johnson wins the first round, but the layout of today’s fence makes clear who got the last word.

In 1894, Stitt’s businesses are declared insolvent and he is convicted of fraud and concealment of assets. The military uniform trade has moved on without him.

Annie Leary — Papal Countess and owner of Parkgate, 1902–1919.1902

Countess Annie Leary takes ownership

In 1902, Annie Leary buys Parkgate from Stitt for about $39,000 and turns it into her summer residence. She is one of the wealthiest women in the country — and the way she got there is its own story.

Her father James Leary was a partner of John Jacob Astor in the beaver-pelt trade. He later opened a hat factory in New York and became known as the “arbiter of hat fashion.” When he died, he left his entire fortune to Annie — her five siblings got nothing.

She filled Parkgate and her New York mansion with Persian rugs, crystal chandeliers, and 68 gilt-framed mirrors. The opera tenor Enrico Caruso sang at her soirées. She founded a mission for Italian immigrant children and personally gave New York City the Christopher Columbus monument at Columbus Circle.

Hetty Green — Annie’s closest friend, the “Witch of Wall Street.”Friendship

The Witch of Wall Street

Her closest friend was Hetty Green, the famously miserly heiress who left an estate worth roughly $5.4 billion in today’s dollars and was known on the trading floor as the “Witch of Wall Street.”

Annie once borrowed $350,000 from Hetty at brutal interest. Years later, she returned the favor by arranging the society debut of Hetty’s daughter Sylvia.

Pope Leo XIII (1898) — created Annie Leary a Papal Countess just weeks before his death.1903

The title for life

In 1903, Pope Leo XIII creates Annie Leary a Papal Countess of the Holy Roman Church — the first such title bestowed on an American woman. The Pope dies just weeks later; his successor, Pius X, renews the title for life.

1919

Annie's vault that wasn't

Annie Leary dies in 1919. Her niece, who acted as executor, was not a fan of her very religious aunt. She kept the estate open for years, let Annie's New York mansion fall into disrepair, and spent the fund Annie had set aside to build a lavish burial vault under St. Patrick's Cathedral. So Annie ended up in a plain grave in a New York cemetery. The Pelham Street house was put up for sale.

1920 – present

The Elks Era

Newport Lodge #104 finally has a permanent home — and gets to work.

BPOE 11 O’Clock emblem — symbol of the Order.1920

The Elks buy Parkgate

On May 25, 1920, the Elks purchase Parkgate from Annie Leary's estate for $37,650 — a great price, helped along by the niece executor's haste. Newport Lodge No. 104 — meeting since 1888 in the Newton Building at the corner of Pelham and Thames (now home to Dueling Pianos in the upper reaches) — finally has a permanent home of its own.

Annie Leary's ornate Victorian mirrors and the wrap-around porch still grace the Honor Room today.

1929

The Great Hall

The lodge adds the Great Hall to the Parkgate structure as the Order grows in size and influence. The timing could have been better — the Great Depression begins the same year — but the new room becomes the heart of the building.

2025

Mortgage paid off

Newport #104 owns its landmark home free and clear — more than a century after the Elks first picked up the keys.

Why "Parkgate"?

It is a European convention to name homes after their geographic location. The property sits directly across from Touro Park — hence "Park" (Touro) and "Gate" (the gateway to the park).

Curious about the lodge itself? Read the story of Newport #104 →

Sources & Further Reading

Next: Elks History