The Elms will reopen to the public Nov. 16 with “The Elms Experience,” a multimillion-dollar installation that adds video projection, sound design, recorded dialogue, physical displays and custom scents to tours of the Bellevue Avenue mansion, according to the Preservation Society of Newport County.
Preservation Society members get access during member preview days Nov. 12 through 14. Tickets are on sale at NewportMansions.org/the-elms.
The project, developed over nearly three years with the Emmy-winning creative studio Digital Kitchen, is what the Preservation Society describes as America’s first multi-sensory house museum experience. As visitors move from room to room, they encounter what the organization calls story activations — overheard conversations, video installations, sound and scents meant to evoke a busy turn-of-the-century household, according to the Preservation Society.
A mobile companion accessible by QR codes throughout the house lets visitors read more about the research behind the installation before, during and after a visit, according to the organization. It was initially designed to cite the primary sources behind the project’s research.
“The opening of ‘The Elms Experience’ is a watershed moment, not only for Newport Mansions but for the field of preservation at large,” Trudy Coxe, the Preservation Society’s CEO and executive director, said in a statement. “At a time when attendance is softening at many of our country’s cultural and historical institutions, the Preservation Society is continuing to expand through our commitment to interpreting the stories of our properties in ways that connect with modern audiences.”
Leslie B. Jones, the organization’s director of museum affairs and chief curator, said the project drew on new research into the house and the people in it. Many of the Berwind family’s private documents and letters were not preserved, she said, so curators built on earlier findings to confirm and uncover information about the building, its objects, the family, the designers and the staff.
“Digital Kitchen’s presentation of these narratives allows for a true connection to the past, supported by our high standards for research and educational communication,” Jones said in a statement.
Andrew Julien, Digital Kitchen’s creative director, said the studio tried to integrate the technology without intruding on the house. “We were careful to respect the physical environment and historic architecture while integrating technology in a way that feels seamless rather than intrusive,” he said in a statement.
The Elms is a National Historic Landmark, and the Preservation Society said the work followed the U.S. secretary of the interior’s standards for the treatment of historic properties. BankNewport is the project’s founding partner.
The house was the summer residence of Edward Julius Berwind, whose fortune came from coal, and his wife, Herminie. Architect Horace Trumbauer modeled much of it on the 18th-century Château d’Asnières outside Paris. Construction was completed in 1901 at a reported cost of about $1.4 million, and the interiors were designed by Allard et Fils of Paris and New York, according to the Preservation Society.
The Elms has been closed since Aug. 10 for the installation. The Carriage House at The Elms, the museum café, remains open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last seating at 4 p.m., for Preservation Society members and anyone holding a Newport Mansions house tour ticket.
The Preservation Society is Rhode Island’s largest cultural organization and operates 11 historic properties, seven of them National Historic Landmarks.
