In the midst of this Texas heatwave, I have been daydreaming of lovely Newport, Rhode Island. On Monday, Bettie Bearden Pardee shared with us a glorious tour of her Newport rose garden, and today we will take a further look at one of the last bastions of American high society. Newly released, A Newport Summer is an intimate love letter to summertime in Newport from photographer Nick Mele, the “modern-day Slim Aarons,” and interior designer Ruthie Sommers. 

The mansions of Newport – originally called “cottages” – were built as summer homes in the 1850s to 1900 by wealthy tycoons and represent America’s illustrious Gilded Age. The grand homes perched atop oceanside cliffs and lining storied Bellevue Avenue remain largely untouched by contemporary renovation and taste, and family heirlooms continue to be passed down from generation to generation. Indeed, Newport has an understated elegance that sets it apart from other resort towns.

Life behind the facades of these elaborate mansions is rarely revealed, but now, Mele and Sommers – both lifelong Newport residents – share their entrée into the parties, lawn tennis matches, beach clambakes, and family gatherings that make up the glorious days of a Newport summer. Picture the foggy mornings of June, the traditional yacht races of July, the annual meeting of old friends at Marble House in August, and the melancholy close of the season after Labor Day. Through Sommers’s personal, evocative text and Mele’s exquisite photographs of people, parties, beaches, and houses, the intimate charms of A Newport Summer come poignantly to life. Let’s take a peek inside with images courtesy of Vendome Press.

A Newport Summer is available for purchase via Amazon or Vendome Press. And if you haven’t already seen Bettie Bearden Pardee’s tour of her glorious Newport rose garden, you won’t want to miss! Click here for her feature on The Glam Pad and here for the video tour.